Critics Take Stand in Response to Post, Times ‘Backing Down’
The Boston Society of Film Critics endorses Kamala Harris for president of the United States.
It is fair to ask why a film-centered organization of 43 years would feel compelled to weigh in on an issue of politics in the real world. The explanation is this: As a body of reporters and reviewers whose business it is to write about the arts in general and movies specifically—who see our task as guiding readers to works of entertainment and artistic quality—we feel it incumbent as a group to take a stand on the issues of journalistic integrity and creative freedom. These issues will be catastrophically impacted by a second Trump presidency—indeed, they already have been impacted by its mere prospect.
When the owners of two of the biggest newspapers in the country, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, take the unprecedented step of backing down from endorsing a candidate for U.S. president, fearing retaliation and retribution should Donald Trump take office once more, the fourth estate is in danger of becoming a cowed and complicit propaganda arm of the government instead of an instrument capable of calling power to account.
In a society in which billionaire businessmen and corporations control the press and social media, boosting opinions they favor and suppressing those they find objectionable, speech is no longer free. The draconian repressions envisioned by Project 2025, a template for the Trump presidency despite his denials, would extend to the arts and to voices that challenge the status quo in literature, theater, film and TV. Such voices allow a healthy society to flourish; stifling them would cause it to stagnate and wither.
The presidential election of 2024 is not an ordinary contest. Rather, it marks a singular and critical fork in the road of this country’s history. Down one path is representative democracy as we have known it for 248 years—imperfect but well worth living under and striving to improve. Down the other path is authoritarian fascism, plain and simple. We will let others sound alarms about the planned curtailing of civil and women’s rights, the announced containment and mass deportations of U.S. citizens, the destruction of governmental bodies guaranteeing citizen oversight of health, education, natural resources and more. We do not have to warn about the havoc a second Trump administration—and the forces behind it— would wreak on the environment and on international relations, how the American government would become allied with the worst strongmen on the planet against the free peoples of the world.
The decision to publish this statement is the result of thoughtful and passionate internal debate, a group vote and a nearly three-quarters majority agreement. As critical commentators not just on the movies but on the cultures and countries that produce them, we, the members of the Boston Society of Film Critics, have a vested interest in freedom of expression, both in the medium we cover and the mediums in which we publish. A second Donald Trump presidency presents a clear and direct threat to those freedoms, along with many, many others. For that reason, we feel more than justified as an organization in publicly endorsing Kamala Harris for president of the United States. The stakes are too high to sit on the sidelines.
Boston Society of Film Critics 