{"id":511690,"date":"2026-04-04T01:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T01:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/511690\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T01:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T01:01:09","slug":"parkland-shootings-jackie-corin-on-zendaya-pattinson-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/511690\/","title":{"rendered":"Parkland Shooting’s Jackie Corin on Zendaya-Pattinson Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA24<\/a>\u2018s dark comedy feature The Drama<\/a>, starring Zendaya<\/a> and Robert Pattinson<\/a>, has already become the focus of debate, despite the studio\u2019s efforts to conceal the film\u2019s true subject matter from its marketing. <\/p>\n

\n\tAs revealed in media reports about the project that hits theaters Friday, writer-director Kristoffer Borgli<\/a>\u2018s movie (spoilers ahead) centers on Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Pattinson), whose impending nuptials are thrown into jeopardy after the bride-to-be reveals that she planned a school shooting as a teen \u2014 and even took her dad\u2019s weapon to school \u2014 but ultimately did not go through with it. <\/p>\n

\n\tDuring a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Jackie Corin \u2014 co-founder of March for Our Lives and a survivor of the 2018 Parkland<\/a> shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that took 17 lives \u2014 calls the film \u201can inevitable evolution in storytelling,\u201d given how frequently school attacks are part of the cultural narrative.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGun violence, particularly in schools, is not just another dramatic device,\u201d says Corin, who had yet to see the film. \u201cArt has the capacity to deepen public understanding and create emotional clarity and awareness, but it can also flatten and distort reality, especially when it leans on shorthand or tries to make something more palatable than it actually is. With something like a near school shooting, even small tonal choices can shift whether a story feels productive or dismissive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Drama is notable in that the film ostensibly aims to examine the mindset of an individual who would contemplate carrying out such a tragic event, but it plays the plot point partly for comedy. Mia Tretta, who survived being shot in the stomach as a student during a 2019 shooting at her high school in Santa Clarita, Calif., recently told USA Today<\/a>, \u201cA character planning a school shooting isn\u2019t something that should be joked about.\u201d For her part, Corin acknowledges that humor can be a way for audiences to process fear or grief and that this approach is not inherently inappropriate.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJackie Corin guests at the Tonight Show in 2022.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTodd Owyoung\/NBC\/NBCU Photo Bank<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m a survivor of the Parkland school shooting that killed 17 of my classmates and teachers,\u201d Corin says. \u201cThere isn\u2019t distance from the subject. So when humor enters the frame, it can feel very different. Unfortunately, it\u2019s also not even just people who have lived through this. It\u2019s the millions of kids across this country who fear it every single day. So what might read a satire or tonal contrast to one audience can feel very jarring to another.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tWhen asked whether the casting of two glamorous celebrities \u2014 Zendaya and Pattinson \u2014 as the leads can grant a cool factor to the idea of planning a shooting, Corin quickly points out that this has been a worry of hers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat was my biggest concern upon hearing about the plot,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen you have someone like Zendaya and Robert Pattinson attached to a project, they both \u2014 separately, but also especially together \u2014 bring an enormous amount of attention and cultural weight. They are icons for a lot of young people. That can be a real asset if the project is handled with care, but it also means that the message reaches audiences who might not otherwise engage with the issue. It raises the stakes.\u201d <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRobert Pattinson and Zendaya in The Drama.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEverett<\/p>\n

\n\tThe studio has opted to not acknowledge the shooting theme prior to the movie\u2019s release, as journalists were instructed at advance screenings to not tease anything about the revelation for Zendaya\u2019s character. In his review of The Drama<\/a> for The Hollywood Reporter, critic Richard Lawson wrote, \u201cIt\u2019s a deceptively simple dramedy of cold feet, of pre-wedding jitters, only given the stain of higher-minded, more piercing social inquiry. What Emma specifically discloses ultimately doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tCorin notes that the stars not using their press tour to address anything related to the topic of shootings \u2014 with the press events mostly lighthearted<\/a> and including chatter about the pair\u2019s real-life friendship \u2014 has made it tough for audiences to understand why the cast felt that the movie was worth making. (\u201cDefinitely an interesting strategy \u2014 that\u2019s a way to word it,\u201d she quips about the decision to hide the shooting from marketing.)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI hope that they use their platforms to talk about gun violence responsibly because they chose to play these characters,\u201d Corin says of Zendaya and Pattinson. \u201cI don\u2019t think that the question is, \u2018Should someone like Zendaya or Robert Pattinson be in a project like this?\u2019 But does the project actually rise to the level of care that her platform brings to it?\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A24\u2018s dark comedy feature The Drama, starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, has already become the focus of debate,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[36317,96,89495,2839,179049,35588,89493,56,54,55,24489],"class_list":{"0":"post-511690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-a24","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-kristoffer-borgli","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-parkland","13":"tag-robert-pattinson","14":"tag-the-drama","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom","18":"tag-zendaya"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}