Vue Cinemas’ decision to pull Blue Story from theatres feels rooted in anti-black racism

The uphill battle for the mainstream film distribution of black films in the UK has been a long one.

When rare opportunities to catch predominantly black productions do arise, as anyone who has ever tried over the decades will know, the chances of seeing them in non-independent venues, if at all, are usually slim, at best.

While the situation has improved slightly, particularly where blockbuster US films such as Black Panther are concerned, too much has stayed the same.

Blue Story, a film written and directed by Andrew Onwubolu, also known by his stage name Rapman, is one such case.

After a violent fight broke out among Asian teenagers as families queued up for Frozen 2 at a Vue cinema in Star City, Birmingham, where Blue Story was also showing, Vue swiftly took the decision to axe the film from all its venues UK wide.

The police have officially stated that despite the incident, they made no suggestion to Vue that the film should be banned, making it clear that the decision was solely the cinema firm’s own.

Backed by Paramount Pictures UK and BBC Films, Blue Story tells the story of friends who become rivals after becoming caught up in opposing London gangs. With black British experiences at the forefront, the film interweaves trauma, misguided notions of masculinity and corrupted youth into its narrative, while serving as a gruesome look at how such situations are likely to play out in reality.

As one of the biggest theatre chains in the country, this decision will have undoubtedly impacted opening weekend box office numbers. With Vue having set the tone, Showcase Cinemas followed suit, banning Blue Story screenings from its locations too, before Rapman himself alluded to the fact that they may be reversing the decision after a backlash on Twitter, with people calling for a boycott of Vue Cinemas with the hashtags #NoBlueNoVue and #BoycottVue.

While some have claimed we can’t be entirely sure about the motivation behind Vue’s harsh stance, for those of us who have lived under the same scrutiny our entire lives, it’s clear: this is about anti-blackness. How an altercation between Asian teenagers – who are thought to have been in line to see Frozen 2 – became the fault of the black community and a “controversial” film that some of those arrested would have been too young to see, makes little sense.

The connection between Blue Story’s release and this one violent incident, to me, is shaky at best, and yet we haven’t seen this type of reaction from a cinema chain, even when stronger parallels can be drawn between mass violence and film screenings.

In 2012, 12 people were killed in a mass shooting during a screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Colorado. In its first weekend of release in the UK, it became the highest-earning film of the year. Despite this, there was no widespread dropping of the film by theatre chains whatsoever.

More recently, as Rapman mentioned himself in response to Vue and Showcase Cinemas’ decision, police feared there was potential for widespread violence at cinemas following the release of Marvel’s Joker, yet no calls to ban it from UK screenings arose. Both of the aforementioned films contain wildly glamourised violence and grandiose framing of criminal lifestyles.

Even if Vue had exercised some sort of muddled tunnel vision, apparently establishing an absolute cause and effect between the incident and the Blue Story film, it seems to me as though black producers are not afforded the same artistic license as their white counterparts. From what I have seen, when it comes to the white experience, violent films are the preserve of white filmmakers only.

The involvement of teenagers makes the situation more contentious, despite there being no apparent solid evidence of the link between the brawl that broke out and the Blue Story screening. But if fears to do with the film’s suitability for teenagers and its potential influence were really a concern, the age rating of 15 should have been the issue, not the film itself.

While politicians half-heartedly pledge to help with misguided policies that only serve their own agenda, Blue Story actually does the work of addressing the issues that are destroying young black boys in inner cities. I believe Vue would do well to recognise the urgency of that national emergency.

As if that wasn’t enough, members of the black community who have publicly called out Vue’s decision have faced their fair share of issues too. I’ve seen a number of instances of black people being verbally abused with vicious racist messages online because they’ve rightly pointed out the facts surrounding what they, and I, consider to be an instance of blatant institutionalised anti-blackness.

Stories that portray black struggle, but also black hope and resilience are rarely told from our perspective. When they are, they uplift both other black artists and the wider community as a whole. In my opinion, Vue has robbed us of that opportunity once again, tainting what should be a defining moment for a new, talented creative who’s loved by his community.