FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, March 7, 1996
CONTACT:
Heidi Prescott, (301) 585-2591, or heidi@fund.org
HOLLYWOOD -- Pennsylvania's Governor Tom Ridge and his wife Michele will visit Hollywood from March 7 to 9, urging film producers to bring industry dollars to Pennsylvania. Members of The Fund for Animals will leaflet the Los Angeles Convention Center on those days with copies of an advertisement urging film producers to avoid Pennsylvania until the state ends its notorious practice of live pigeon shooting contests.
The advertisement, which was rejected by both The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, includes a photograph of a young boy ripping the head off a live bird, with the title, "Height of Hypocrisy: An Open Letter to Pennsylvania's Governor Tom Ridge and His Wife Michele Concerning Children and Violence."
"The film industry is making an institutional decision to reduce the violence to which impressionable children are exposed," reads the letter signed by The Fund's president Cleveland Amory, the former chief critic for TV Guide. "It would be the height of hypocrisy for the Governor of Pennsylvania to solicit money from them while turning a blind eye toward Pennsylvania's own indefensible practice of allowing children to participate in an activity that most parents wouldn't even let their children see on TV. Instead of using its dollars to support that state's violent practices, Hollywood should be using its cameras to expose them"
Some members of the Hollywood community have already exposed Pennsylvania's shame. Hard Copy recently aired a segment on Pennsylvania's infamous Hegins Labor Day pigeon shoot. When thousands of Americans responded to a viewer survey, 99 percent of them voted that Pennsylvania should ban live pigeon shoots.
"The world continues to watch as Pennsylvania steadfastly refuses to end one of the nation's most disgraceful displays of animal cruelty," says Heidi Prescott, national director of The Fund for Animals. "Thousands of birds will suffer every weekend -- and children will learn that violence is an acceptable form of entertainment -- until Pennsylvania joins the rest of the civilized world."
For a copy of the advertisement, call The Fund for Animals at (301) 585-2591.