This page, as you may have already gathered from it's title, you clever little Web surfer you, is where I post my personal ramblings, essays, ideas, and occasionally, where I vent my spleen (yeech!). But I don't plan on hogging the entire spotlight. I would love to post anything you might like to say, on any subject, for any reason. (And I would be more than happy to post whatever you send me anonymously, if you'd prefer.)
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As some of you may know, the Southern Baptists have declared a holy war against the Walt Disney Co. because, they claim, Disney is anti-family and anti-Christian. Personally, I think the Baptists are just using the Big, Powerful Corporation as an easy target to promote their own agenda, because (to use an analogy the Baptists would understand), would anyone remember who David was if Goliath wasn't so big?
So I'm devoting this episode of the Soapbox to rebutting the Baptists' anti-Disney rantings, and to proving there is no anti-family or anti-Christian agenda on the part of the Disney Co.
Now, I won't waste my time or yours "arguing" about such issues as whether or not homosexuality is inherently bad or not, because, let's face it, I'll never convince the Baptists that homosexuality is not bad, and the Baptists will never convince me that it is.
No, I'm going to confine my response to the following Baptist arguments: 1) they claim that everything the Walt Disney Co. produces should be "family friendly"; 2) they claim that "Pocahontas" is an anti-Christian movie; and 3) they point to certain "moral lapses in cartoon animation" that prove Disney is trying to secretly corrupt the minds of America's innocent youth.
So here goes...
Part I: The Disney (Co.) Product
The Baptists claim that the Disney Co. uses its other movie companies (e.g., Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures and Miramax) to sneak controversial and adult-themed movies into theaters that it would not otherwise be able to release.
The Disney Co. is not the first or only corporation to own more than one other company. In fact, in today's corporate climate, the only company not owned by another is the one that owns all the rest. But does every company owned by a parent company put out the same type of product as the parent company? Does everything put out by the companies owned by R.J. Reynolds contain nicotine and taste or smell like cigarettes, just because cigarettes is what R.J. Reynolds produces? Of course not. So why should the Baptists expect the Disney Co. to live up to that standard?
There is barely enough of a family audience to sustain, say, five companies providing the "family" entertainment that the Disney Co. produces under its Disney name; if each subsidiary of the Disney Co. had to compete against its fellow subsidiaries, the Disney Co. would be out of business in two sweeps of a mermaid's tail.
A movie will never come out under the Disney label that will be anything
other than family fare, and you will never have a G-rated cartoon released
through Miramax. And it's not like a parent is going to bring their child
to see a Miramax film thinking they're going to see a "Disney"
movie.