Jas, you unpacked that with great attention & patience. Seems like some normally imperfect folks tried their best and got tangled and tripped by the irreducible stumbling block of power differential that exists, regrettably, culturally . . . and, let the flaming commence, naturally: all (wo)men are not created equal. John Adams was right.

It’s horrible how Spitzer and management were aware enough to seek input from Zane on the Midler tweets and how they might necessitate altering the theater’s programming, but then so incredibly clueless about the impact of essentially validating Midler’s poorly considered reasoning. Women who fear being “erased” by making linguistic space for a hugely marginalized group of people are clearly wrestling with privilege issues.

Having said what I said @2, though, I also feel like this theater is way too much of a community pillar to just be closed/canceled. Find a solution, people.

Agree with #3, the last thing we need is to close independent cinema.

@2: Midler was echoing that NYT opinion piece, it wasn't her reasoning per se.

Twitter is such a gift, what would we do without it.

"Many former employees are calling for Central Cinema owner/managers Kevin and Kate Spitzer to step down."
The owner stepping down means going out of business. I mean, what else is that supposed to mean? Delusional kids.

Meanwhile, trans people just get on with it; go to work each day and hope for the best.

Why on Earth would the Spitzers ask for her opinion and then just tell her that her opinion was wrong?! Like…what?!

No, seriously…She stayed quiet on the issue and then they roped her in to it to speak for the trans community so they could tell her that the community was wrong.

I can’t even…

So let me get this straight: there's a pandemic, people are sleeping in tents, heatwaves are killing people, democracy is under attack...and these folks are bickering about the proper interpretation of tweets a 76-year-old actor made regarding an op-ed on the use of a word that people use every day. No, wait, they want to shut down a neighborhood institution over it.
Get it together, Seattle progressives. You agree on more than you disagree on. Act like it.

So...did Hocus Pocus play or not?

12 nailed it.

There’s a lot of he-said/she-said here. But the Spitzers appear to be encouraging continued dialogue, have taken steps to educate themselves, hired mediators, and run a damn fine community space. Our household will continue frequenting the theater.

I don't think there was anything wrong with the opinion the owner expressed - I tend to agree that terms like "uterus haver" or whatever are reductive and gross - but I have no idea why they asked this poor employee to give an opinion and then immediately undercut it like that? Really weird. Either way, wanting the entire business to close over something like this is preposterous. Everyone really needs to learn to just calm down and accept that people won't always agree on relatively esoteric issues of social justice terminology.

It always perplexes me when people are too stupid to even acknowledge someone's existence. The two main ingredients to life are variety and change but apparently Bette Midler is another fucktard unable to grasp this even at her age. The owners seem equally fucktardish. Working for them will make you stupid so yeah get new ownership or close the fucking place already.

K and K are cool people (this is subjective, but I have done business with them for years and they always tried to do right in my experience) who perform a valuable community service. The way they handled the situation sounds a little clumsy- but cut them some slack. They seem to be trying.

Why any business owner would proactively try to have a discussion on trans issue amazes me. You're never going to be right. You're almost certainly going to piss on a third rail. It's literally one of the few topics that should NEVER be broached proactively in the work place.

@18 - I think you have the right of it. It wasn't the fact that he had an opinion, it's the fact that he was an insufferable douche about it. Basically:

Kevin: "Hey, trans employee, are these tweets are bad enough to stop this movie?"

Zane: "not great, but probably fine."

[it is here that any professional boss would have been like "duly noted, thanks, we'll do the movie and prepare for a little blowback - PR, please draft a nice 'the movie is about more than midler' statement."]

But nooo, apparently there just weren't enough reddit threads for this guy to argue on, so he comes back with:

Kevin: "let's have an irrelevant jerk-off debate about this - here are my unrelated-to-whether-we-can-show-the-movie thoughts."

Zane: "Well, no, incorrect, but more importantly, debating this with you isn't part of my job description and I won't do it."

Kevin: "How very hostile! Suspended!"

The subject matter is irrelevant. What's relevant is that no one wants your boss to drag you into a pointless political debate against your will and then suspend you when you don't want to participate.

The woke eat the woke until there’s nothing left to burn down.