but i think a lot of people are drawing comparisons to that character and, you know, the perpetrators of all these mass shootings. so i don t think that anyone in our case was asking or saying there s something wrong with this film or somehow it told us anything. it was just more if you are going to put this out there, let s have a discussion and talk about the trauma that it might cause. sandra: such an important discussion to be had. the director of the film has responds with the statement and i want to read that to you. he says, i think it s because outrage is a commodity. it s something that has been a commodity for a while. what s outstanding to me in this discourse in this movie is how easily the far left can sound like the far right when it suits their agenda. it s been eye-opening for me. heather, if you want to respond to that? his statement they re talking about the far right in the far left, i don t really have a
to hit theaters next week. families of those killed in the aurora, colorado movie theater shooting have written letters to warner bros. expressing conditionconcerns.heather dear e chair of the 720 memorial foundation and she joins us now. heather, thanks for being with us. i m sure it s tough for you to watch the clips of the movie that s coming out and it not get emotional about it but what is your argument about this particular film? i don t think it s an argument about the film itself or their creative thoughts that are put into it, it s just bringing awareness and recognizing that people are going to be triggered by this. the victims and their families, and even the community who
experienced the tragedy, for some people it might be disturbing. and people bringing awareness to the fact that seven years later, people are still needing help and needing support, and i think that went something like this comes out especially in today s environment, when there has been so many mass shootings, it will bring up a lot of trauma or some people. sandra: you have offered a solution perhaps for the studios to donate some of the money from the film to help victims of these types of shootings. have you heard any sort of response? we did see the response letter from warner bros. which was very timely and very compassionate and they should be commended for that. they do say that they do donate to things like that so, we hope that they would reach out to our
watch this film, one of the other things would be, if you are watching part of the film and you are noticing what happened to this person before it went dark, maybe you could have been in that situation where you are kinder to him. and we are just asking people to be aware and remember the victims that were lost and the people who are still surviving with that trauma. john: is that the portray her role of the character of the joker that is bothering you so much? because other batman films have been released since 2012. no. for me it s not the character of the joker or even the fact that it s a batman franchise film. it s just and it doesn t even bother me that the film is being made and portraying someone as a protagonist and seeing how you can empathize with someone who could go so wrong in their life.
7/20 memorial foundation and help us in our mission to bring awareness and advocate for victims and survivors. we are working on a project to build a colorado resilience center which includes people not only who have experienced trauma from mass shootings but, any trauma. so our organization tries to take a positive approach to this in the healing on the help of it. and you know, warner bros. was nice enough to respond like that. if this film coming out at this time, even though, arguably the shooter in our case was not necessarily portraying himself as the joker, it s inextricably connected and so now it s newsworthy. it s going to be talked about and it s going to have controversy in it. but long after this news cycle ends, there are still people who are hurting and need help. i just hope that when people