HOLLYWOOD, Nov. 2 (UPI) -- Both a Hollywood director and a screenwriter have offered to buy a controversial drawing that landed a 14-year-old New Jersey boy in detention.
Scott Switzer, whose father is a U.S. Navy engineer on active duty and whose stepfather is being deployed by the U.S. Army in a month, drew a computer-generated picture of a U.S. Marine blowing up a Taliban fighter.
The principal at Switer's middle school saw the picture, called it "disturbing" and suspended the boy for five days, the New York Post reported.
"To me, it's a patriotic picture," Scott told the Post.
Jonathan Demme, director of "Silence of the Lambs" and Julia Dahl, who wrote "Uptown Girl" and has written for NBC's "The West Wing" heard of the incident and separately asked to buy the picture in support of the Switzer.
"In support of Scott, I'd like to buy the drawing," Dahl told the Post.
"It's absolutely criminal, what they did to this kid," Demme said. "They overreacted like crazy."
