In the eye of the beholder.

My wife and I were your typical all-American young couple with visions of raising a family and starting a business of our own. I was a computer engineer at IBM and Carol was a registered nurse. Among the many things we had in common, one passion stood out: a love of movies. And this is what induced us in 1981--using money we'd originally saved for a house--to open the first video rental store in St. Louis, Missouri. It was a tremendous risk, and we soon experienced tough going as we struggled to balance a new baby and a new business. But we believed in the American dream and worked hard. And eventually our Video Library operation grew to six stores and was named by Video Store magazine as one of the top one hundred video outlets in America for the years 1984 to 1987. We had revenues of over $1.5 million.

During the early growth of our company, however, we were visited numerous times by a group of religious people who were followers of the Reverend Donald Wildmon. Wildmon's organization was at that time the National Federation for Decency (NFD); today it is the American Family Association. Wildmon had already succeeded in getting the 7-11 convenience store chain to remove Playboy from its racks and had called for a boycott of Steven Bochco's Hill Street Blues television series. Later, Wildmon would call for a boycott of Bochco's NYPD Blue, as well as TV sitcoms as varied as Roseanne and Ellen. Today his organization urges boycotting Disney for its employee policy of giving health benefits to same-sex partners and for its production of various films disliked by the religious right.

Anyway, Wildmon's local NFD members insisted that we remove from our stores such movies as Taxi Driver, Porky's, Summer of '42, Agnes of God, Blazing Saddles, Animal House, The Priest, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and many more. They were particularly incensed by the Touchstone (Disney) feature Splash, claiming that it promoted bestiality because Tom Hanks makes love to a mermaid, played by Darryl Hannah. Despite their complaints and demands, however, we ignored them and continued renting all these videos to the public.

Then, in 1988, Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ was released on video. By that time, I had become cofounder and vice-president of the St. Louis chapter of the Video Software Dealers Association. And I was the only video store owner in St. Louis whose outlets would carry this controversial film. After Wildmon's followers again made their desires known, and after we refused to remove this film, or any other, pressure was put on George Peach, the city prosecutor, to file charges against us for promoting obscenity--not for carrying The Last Temptation of Christ, mind you, but because we also had an "adult" video section in our stores.

I wasn't very concerned about these obscenity charges, though. Our small "adult" collection wasn't X-rated. The films we carried were what are called "cable version" videos--ones that have been edited to an R rating for showing in hotels and on cable services like Home Box Office and Showtime. Nonetheless, in anticipation of the trial, local NFD members declared war on us with pickets and boycotts. My employees were harassed, my stores were vandalized, and there were a number of bomb threats.

But it was on March 22, 1988, that the seriousness of the whole matter really hit home. A caller made death threats against my children. Demanding the removal of a whole list of films he found blasphemous, this caller declared that, since the sins of the father should not be passed on to the children, if I didn't remove the offending films, he would send my daughter "Laura" and my son "Paul.... back to God" so they could be reborn to Christian parents. The fact that the caller knew my children's names shocked me to the core, and I took this threat extremely seriously.

In addition, before and during the two trials that were held, our friends distanced themselves from us and we were subtly encouraged not to participate in many of the civic and social functions we'd been involved with for many years. Meanwhile, our children were taunted at school and neighbors wouldn't allow their kids to associate with them. Much of this was because the prosecutor had made damning statements to the media about our possible involvement with "organized crime." Though we eventually won both of our court cases, the negative publicity and legal fees bankrupted my business, as well as my family. Soon Carol and I divorced.

After that, I was unemployable and in the deepest of depressions; suicide seemed like the only answer. So one night I filled a large cup with all the medication I could find, swallowing mouthfuls of pills with wine. Turning on the TV to take my mind off the thoughts of the moment, I began watching a rerun of L.A. Law called "Splatoon." In this episode, people were participating in corporate paintball, a game where players run around the woods in military getup shooting special guns at each other that fire paint-filled projectiles. In the story, Stuart Markowitz, played by Michael Tucker, was having a tough personal time, but this game turned him from Markowitz into "Rambo-witz."

Well, after watching the antics of Rambo-witz, I started laughing. I laughed so hard that I threw up the medication and thus aborted my suicide. When I later woke up covered with a vomit of undigested pills, I found a renewed strength to pull my life back together. That silly paintball episode had saved my life.

So I decided to go out and play the real game. And I got to like it. I liked it so much that I managed to convince my uncle to lend me enough money to open my own paintball park. I called it Paintball Wargames, and it became a real success with Boy Scout troops, corporate management teams, and even church groups.

Shortly after opening this new business, however, I was contacted by "Marci," a woman who was an NFD member. She said she wanted to meet with me because of information she possessed concerning my court cases--cases for which she felt she had been personally responsible.

So we got together, at which point Marci informed me that, a few years earlier, she had worked as a prostitute in St. Louis. After some serious problems, she had left the profession and fallen in with the local NFD activists. Through them--by becoming a picketer at abortion clinics, 7-11 stores, and other places the NFD targeted, including my video stores--she received the emotional acceptance she had needed. And because the prosecutor, George Peach, was a regular customer of the madam for whom Marci had worked, the local NFD activists were grateful for the information--which they had then proceeded to use in pressuring Peach to file charges against my video stores!

In telling me her story, Marci volunteered to put me in contact with the madam, a woman who was tired of being under the prosecutor's thumb. Later, the madam agreed to help me expose the whole sordid scandal.

A "sting" was arranged with the help of some local police and a news reporter. Peach was arrested and pleaded guilty. This resulted in a deeper investigation that uncovered how he had been embezzling money for years from a crime victims fund. Pleading guilty to these new charges, he was disbarred, placed on five years' probation, ordered to repay $5,000 to St. Louis, and required to perform 600 hours of community service.

Naturally, I would have liked the opportunity to go after the local religious group for their alleged blackmail of Peach. But Peach was indemnified and Marci wouldn't testify in such a case. So I had to be happy with a partial victory--one that did, however, give me a sense of vindication that allowed me to move forward with my life.

I also found the turn of events to be bizarre, even funny. So much so that I was inspired to try my hand at stand-up comedy (which is much cheaper than going to a therapist). Pretty soon I got rather good at this and, one night, was approached by someone who could get me stage time in Los Angeles if I was ever in the area. Since my brother works as a bodyguard there, I took a trip to visit him. That allowed me to perform at several comedy clubs. I did well at the Comedy Store, where I came under the wing of Pauly Shore's sister, Sandy.

Clearly, the time had come for me to rethink my life again. So after talking over matters with my ex-wife and family--with whom I remain on excellent terms--I decided to move to Los Angeles to start a new career as an actor and comic. I sold my paintball business and reopened one of my old video stores with employees who had worked for me before. The income from the video store helped sustain Carol and the children while my entertainment (and bodyguard) work paid my bills.

For the last five years, I've been in the Los Angeles area. In addition to my regular work here, I've been pursuing the idea of turning my unique story into a movie. Already this saga of two lovers with entrepreneurial dreams striving against religious bigotry and corruption in a battle over civil liberties has been bounced around Hollywood offices from network Movie of the Week executives to people at HBO and Showtime. They all have loved the story but have expressed fears that their advertisers will be harassed with boycotts from the religious right.

In today's Hollywood, one of the ways film projects are promoted is through the World Wide Web. So a group of struggling actors, writers, producers, and directors that I helped to found maintains a website that includes information on my story--which has now been formalized into a screenplay entitled Eye of the Beholder. But just this past March I learned that the religious right had discovered my efforts. Suddenly, e-mail from Christian fundamentalists came pouring in, denouncing the intended film and making threats to stop any production. Since then, true believers from all over the United States have sent out thousands of e-mails urging people to boycott this movie--before it has even been made. Here is a quote from just one of these:

People of faith must come together

as we did when we boycotted the

blasphemous film, The Last Temptation

of Christ. We were so successful

that most movie theaters

would not run it. Blockbuster

Video has never carried the film, as

well as most other video stores. It

will also not be shown on TV. That

is proof of the power of the Lord!!!

We pray that God-loving,

moral people will also boycott the

film In the Eyes of the Beholder. The

time for action is now. Contact the

people below and BOYCOTT THIS

TRASH!!

A list of people and companies considering my film project then follows.

In an odd way, their concerns are warranted. My film is indeed likely to be controversial, exposing the censorship tactics of the religious right. It will focus on the real-life actions of people and groups who take their religious faith to such an extreme that their behavior borders on terrorism. Yet it will also feature scenes that show Christians and others of faith in a positive light, since not all who are traditionally religious respond to controversial issues in the same way.

The boycott, however, has had an impact. Production companies which were looking at my screenplay were inundated with faxes. This unnerved the development people. They felt that, if such a level of harassment is a fair indication of what could follow, they didn't want to be involved in this controversy. Alec Baldwin's production company, El Dorado Pictures, was one of those receiving the fax blitz--as was Baldwin at home. Yet at no time was there a deal with El Dorado, nor was Baldwin personally involved. El Dorado was merely one of the companies looking at the project. Well, they passed on it after experiencing firsthand what fanatically religious individuals and groups can do.

It's now looking like Eye of the Beholder is the film Hollywood dares not make. Yet I'm more determined than ever. Other filmmakers, when faced with such obstacles, have chosen the independent route, and I can see that so must I. That's why I'm now at work to produce it myself, funding it through a variety of private sources. For example, there are over sixty organizations that deal with First Amendment issues or personal freedoms. These represent over ten million members, and a significant number of these members enjoy the cinema. Thus I hope to raise $600,000 from private investors and others. People of any means can become a part of this.

Meanwhile, the struggle for free speech continues. From April to October of 1997, my one video store again became a target, this time from members of the local Christian Coalition. They launched a picket because the store continued to carry The Last Temptation of Christ as well as several other "banned" videos--including the 1979 Oscar-winning foreign film, The Tin Drum. The negative publicity diminished the business. So just this past April the store was forced to close when the lease ran out.

Ken Tipton is a founder of Makers of Visual Independent Entertainment (MOVIE), a group of actors, writers, producers, and directors which has recently completed two independent feature films. His production company, Beholder Productions, is at 10061 Riverside Drive, Suite #324, Toluca Lake, CA 91602. E-mail him at [e-mail] or visit the website at www.moviefund.com.