The brains behind the controversial “Gun Appreciation Day” demonstrations this month are now attempting to reach out to communities of color.
Larry Ward, who has recently made the talk show rounds promoting the gun rights cause and serves as president of the conservative company Political Media, is planning a new event (and eventually a non-profit) called ‘What Would Django Do?’, according the Hollywood Reporter.
Ward has not sought or received the blessing of Quentin Tarantino, the director of the violent slavery-themed hit Django Unchained, which apparently inspired the project, or the Weinstein Company, which is the studio that released the film.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Ward told the Hollywood Reporter. “We’ll make sure we aren’t violating copyrights, and if we are, we’ll have to change the name. But Django is perfect for what we’re trying to do, which is to promote gun rights to minorities. We’ll tackle the issue on the Democrats’ own turf.”
The Weinstein Company has yet to comment publicly on the Political Media initiative.
Django Unchained has been frequently cited by conservatives as the kind of film that perpetuates influential images of violence and theoretically corrupts the minds of Americans.
This criticism has been aggressively disputed by Tarantino, who recently cut off an interviewer for even implying their was a link between his films and real life acts of violence.
However, the film’s star, Jamie Foxx, has been somewhat more nuanced his reaction to recent tragedies and the role of Hollywood.
“We cannot turn our back and say that violence in films or anything that we do doesn’t have a sort of influence,” Foxx said in December 2012. “It does.”
