GE Downplays Call for Boycott by Oscar Winner : Defense: The maker of a documentary about nuclear weapons had urged action in her acceptance speech.

General Electric Co. on Tuesday shrugged off a call by Oscar winner Debra Chasnoff to boycott its products, saying her statement would do nothing to harm the giant conglomerate, which has interests ranging from light bulbs to nuclear weapons.

Chasnoff was awarded an Oscar for best short documentary for “Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment.”

“Boycott GE!” she shouted to the celebrity audience while accepting her award at Monday night’s Academy Awards.

Chasnoff’s comments had no immediate impact on GE shares, which initially rose Tuesday before closing down 25 cents at $75.75 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Her movie was commissioned by INFACT, a special interest group based in Boston.

When it first announced the half-hour documentary, INFACT described it as part of a “strategic escalation of INFACT’s five-year boycott of GE products and services, called to get GE out of nuclear weapons business.”

GE spokesman Bruce Bench, speaking from the company’s headquarters in Fairfield, Conn., said he did not expect the documentary, or Chasnoff’s statement, made before an international television audience of 1 billion viewers, to have any impact on GE.

“INFACT has had no discernible effects on GE revenues, which were $60 billion in 1991, an increase of 88% since INFACT first called for a boycott of our products in 1985,” Bench said.

INFACT spokesman Ray Rogers said the boycott was called because GE has been hiding its main purpose--to produce nuclear weapons--behind its “We bring good things to life” advertising campaign, in which it presents itself as a manufacturer of consumer products and life-saving medical equipment.

GE’s nuclear weapons research and production has caused cancer, birth defects and environmental destruction, INFACT claims.

Bench dismissed the charges, saying INFACT was a group seeking unilateral disarmament for the United States, a sympathy not shared by the vast majority of Americans.

Bob Werden, a spokesman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said he was not surprised at Chasnoff’s political outburst at the Oscar ceremonies.

“It happens all the time,” he said.

Werden said Chasnoff’s documentary was chosen by Academy members who themselves were documentary film makers. He said the political message of the film had nothing to do with their decision.