‘Powder’ Prompts Protest Women Picket Disney Film Directed By Child Molester

Three women protested the opening Friday in Spokane of the Walt Disney film “Powder” because the movie’s writer and director is a convicted child molester.

They stood holding signs outside the Lyons Avenue Cinema to support molestation victim Nathan Winters, now 20, who has gone public with his story to protest Disney’s employment of filmmaker Victor Salva.

One of the signs read “The $6 Dollars You Pay to See “Powder” Will Go to a Child Molester.” Cars slowed down as they passed the women and those pulling into the theater lot asked what the protest was about.

Still, most moviegoers at the Lyons Cinema Friday night said Salva served his time in prison and they would see the film about a troubled teenager despite Salva’s past and the protest.

Despite those sentiments, 24-year-old Kristin Rhodes, herself a victim of child sex abuse, felt good about starting the protest after reading a newspaper story Wednesday about Salva.

“The main thing we’re trying to get across is that the chances of him doing it again are high,” she said.

Salva confessed to having oral sex with Winters in 1987 while directing him in “Clownhouse,” a low-budget horror film about three boys terrorized by circus clowns. Winters was 12 at the time of the abuse.

Salva was sentenced to three years in prison, but served 15 months and completed parole in 1992.

Chuck Caraway, manager of Spokane’s Act III Theatres, declined to comment on the protest.

The movie’s title character is an albino teenager with awesome, frightening powers. Sheltered from birth in his grandparents’ rural Texas farmhouse, the boy known as Powder because of his white skin is discovered by deputies and sent off to school where he’s unprepared for the rejection he receives, according to the movie’s promoters.

Moviegoer Jeremiah Huntley, 20, said he wanted to see the film because “it’s a pretty cool subject.”

He didn’t think twice about rejecting the movie because of the protest.

“We don’t care,” he said. “Basically, they just described half of Hollywood.”

Alicia Wickham, 29, said she was going to see “Three Wishes” on Friday because it got better reviews. But she does plan to see “Powder.”

“The guy did his time,” she said. “Let him alone.”He heard of the controversy surrounding the movie’s director but, like Wickham, wasn’t dissuaded from seeing the film.

Protester Janna Rohrer, 37, said Salva may have served 15 months in prison but victims of child sexual abuse spend their lives overcoming their pasts.

“I’m still a wreck,” she said. “I’m still in therapy.”

, DataTimes