Will Smith and director Antoine Fuqua will no longer shoot the movie “Emancipation” in Georgia, citing the Election Integrity Act of 2021, originally known as Georgia Senate Bill 202, a newly-passed law intended to shore up election integrity in the state.
The Apple Inc. production, in which Smith stars as a real-life fugitive from slavery who became famous for a photograph of his whip-scarred back, was set to start filming in Georgia on June 21, according to a joint statement Monday. The director and actor called the voting law “regressive” and said it’s “designed to restrict voter access.”
“Emancipation” is the first major project to publicly break from the state, a popular filming destination because of its tax incentives and studio space… “The new Georgia voting laws are reminiscent of voting impediments that were passed at the end of Reconstruction to prevent many Americans from voting,” Fuqua’s Fuqua Films and Smith’s Westbrook Inc. said in the statement.
Georgia’s new voting law requires voters to provide a state-issued identification card when requesting an absentee ballot and limits drop boxes, among other restrictions.
If other U.S. states follow suit, an effective, although expensive (thereby conveniently reserved for only a privileged few multi-billionaires), method to target specific areas in order to affect wider election outcomes will be eliminated. Hence the faux outrage, foot stamping, and hissy fits pitched by Hollywood movie producers and the like. (Granted, many of the outraged, especially Hollywood types, have never read Georgia’s law or know of the Center for Tech and Civic Life. They’ve just hopped aboard the outrage train because that’s what they do. Make a splash, get the write-ups, cash the checks.)
Basic, common-sense laws that protect the integrity of the absentee, advance, and mailed ballots that do not disenfranchise any voter should welcomed by those who desire fair elections that are as free as possible from influence by a handful of mega-rich individuals.
This isn’t ‘Shark Tank’ This is your democracy. But as the bidding grows higher, your voice gets lower. You’re simply priced out of the marketplace of ideas. That is, unless you are one of the ultra wealthy. — Steve Israel
Anyone who bothers to read Georgia’s Election Integrity Act of 2021 knows that the “outrage” from some quarters is ludicrous.
We need leaders not in love with money but in love with justice. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Again, the real issue that some factions have with this law, and bills like it, is not whether bottles of water can be handed out in line*, it is the prohibition of huge “donations” from a handful of multi-billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg through 501(c)(3) organizations in order to affect election outcomes.
Big corporations and the richest 1% of Americans have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Washington, purchasing enormous political influence and drowning out the voice of average Americans. — Robert Reich
*Georgia’s Election Integrity Act of 2021 allows poll officers to make available self-service water from an unattended receptacle to any elector waiting in line to vote.