From: Jamal Mazrui 
Subject: Article about Disney (Forward From dandrews@visi.com)
Thought this may interest you,
Jamal
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08/28/97 -- Copyright (C) 1997 The Washington Post [Article 292081, 182 
ines]
                      A New Voice Roars Back At the Mouse
      James Dobson's Focus on the Family Joins List of Disney Boycotters
                                By Marc Fisher
                         Washington Post Staff Writer
     The boycott against the Walt Disney Co. -- one of the most audacious
cultural crusades yet taken on by the nation's Christian conservatives --
broadened considerably yesterday when James Dobson's Focus on the Family 
rged
its 4 million contributors to stop buying anything that carries the Disney
name.
     The Southern Baptist Convention, the Catholic League, the American 
amily
Association, and now Dobson's group -- the influential radio, print and video
empire based in Colorado Springs -- have embarked on a mission to persuade
American parents to deny their children Winnie the Pooh, "The Lion King,"
Mickey Mouse and all of the contemporary icons of the globe's foremost
purveyor of children's entertainment.
     No one, not even the most outraged Disney critics, are confident the
boycott will wreck the company's bottom line or transform the company's
behavior.
     "We won't bankrupt Disney, given their enormous resources, and we may 
ot
even damage them financially," Dobson said.
     No, this boycott is about something far bigger than even Mickey. It's
about God, contemporary life and the shape of American culture. It is, in the
words of political scientist Benjamin Barber, about "Jihad vs. McWorld," the
battle between fundamentalist faith and global corporations that are growing
more powerful than many nations.
     "The Disney organization has utter disdain for those who hold 
raditional
moral principles and conservative family values," Dobson said in his
broadcast, heard on 1,900 U.S. radio stations yesterday. "Year after year, 
ts
leaders have insulted a large segment of the population by producing films,
television and music that contradict cherished beliefs."
     Dobson specifically cited as offensive such Disney-produced movies as
"Priest," "Pulp Fiction" and "sex, lies, and videotape" and such shows on
Disney-owned ABC-TV as "Ellen," "NYPD Blue," "Spin City" and this fall's
"Nothing Sacred."
     Disney, which until now had chosen near-silence as its response to the
boycott, opened up a bit yesterday, issuing a statement promising, "We will
continue to do the best we can. In an atmosphere of free expression, we will
always try to promote moral ideologies in our programming. . . . We hope we
can continue to coexist in a world where we can be patient with one another."
Immoral or Amoral?
     In the strained rhetoric of the culture wars, defenders of traditional
values usually end up calling purveyors of pop culture "immoral," while
corporate executives respond by saying that they are mere salesmen serving 
he
desires of the marketplace. Corporations are not immoral, they argue, just
amoral structures run by moral people.
     For Disney, unlike most corporations, classic capitalist amorality isn't
an option. The company has always been about wholesomeness, and its success
depends on convincing parents that its products are squeaky clean, that 
eavis
and Butt-head will never get their own corner of the Magic Kingdom.
     But what's most striking about the Disney boycott is that it does not
follow the usual culture wars script.
     To Christian conservatives, Disney is not an easy villain. In fact,
Disney is -- or at least was -- a hero to many on the Christian right, and
Christians who have tried to develop an alternative entertainment industry
that promotes traditional values have consciously modeled themselves after
Disney.
     Even now, as Christian groups across the country urge parents to spurn
Disney stores, turn off the Disney Channel, ignore "Hercules" and travel to
anywhere but Disney World, there remains something sacred about Walt Disney.
     Amid the fiery rhetoric aimed against Disney as the boycott against the
company expands, there is a hard boundary that no one dares cross. Disney,
Christian conservatives say, may have lost its moral compass, but the boycott
leaders insist that the company's founder would not have permitted what
critics call the "anti-white male agenda of `Pocahantas,' " the
"Christian-bashing" of movies such as "Priest" and the purportedly polytheist
"The Little Mermaid," and the "pro-homosexual agenda" of ABC-TV's "Ellen."
Disney critics, gleefully using research by gay activists, say that ABC shows
feature 13 of the 28 homosexual characters on network TV.
     "If Walt were alive, he'd probably be at the front of this campaign,"
says Bob Smithouser, editor of Plugged-In, Focus on the Family's newsletter 
n
pop culture. "I grew up going to see `Herbie Rides Again' and `The Apple
Dumpling Gang.' He wouldn't recognize what his company is doing now."
     Focus on the Family produces its own videos and radio dramas for kids,
and Smithouser readily admits that "Disney set the standard. If you're going
to be perceived as a quality product, you're going to have to measure up
against Disney." Proudly, he adds, "We've got some former Disney employees
working on our products."
     Disney opponents do not argue that Americans should spend their time
praying instead of planting themselves in front of "Beauty and the Beast."
That battle was lost long ago.
     No matter how betrayed traditionalists may feel by Disney's expansion
into risque prime-time fare, R-rated movies and health benefits for partners
of homosexual employees, the legacy of 70 years of Snow White and Bambi still
rules: Many fundamentalist religious groups no longer struggle against the
core of the Disney achievement -- the idea that entertainment is at least as
important a part of life as faith, politics, work or family.
     Dobson devotes his monthly letter to listeners of the "Focus on the
Family" radio program to his recent visit to Elvis Presley's mansion,
Graceland. A child psychologist who dispenses family advice along with his
message of faith, Dobson found the pilgrimage "depressing and sad."
     Wistfully, Dobson closes his letter by quoting from Matthew: "Seek ye
first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness . . ."
     "How desperately that message is needed in this culture," Dobson
concludes, "where Elvis is thought to be alive and God is dead."
     Dobson may pine for a purer faith in his letters, but in Focus on the
Family's actions, the battleground is elsewhere -- in the animated figures 
nd
catchy songs of a fast-paced, Disney-inspired world of adventure and leisure.
     In a sense, Disney and religion are now competitors. Both sell a version
of reality. Both traffic in nostalgia. Increasingly, both use the same tools
-- witness the blossoming of Christian pop, rock and rap music, and the
multimedia extravaganzas that are Sunday services at the new mega-churches
throughout suburbia.
     Sometimes it seems that the battleground is as narrow as the world of 
he
E cable channel or Entertainment Weekly. The question the boycotters ask is:
Who shall choose how we are amused?
Economics and Culture
     "They [Disney] seem to not just dislike Christians and their families,
but despise them," says Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association.
     Whether the culprit is the baby-boomers who run Disney, or the
nonbelievers who write the movie and TV scripts, or the elitist producers who
advance what the Baptist Convention calls the "homosexual agenda," Disney's
critics see the company as a nest of activists pushing a new, corrosive
cultural order.
     William Donohue, a sociologist who is president of the Catholic League,
which describes itself as a civil rights group defending Catholics against
discrimination, is particularly peeved at the moment by a new ABC series
called "Nothing Sacred." The network describes the weekly show as "an
engaging, irreverent one-hour drama about an unconventional young priest
struggling to balance his faith in God with the temptations and troubles of
modern-day life."
     In one morning alone, Father Ray is nearly fired for advising a pregnant
teenager to follow her instincts on abortion; he's turned down a bribe in the
confessional; and his old college flame has reignited his passion.
     To Donohue, "Nothing Sacred" is nothing less than an anti-Catholic 
ract,
a propaganda device for a "libertine understanding of sexuality."
     "Gays have 25 or 30 characters on TV shows now and every last one of 
hem
is positive," Donohue says. "And Catholics are thrown Father Ray."
     Similarly, Dobson and Richard Land, president of the Baptist 
onvention's
Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, contend that Disney has set out to
advance the cause of homosexuality, free love, abortion and paganism. They
vociferously reject the idea that Disney is out just to make money.
     But while Disney's Christian critics attribute the company's expansion
into less wholesome fare to a cultural agenda, an entirely different group of
opponents sees the company as being driven expressly by the economic
imperatives that motivate Coca-Cola, McDonald's and other global retailers.
     "Everyone from the blind to women's groups is going after Disney now,"
Donohue says. "They have become the convenient dumping ground for everyone 
ho
feels alienated by our culture's direction -- and I welcome that. My goal is
to blacken up their Snow White image."
     But preservationists who fought against Disney's proposed Virginia Civil
War theme park, urban activists now protesting the Disneyfication of New
York's Times Square, and blind activists offended by "Mr. Magoo" are not even
on speaking terms with organizers of the boycott.
     And Barber argues that if the critics are to have any chance of
influencing corporate policy, they need to join hands.
     "The Christian groups are correct in seeing that these seemingly anodyne
corporations actually have a profound effect on American values," says 
arber,
director of the Whitman Center for the Culture and Politics of Democracy at
Rutgers University.
     Disney's critics believe they're under siege from cultural forces; they
can't see the economic forces at work, Barber says. Similarly, the Disney Co.
believes it's acting as an economic entity; it can't admit its own cultural
influence.
     In his discussions at Disney and other companies, Barber says, 
xecutives
excuse their excesses by saying, "We don't have any values, we're just
supplying a product and making money."
    "Disney fails to see that they don't just serve tastes, they shape them,"
the political scientist says. "To sell Coke in Asia, you have to get rid of
tea, and that changes tea culture, which is tied to religion and values. To
sell McDonald's in Mediterranean countries, you have to get rid of the
tradition of long lunches and siestas and all the values attached to that.
When you talk to the executives as fathers and citizens, they know that and
they're searching for some way to do something about it. But these companies
can't publicly acknowledge their cultural role."
     Disney officials say the company has done nothing different since the
boycott began in June. But there is evidence its renowned image makers are on
red alert. This summer Disney Chairman Michael Eisner personally axed a lurid
rap album and ordered a suspension of outfielder Tony Phillips by the
Disney-owned Anaheim Angels after Phillips was arrested on felony cocaine
charges.
     Disney spokesman Ken Green, asked yesterday to comment on his company's
influence on culture, said, "I'm not prepared to discuss mores." He did note
that Disney set records for both earnings and profits last quarter.
     Asked to find someone at Disney who would talk about culture and
morality, Green called back to say, "We're not going to go into that."
     "The two sides are talking past each other," Barber says. "You have to
put the cultural and the economic together for it to make sense."
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