ARTICLES
May 1999 ARTICLESLETTERS
Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
Old Versus New Disney
WILL 'DOGMA' FIND NEW DISTRIBUTOR?
By James McCoy
In 1995, Disney spawned Priest, which has been described as "arguably the most anti-Catholic movie ever made." Though the N.Y.-based Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights called for a Disney boycott, Miramax (whose parent company is Disney) distributed the film in theaters everywhere anyway. Thus began the Catholic League's winter of discontent with Disney, which continued on through the 1997-98 television season when the show Nothing Sacred was aired by ABC (also controlled by Disney).
In 1999 Miramax was at it again: this time, it hoped to spread Dogma, a film containing a Mary and Joseph who have sex, a lapsed Catholic descendant of theirs who works in an abortion clinic, a 13th Apostle who reeks of radio shock jock Howard Stern and a God played by Alanis Morissette, a songwriter who got into the Top 40 by waxing lyrical about things which St. Paul says shouldn't even be named.
On April 7, Miramax suddenly dropped the film. In a news release the next day, Catholic League President Bill Donahue claimed a victory. Last July, he had warned Michael Eisner, the chief executive officer of Disney, that Dogma would turn the winter of discontent into an ice age. The Catholic League had faced off with Disney--and Disney swallowed.
But one swallow does not a summer make. While there's a big difference between what happened in 1995 and last month, are we sure we can chalk it up to Disney having learned something from the experience of being tackled by the Catholic League? "Well, yeah, that was exactly my point," said Tamara Collins, a spokeswoman for the league, "that is a good victory of the Catholic League because here there is a difference: you have Disney stepping away from it.... Up until this point it seems that anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice." But Disney's dropping Dogma shows that "people are becoming more aware of anti-Catholicism...and that Catholics will not allow it to be an acceptable form of discrimination," said Collins.
Eisner never replied to Donahue, but on April 7 Miramax announced that it will not be bringing Dogma to a theater near you. And Donahue is claiming a Catholic League victory: "In 1995, we dealt successfully with the Miramax movie, Priest, and just last year we crushed the Disney/ABC show Nothing Sacred. Now we'll tackle Dogma," said Donahue in an April 8 news release.
Dogma is not dead yet, since Miramax's co-chairmen, Bob and Harvey Weinstein, have bought the rights to it and are looking for another distributor. "One thing's for sure," Donahue said, "Eisner is a lot brighter than the Weinsteins."
While Disney and its subsidiaries may have had their consciousness raised, they have yet to avert to it publicly. Eisner never replied to Donahue's letter; and more than once Donahue has been stood up at scheduled pow-wows with Disney chiefs.
On the other hand, if you're expecting a public act of contrition by Disney and its subsidiaries, "you're not going to get them to do that," said Dwayne Hastings, a spokesman for the Ethics and Liberty Commission, which is an agency of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Southern Baptist Convention numbers 15 million people "on paper," Hastings said, so their joining the Disney boycott originally called for by the Catholic League might have been another factor in Miramax's decision to drop Dogma. Then again, as individuals, Southern Baptists are "wildly autonomous," Hastings said; North Carolina's Senator Jesse Helms is a Southern Baptist; so is President Bill Clinton. On the other hand, the resolution to boycott Disney originally came before the Southern Baptist Convention in a way analagous to a voter referendum. So it can be said of that boycott that it is grassroots and not the fiction of a fax machine.
When told that Donahue was attributing Miramax's dropping of Dogma to the efforts of the Catholic League, Hastings was not hasty to attribute it to the Southern Baptist Convention's official Disney boycott since June 1997.
"We have nothing against Bill Donahue," he said, "because we respect him. But we make a point of never taking credit for any of these [victories]. If there's any credit to be given on this, we give God all the credit." He allowed, however, that, naturally speaking, the breakthrough was due to the efforts of "Roman Catholics, of Southern Baptists, of Presbyterians, of people of many different faiths," all of whom have become aware of "the New Disney."
The "New Disney"?
Hastings, who actually grew up near Disney World in Orlando, Florida, explained. "Twenty years ago," he said, "if you mentioned the word 'Disney,' you'd think of G-rated fare for children. If you mention it today, you think of 'Gay Days.'" The dramatic difference can be seen at the Baptists' website; a page listing reasons to boycott Disney (http://www.erlc.com/Culture/Disney/1997/case.htm) shows that the "New Disney" is the antipode of the former family-friendly Disneyland.
As a local high school senior, Hastings, now 45, actually served as a special guest host at Disney World the day it opened. "Disney meant Bambi, it meant Snow White,' he recalled, 'it meant wholesome family entertainment.... Clearly, that's not Michael Eisner.
'He has the full and complete right to do what he wants according to the law of the land, Hastings went on. "Just as obviously people have the right to completely disassociate themselves from a product and a company that does not fit with their world view."
The website which gives the scoop on Disney also lists articles which show that its revenues have been down recently. Hastings, however, holds off on blaming the boycott for that. "There's no smoking gun here," he said, "we can't point to one thing here and say, this did it." *
There's an old saw used by public relations specialists: "there's no such thing as bad publicity." If Dogma finds anotther distributor, won't official Catholic and Baptist outrage only help it at the box office?
"I think that's wrong," Hastings said. "That would be like saying that if here in our office somebody was accused of sexual assault, and we got on the evening news, that that would be good publicity" for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
If another distributor takes Dogma up, Donahue vowed that the Catholic League will take it down. Here in California, Gary Stahler is head of the only official chapter of the Catholic League, based in San Diego, is ready to make Dogma turn tail. "We'll get our guidance from the national [headquarters]," he said. "As soon as that happens, I'll get hold of all my people and say, 'write these people.' That's the start.
"And then if they're local enough," Stahler went on, meaning the Dogma distributor, if any, "we'll hold a press conference on their front lawn."