A Defiant Dude

Mike & Friends Blog

James Lantz

James Lantz is a filmmaker and playwright in Burlington, Vermont currently producing "A Defiant Dude," a documentary about a t-shirt artist who defies Chick-fil-a

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February 27th, 2012 4:25 PM

By James Lantz

A poor single mother of two sent me an e-mail today.

I’m a documentary filmmaker telling the tale of Bo Muller-Moore, a t-shirt artist fighting a multi-billion dollar corporation for his survival. David and Goliath is written all over Bo’s story; a big business bullying a little guy.

It’d be obvious why I might get a note from another t-shirt artist, a small business owner, or a guy in a rock band. But a single mother with two kids in diapers who lives in a small town in Kansas? Tell me more.

I wrote back and we corresponded a couple times; she said I could share her story. What I learned is that, even though Ashlee’s more than got her hands full with her two kids, and she can barely afford to take care of herself and her children, she’s willing and ready to help an artist halfway across the country wage war with the nation’s second largest fast-food chicken chain, Chick-fil-a.

As she told us in her note, “I really want to see you get your story out there. Is there anything else I can do to help you fight them?”

We’re raising money on Kickstarter and our film, “A Defiant Dude,” is one of hundreds vying for attention. We just launched and I have no illusions about what is ahead of us; this is my second project on the popular crowd-funding site and if this campaign is anything like my first, it’s going to be a slog.

But one thing that keeps me going, and is truly touching to find on Kickstarter, is how the act of standing up to be heard is as engaging to folks — if not more engaging — than the story itself.

Don’t get me wrong — I think we’ve got a kickass story. The cease and desist letter that Chick-fil-a’s lawyers sent Bo is bald and bullying. To me, the letter says: What you think is yours is not yours, and we’re going to take it away. Chick-fil-a’s claim deserves its prized place on CNN’s Anderson Cooper’s “Ridicu-list.”

And yet, I sense that what has moved Ashlee to make her offer, and a couple hundred other folks to back the film, is not just Bo’s story — but that all of us, collectively, are standing up to Goliath. The power and potential of crowd-funding is that it allows everybody to take part in the defiance. As a group we’re all swinging the slingshot and saying, “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.”

This is the story of Kickstarter that sometimes gets lost in news about how much money the site has raised, or the fatigue some folks feel when they’re presented with yet another fundraising campaign.

It’s the story of a young mother in Kansas who found our project, and was moved to begin a note to us by writing, “I’m a poor single mother of two…”

James Lantz is a filmmaker and playwright in Burlington, Vermont. He's currently producing "A Defiant Dude," a documentary about a t-shirt artist who defies Chick-fil-a, a multi-billion dollar fast food chain, when they lay claim to his art and website. Find out more at the film's Kickstarter site.