The town commissioners of Livingston, Montana voted last Saturday to “immediately temporarily suspend” a filming permit for a movie tentatively titled Pawn Shop, a pro-ICE feature film produced by the anti-LGBTQ+, right-wing media outlet The Daily Wire.
The pro-ICE film reportedly depicts ICE-shooting victim Renee Good — a queer, blonde-hair mother of three — as “a fat blue-hair” woman named Melanie who is shot by ICE agents while driving and listening to NPR. Right-wingers have long vilified NPR as being a biased, liberal, and leftist media outlet, even though studies have shown that the outlet is generally unbiased, independent of government propaganda, and provides key benefits to US democracy.
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Local residents protested the filming while online critics blasted The Daily Wire for distorting Good’s character to justify her death.
“I am absolutely infuriated with the either malfeasance or lack of competence by the people that are operating a movie production event in our town,” said town commissioner and vice chair James Willich.
The commission, however, unanimously reinstated the permit on Monday night, after Daily Wire producers threatened to sue the town for allegedly violating their First Amendment rights. The outlet’s lawyers said the production faced threats against its filming crew.
The film reportedly has a $1.5 million budget and will finish filming in the town by October 10.