Oscars protests lead to kettling and citations
Pro-Palestine protesters gathered outside the Oscars Vehicle entrance in Hollywood, Calif., during the Cancel the Oscars Protest on Sunday, March 2, 2025. Demonstrators stated they believe Hollywood is silencing Palestinian voices leading them to protest the Oscars. (Jake Crandall)
In a striking cross-pollinating of movements, extremist factions of the far-left and the far-right occupied the same Hollywood street corners on Oscar Sunday, March 2.
Protesters from Code Pink gathered outside the Oscars Vehicle entrance in Hollywood, Calif., during the Cancel the Oscars Protest on Sunday, March 2, 2025. Demonstrators stated they believe Hollywood is silencing Palestinian voices leading them to protest the Oscars. (Jake Crandall)
Around a dozen pro-Palestine protesters paraded West Sunset Boulevard while carrying a banner reading “Israel Has The Right To Go Fuck Itself.” Beside the march, on the sidewalk, CODEPINK demonstrators touted signs and chanted “Hollywood, Hollywood, you will see, Palestine will be free.” On the right-wing front, the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), a hyper-zealous sect of Primitive Baptists known for anti-gay advocacy, made an appearance on the corners interlocking Sunset Boulevard and Highland Avenue.
Though controlled by contrasting political spheres, the groups shared a disdain for the Academy Awards. Oscar guests were speeding past the protesters continuously in limousines, barred from the sidewalk with fences imposed by street closures. In 2024, pro-Palestine protesters successfully delayed the Academy Awards by six minutes.
All groups present intended to disrupt the ceremony again, beginning with the celebrity joyriding. “What we’re here to do is to speak to Hollywood that is silencing Palestinian voices… in their cars, all closed in,” said Jodie Evans, co-founder of CODEPINK. In a press release, the WBC described the Oscars as “depraved souls gather(ing) together to throw laudatory phrases to each other, each trying to outdo one another with their words… the very picture of calling evil good and good evil.”
A protester walks in between chauffeur vehicles headed to the Oscars during the Cancel the Oscars Protest in Hollywood, Calif., on Sunday, March 2, 2025. Demonstrators stated they believe Hollywood is silencing Palestinian voices, leading them to protest the Oscars for the second year in a row. (Jake Crandall)
WBC had spent the morning shuffling around a circuit of churches in L.A. they deem heretical, including the First Baptist Church of Hollywood.
A member of the First Baptist Church had noticed their music and signage across the street at around 9:15 a.m.
By 10 a.m., they marched a block and repositioned outside Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, maintaining the same distance of a crosswalk between themselves and the proclaimed dissidents. “We are out here to warn you that the Lord is coming and if you don’t repent, you will go to hell,” said WBC picketer Lily Phelps-Roper.
Phelps-Roper and her WBC compatriots hail from Topeka, Kansas, and are the children and grandchildren of the church’s founder, Fred Phelps. “In our hometown, we do this every day,” she said. Now, on the nationwide tour, “we go where we feel we need to go.”
The response is the same everywhere. “Just honking and flipping us off… it’s anger, towards God and towards the Word,” she said.
“You receive the words and one of two things happen. It pierces or it pricks,” said Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of Phelps, who is celebrating her 35th year picketing for the Church.
People gather with rainbow umbrellas in front of the Hollywood United Methodist Church in Hollywood, Calif., alongside the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgences, an order of drag, trans, and queer nuns promoting respect for diversity and LGBTQ issues, after the Westborough Baptist Church, known for its homophobic views, had planned to protest the church for supporting the LGBTQ community, but never arrived on Sunday, March 2, 2025. (Jake Crandall)
Their signs read “Prepare to Meet Thy God” and “Repent or Likewise Perish,” with accompanying Proverbs; some signs were more explicitly anti-LGBTQ. Shirley Phelps-Roper explained they “have to keep it concise, to the point, scriptural. We have to not change the words for any reason. I mean, we can't think that we can gussy up or fix up these words to be palatable to people. Because this message is not palatable to people.”
Confrontations with the public affirmed the group’s dogma of rigidity. A pedestrian approached and said, “God is an unconditionally loving being, right?”
“Bull!” yelled a WBC member. “Now, is that clear enough? That’s a bold-faced lie.”
Just six blocks from the Dolby Theatre, at 1 p.m., the protesting groups were reassembled and fixed on their Sunset Boulevard corners. As the pro-Palestine protesters and CODEPINK approached, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) formed a barrier across Sunset Boulevard and surrounded both street corners with sign-carriers. Diagonally across, outside Hollywood High School, which was in session, more Christian signs swarmed the crosswalk reading “Hollywood is Sodomy and Gomorrah.”
A Westborough Baptist church member holds signs in front of the Oscars vehicle entrance at the W. Sunset Blvd. and N. Highland Ave. intersection in Hollywood, Calif., on Sunday, March 2, 2025. (Jake Crandall)
ReRe Duce, a musician and cabaret performer, stood between WBC displays. Self-anointed “orphan Andy grows up,” with voluminous red curls, Duce moved about the curb in metallic silver sneakers. With outstretched arms, their tattered white tunic unfolded and bore the terms “Feed the Rich” and “Starve the Poor” in red paint.
“It’s a sarcastic message,” Duce said.
“My message is that we need to take care of people in the world and not just give money to rich kids. And that seems to be where everything’s going these days.”
“I think it’s amazing that we can all be here together,” said Duce, gesturing to WBC.
A Westborough Baptist church members hold signs while standing on an American flag in front of the Oscars vehicle entrance at the W. Sunset Blvd. and N. Highland Ave. intersection in Hollywood, Calif., on Sunday, March 2, 2025. (Jake Crandall)
Evans shared the sentiment. “It’s a protest space - everyone’s voices are welcome.”
What she didn’t approve of, she explained, was the presence of the LAPD. “The amount of money being spent on the city to protect the people in the limousines is insane. Insane. We can’t even pay for firefighters.”
Los Angeles Police Department officers were dispatched to clear protesters from the Cancel the Oscars Protest out of the W. Sunset Blvd. and N. Highland Ave. intersection in Hollywood, Calif. after protesters began blocking traffic into the Oscars on Sunday, March 2, 2025. (Jake Crandall)
“We’re here to say, you must be doing something wrong if you have to protect yourself from us. We’re on the right side of history, for people. You’re on the wrong side, you’re for violence and you’ll need police protection,” she said.
The affability wasn’t universal, and one of the pro-Palestine dozen coming off the open road expressed repulsion at sharing the streets with WBC.
A protester blocks chauffeur vehicles headed into the Oscars during the Cancel the Oscars Protest in Hollywood, Calif., on Sunday, March 2, 2025. Demonstrators stated they believe Hollywood is silencing Palestinian voices, leading them to protest the Oscars for the second year in a row. (Jake Crandall)
“My views are so much in conflict with theirs, I can’t even express,” she said, requesting anonymity over privacy concerns. “We are not affiliated with them in any way.”
Lily Phelps-Roper expressed the same wish for disjunction: “I want us to stay out of whatever they’re doing,” but at least the police presence “means that nobody can get violent with us.”
Protester Kelly Blanco stood before the police line while raising a copy of “1984” by George Orwell, in protest of President Donald Trump’s executive order titled “Designating English as the Official Language of the United States.”
“They’re doing that because they don’t want people to speak our native tongues in a country that is basically filled with immigrants,” she said. “They’re trying to take away our education and our ability to express ourselves through vocabulary. They did that in the book.”
“People got to a point where they didn’t have any privacy,” said Blanco. “Just want people to read this book, forreal.”
A Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Lieutenant gives protesters orders during the Cancel the Oscars Protest after LAPD officers kettled protesters on McCadden Pl. in Hollywood, Calif., on Sunday, March 2, 2025. Demonstrators stated they believe Hollywood is silencing Palestinian voices, leading them to protest the Oscars for the second year in a row. (Jake Crandall)
At approximately 2:40 p.m., the LAPD line was descending down Highland Avenue, executing an unlawful assembly dispersal order. Protesters from PYM and CODEPINK sauntered around luxury cars and limousines on the open road as they ran from the police, who approached on bicycles.
“Get out of the street, or you’re gonna get a cite,” an officer said through a megaphone.
Protesters put traffic cones and signs under chauffeur vehicles headed into the Oscars during the Cancel the Oscars Protest in Hollywood, Calif., on Sunday, March 2, 2025. Demonstrators stated they believe Hollywood is silencing Palestinian voices, leading them to protest the Oscars for the second year in a row. (Jake Crandall)
A protester was seen standing before a black Mercedes-Benz, yelling “You hit me! You hit me!” CODEPINK member and public defender Marya Shahriary alleges there were two collisions of cars and protesters during the execution of the dispersal.
Another protester spray-painted “Free Palestine” on an advertising pillar while running down the Highland Avenue sidewalk as the bicycle brigade closed in. The group was funneled down Santa Monica Boulevard into North McCadden Place, where an additional LAPD line encroached from Lexington Avenue, employing a kettling tactic.
Around 40 protesters were fenced between police lines. A National Legal Guild Observer stated that she “asked repeatedly what (the police) wanted them to do and they would not answer.” Eventually, the police instructed all protesters to step to the sidewalk and await citations. One called, “This is false imprisonment… we’ve done nothing!”
On Lexington Avenue, a crowd of onlookers formulated and began to chant “Let them go!” and shout at the officers. In response, the police line remained stony and unmoving.
After an hour, around 20 protesters had been released on the Santa Monica Boulevard side of the cordon. According to a protester, requesting anonymity to ensure her name was “less identified in matters involving the police,” the kettled demonstrators were detained one by one, forced to disclose their names and information, and then photographed individually with their citations for failing to disperse under California Penal Code (PC) 409.
A protester is led out of kettle by Los Angeles Police Department officers after protesters were kettled in on McCadden Pl. in Hollywood, Calif., during the Cancel the Oscars Protest on Sunday, March 2, 2025. Demonstrators stated they believe Hollywood is silencing Palestinian voices, leading them to protest the Oscars for the second year in a row. (Jake Crandall)
Shahriary was among the fenced protesters, and alleged LAPD officers handcuffed her, told her she was under arrest, and administered a body cavity search. The handcuffs and zip ties were removed, after a delay, she said, when Officer Daniel Fournier announced no arrests would be made.
“They grabbed me really hard, as if I was dangerous,” Shahriary said. “It exposes their violence because there they were, there must have been three cops for every one of us, and they clearly had no reason to believe we were dangerous or not.”
A protester is searched by Los Angeles Police Department officers after protesters were kettled in on McCadden Pl. in Hollywood, Calif., during the Cancel the Oscars Protest on Sunday, March 2, 2025. Demonstrators stated they believe Hollywood is silencing Palestinian voices, leading them to protest the Oscars for the second year in a row. (Jake Crandall)
By this time, the Oscars were already initiated, curbing CODEPINK’s plan to cause a ruckus on the red carpet. Shahriary saw a connection between the ceremony and the use of detainment.
“They kept us long enough so that everyone would get seated at the Oscars and we couldn't disrupt,” she said. “So it was just, you know, to make sure the Oscars were fun. Not disrupted.”
Earlier in the morning, others had taken a proactive stance against WBC. Outside the Hollywood United Methodist Church (UMI), members of the Parasol Patrol and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI) assembled to protest the warned arrival of WBC by van.
Sister Unity of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgences, an order of drag, trans, and queer nuns promoting respect for diversity and LGBTQ issues, speaks to a woman outside Hollywood United Methodist Church in Hollywood, Calif., on Sunday, March 2, 2025. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgences came to the Hollywood United Methodist Church after the Westborough Baptist Church, known for its homophobic views, had planned to protest the church for supporting the LGBTQ community, but never arrived. (Jake Crandall)
SPI, a collective of queer and transgender nuns, danced about the church steps in heavy drag. The Parasol Patrol planted on the lawn, twirling rainbow umbrellas for the thoroughfare. Members of the Southern California chapter of 50501 were in attendance, including Adrienne Harwell, who was visiting from San Diego.
“I think that people who already know how to nurture the love inside of their hearts, like, show up for those who are still growing in that way,” said Harwell. “And demonstrations like this make space for people to learn themselves better.”
Founded in 2019 by Eli Bazan and Pasha Ripley, the Parasol Patrol organization aims to provide security at LGBTQ+ and BIPOC events, primarily those involving children. The Patrol often targets right-wing groups including the Proud Boys, the Blood Tribe, Gays Against Groomers, and the WBC.
Ripley, who now serves as the Patrol’s executive director, is establishing a new Patrol chapter in Los Angeles as a response to what she perceives as “escalated action from protesters.” She told the Corsair that training L.A. activists on Patrol strategy is made easy with WBC, because “to be totally honest, their views are no longer extreme.”
“The white van drops them off, they stand there for X number of minutes and then they leave… but Westboro used to be considered the worst of the worst,” said Ripley. “Their views are very common for what is going on in the community and the alt far-right community… spewing far more hateful stuff than Westboro ever has.”
In collaboration with the service inside, demonstrators consumed bread and wine in a communion event led by Rev. Hannah Adair Bonner of UMI.
Rev Dr. Ed Hansen (Left), a pastor emeritus, is handed bread during communion from Rev. Hannah Adair Bonner (Right), the senior pastor at Hollywood United Methodist Church, in Hollywood, Calif., alongside the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgences, an order of drag, trans, and queer nuns promoting respect for diversity and LGBTQ issues, after the Westborough Baptist Church, known for its homophobic views, had planned to protest the church for supporting the LGBTQ community, but never arrived on Sunday, March 2, 2025. (Jake Crandall)
The clock struck 11 a.m. without incident. WBC had missed their call time and were headed straight for the Oscars. Neither Ripley nor Harwell expressed surprise.
“I think the plan was that they were going to stop by,” said Harwell. “But with this kind of demonstration, It's up to their discretion if they want to face it or not.
“Because the thing about hate is, like, it casts a shadow, right? And hate tries to cast a shadow in many places. But when you show up with light, there's no room for a shadow. So they can fight if they want, but we're here, we're bright, and we're here with love. Here I am. I'm here with love.”