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Thursday, May 26, 2005
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In my opinion
^^.Can’t bring
DISN
We teel alter nine years ol boy
cotting Disney we have made our
point,” American Family Association
President Tim Wildmon said on his
organization’s Web site.
After a nearly decade-long boycott
that America refused to get behind
and that had absolutely no effect, the
AFA gave up.
To add to the AFA’s fake victory, the
announcement goes on:
“Another positive sign has been
the breakup of Disney and Miramax,
the controversial film producing
company that the Mouse House
bought in 1993 for $80 million.”
Thank you, AFA, for failing to save
America from the likes of “Finding
Neverland,” “The Aviator” and “Les
Choristes.” It’s too bad Miramax
founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein
will no longer get to produce under
the Miramax name they built for
nearly 25 years.
me uisney/Miramax split, as nas
been widely reported, was not a deci
sion to dump Miramax for its content.
Far more likely, the cause was that Mi
ramax was making too much money
with hits like “Shakespeare in Love,”
“Pulp Fiction” and “Goodwill Hunt
ing,” and Disney wasn’t getting a big
enough cut. When the Weinsteins
started to bomb out with movies like
the largely unseen “Kate and
Leopold,” “The Shipping News” and
“Talk Magazine,” longtime Disney ex
ecutive Michael Eisner could justify
letting go of the artistically creative
brothers with whom he had never
seen eye to eye.
“It is our hope that the corporate
leadership at Disney will see the error
of their ways and change directions ...
the company can return again to the
Disney most came to love and trust in
past generations,” the AFA states on
its Web site.
Though Walt was long dead by the
time Miramax was on the scene, he
did say, “You’re dead if you aim only
for kids. Adults are only kids grown
up, anyway.” In order for the compa
ny to remain successful, Disney’s ex
pansion to more adult-targeted films
was inevitable.
Back to that “love and trust” of the
bygone Disney. I’m curious as
to which films, exactly, the AFA
was referring.
Perhaps it meant the Disney movies
that failed to portray a two-parent
family, such as Snow White, Cinderel
la, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty (exist
but are absent), The Sword and the
Stone and The Lion King (mother ex
ists but is largely absent)? Or perhaps
the Disney stories that portray a
woman as unable to make life choices
for herself (Snow White) and as vain
(nearly every Disney princess) or seen
and not heard (The little Mermaid)?
The studio also has a tendency to
make men look like lovesick, obses
sive dolts (Prince Charming) or angry
dominant victimizers (both Beast and
_
ANNEMAR1E KNEPPER
WORKS ON PAPER
Gaston in Beauty and the Beast).
Uncle Walt himself steadfastly
avoided claiming any social responsi
bility for his films: “I don’t pretend to
know anything about art. I make pic
tures for entertainment, and then the
professors tell me what they mean,”
he famously quipped.
The AFA’s boycott was intended not
only for the films but for everything
Disney, especially the parks.
“Products and theme parks are sub
sidizing Disney’s promotion of the ho
mosexual agenda,” reads the AFA’s
original boycott manifesto.
Well, they got that right. Big Gay
Mickey has been recruiting kids into
gaydom for far too long. What with
those sassy shorts, stylish shoes and
gloves, not to mention that mischie
vous, “come hither” grin.
This quote more likely refers to Dis
ney allowing entrance of their paying
gay customers during Orlando’s popu
lar Gay Day celebration. Universal
Studios, the Hard Rock Cafe and sev
eral other Orlando businesses partici
pate as well. Furthermore, Disney has,
like many huge corporations who
want to keep all of their talented em
ployees healthy, extended health ben
efits to same-sex partners. Healthcare
for your partner is not something the
AFA supports.
Support is something the AFA
lacked during the majority of the boy
cott. Even AFA backers had a hard
time finding fault with Disney.
“When those phone calls came in,
asking for evidence of new missteps
by Disney, we were pleased to dis
cover that they weren’t as plentiful
as before,” Wildmon said. Transla
tion: While we weren’t willing to
keep doing our own research, we did
asked others to, and they came up
with nothing.
Now that he has more money than
he or any of his progeny could ever
spend, and now that he has brought
the company back from the edge of
failure on which it was so precari
ously perched in the late 1970s and
early ‘80s, Michael Eisner is retiring.
Instead of recognizing that Eisner
could spend the rest of his days
swimming in a pool of money, like
Uncle Scrooge, the AFA is position
ing Eisner’s retirement as a victory
for them. With a net worth of
$700 million and a company that
looks to continue on its upward tra
jectory for the foreseeable future,
Eisner is clearly the big winner.
It must be stated that as a Christian
and a human and a feminist, I do find
some images Disney projects to De, to
say the least, distasteful. Ariel the
mermaid looks more like a Playboy
bunny than a typical 16-year-old girl.
Belle of “Beauty and the Beast” suf
fers verbal and physical abuse before
deciding in a song, “Now he’s dear,
and so I’m sure, I wonder why I did
n’t see it there before.”
This may seem obvious to the
more astute readers, but violence and
sexuality are everywhere in main
stream media. Disney is no excep
tion. Maybe it’s time to step up and
be parents instead of asking Disney
to raise your children for you. Maybe
it’s time to actively participate in so
ciety not by shielding your children
from all potentially objectionable im
ages, but by engaging them in discus
sion about why you agree or disagree
with what is portrayed.
The AFA’s last gasp on the subject
encourages people to “keep an eye
on Disney. ”
“[This] does not guarantee that
AFA will never again call for a
Disney boycott, should the company
do something particularly egregious.
‘If, for example, Disney removed the
clear Christian symbolism from The
Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
film, then all bets would be off... as
far as we’re concerned, Disney is
on probation.’”
As reported by the Orlando Sen
tinel, Colorado-based Focus on the
Family, one of the groups that led the
boycott, has been included in the ear
ly stages of the marketing campaign
for “The Chronicles of Narnia: The
Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”
And yet Disney is keeping its dis
tance in an effort to look Christian,
but not too Christian.
“We don't want to cater to one fan
base over the other, or at the expense
of another,” said Dennis Rice,
Disney's senior vice president for
public relations. Translation: We
want as much money as possible
from as many different types of peo
ple as possible.
Don’t you get it, conservative
Christians? Disney is playing you!
The market for openly Christian
movies and products is huge right
now (see the profits for Mel Gibson’s
“The Passion of the Christ” for evi
dence) and Disney, as usual, wants
a piece of the action. The “if you
can’t beat ‘em, join 'em” mentality
nullifies any point the AFA and Fo
cus on the Family have tried to make
to Disney in the past decade.
So Disney is now “on probation.”
With a threat like that, Eisner and
Team Disney are sure to be shaking in
their ... huge vat of money, which
they will continue to use to make the
same type of movie they always have:
Boy meets girl, boy looses girl, violent
fighting and exuberant songs ensue,
boy gets girl. The End.
annemarieknepper@daUyemerald.com
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■ Editorial
Outlawing
sexuality is
dated and
irrational
SEX!
Now that we’ve got your attention, take a
moment to consider these two tidbits of news:
Earlier this month, two students at Winona
High School in Minnesota were suspended for
wearing shirts and buttons with the phrase “I
(heart) my vagina.” Forty-five fellow students
wore similar paraphernalia; some male stu
dents even proclaimed with their clothing, “I
support your vagina. ”
The reason for this showing of support on be
half of a female body part? In February, it was
just one person sporting such gear. Inspired af
ter viewing the play “The Vagina Monologues,”
Winona student Carrie Rethlefsen wore an “I
(heart) my vagina” button, which school offi
cials quickly asked her to remove. Rethlefsen
led students in their larger-scale free-speech
battle ear lier this May.
ine Winona administration might have stu
dents’ best interests at heart, but making the
word “vagina” taboo is not the way to keep sex
ual distraction out of classrooms. Indeed, Reth
lefsen reports that she originally wore her but
ton for some time before anyone took notice
and demanded that she remove it; if the pin
were a real distraction, it would have been no
ticed much earlier.
Another problem with the school’s stance is
that for students, it represents a rule that si
lences issues of female sexuality. Rethlefsen has
said that she wore her button as a way to subtly
speak about issues such as sexual assault.
The administration must surely realize that
outlawing the “vagina” button was the only
real cause of distraction for students. Lifting the
regulation on “vagina” gear will therefore be
the best solution for everyone involved. At this
point, all school officials have accomplished is a
reinforcement of the notion that female anato
my is automatically taboo — that is, something
to be either sexualized, ashamed of, or both.
Unfortunately, the regressive sexual politics
don’t end there. Currently, the American Civil
Liberties Union is working to rid North Carolina
of its anti-cohabitation law. According to that
200 year-old doctrine, unmarried heterosexual
couples may not live together.
The potential problems with this law are not
just possibilities, they are reality: One woman
in North Carolina was forced to quit her job as a
sheriff’s dispatcher after her boss told her to ei
ther marry her live-in boyfriend or move out.
Likewise, with the anti-cohabitation law, it is le
gal for landlords to evict unmarried couples.
This cohabitation law is ridiculously outdat
ed and should be removed from the books im
mediately. In a nation with skyrocketing di
vorce rates and an increasing numbers of
happy, non-traditional families, there is no rea
son that the government should be pushing cit
izens into marriage. Since when is it the job of
the government to put a scarf on its head and
play Yenta?
Regressive sexual politics are nothing new to
a country founded on Puritan principles. Never
theless, in both of these cases, those lauding re
pression will hopefully remember that positive
sexuality is not impossible: It can be found on a
T-shirt, a button, or living right next door.
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