Elijah Wood Calls Gamergate Trolls 'Heinous and Deplorable'
‘Open Windows’ star Elijah Wood at the Madrid premiere of his movie, on June 30
Elijah Wood’s new cyber-thriller Open Windows had its world premiere at SXSW. Back in March, it was a well-executed realization of a cool story exploring a somewhat relevant subject. Now, as the film approaches its November release date, it couldn’t be more timely.
Directed by Spanish filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo, the movie’s events unfold from the vantage point of webcams whose feeds are arranged on a computer screen. Wood plays Nick Chambers, a super-fan of an actress named Jill Goddard (played by Sasha Grey), who is made to think that he’s won a contest to meet her. It turns out that he’s been duped by a hacker who uses Nick’s proximity to Goddard to violate her privacy, expose her to the internet, and threaten her life.
“It’s exploded in a much more profound way [since SXSW], and the good thing about that — in particular, the GamerGate situation and the leaked photos of these celebrities — is that it puts it on a much larger stage to be examined,” Wood tells Yahoo Movies.
The “GamerGate situation” the actor is talking about is a still unfolding scandal that began several months ago, after an ex-boyfriend of an independent video game developer named Zoe Quinn accused her of trading sex for positive game reviews. It was a patently false allegation, but it opened the floodgates of misogyny that has long festered in the darker corners of the geek internet. Outraged gamers —claiming they wanted to reform industry practices (and largely working under a veil of anonymity) — began harassing and threatening Quinn, publishing nude photos of her and making her life hell.
This online culture war continues unabated: just this month, threats of violence drove a female media critic from her home and compelled her to cancel a campus talk.
“The proponents of GamerGate, the people who support it, they’ve got all sorts of arguments about what the issue is about,” Wood continues, his skepticism evident. “It gets so f—-ing clouded, but their entire argument is moot, when so many of them are responsible for death threats and releasing people’s private information online. To be able to actually initiate some of these threats, is really quite heinous and deplorable.”
“Hopefully, [the movie] will inspire a conversation about how we police ourselves. The morality for which we judge ourselves in real life, should also be the standards we act in an online space. Maybe these events can create a dialogue that moves us forward.”
Open Windows is currently available on VOD and will be released in selected theaters on Nov. 7
Photo credits: Fotonoticias/WireImage, Cinedigm
