Ed Vitagliano
AFA Journal news editor
April 2001 –Five years after AFA called for a boycott of The Walt Disney Company, the Mouse House continues doing the things that got it into hot water in the first place. For pro-family groups like AFA and a number of Christian denominations, those issues are still significant enough to keep them in the fight.
Due to a string of actions by Disney in the mid-1990s, AFA began to see two major problem areas developing at the Mouse, which tarnished its once pristine family-friendly image: the often vulgar, violent and anti-Christian films produced and distributed through Disney subsidiary Miramax, and the promotion of the homosexual agenda throughout the Disney corporation.
AFA called for the boycott in the early months of 1996, and has been joined in the effort by several Christian denominations, including the Southern Baptist Convention, General Council of the Assemblies of God, Congregational Holiness Church and the Free Will Baptists.
A number of Christian pro-family groups--like Concerned Women for America, Catholics United for the Faith, and Focus on the Family--also joined. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights actually called for a Disney boycott earlier than AFA, in 1995.
Disney cleans up its act?
Some might argue that The Walt Disney Company has made some effort to clean up its act and return to its heyday as the preeminent platform for family-friendly entertainment. In fact, some of the changes made by Disney might indicate not only an awareness of the boycott, but even a desire to avoid fanning the flames of discontent. (See AFA Journal 1/00 and 8/98).
For example, within a month following the Columbine High School tragedy in April 1999--when the nation was stunned as two teens gunned down classmates and a teacher--Disney removed some 30 arcade games from its theme parks. The games involved shooting people, and a Disney spokesman said the company just didn't think "there's any place for violent video games at Disneyland."
There was more to come last fall, after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a report which scolded the entertainment industry for aggressively marketing to children many of the movies, music and video games that were rated for adults.
The day after the release of the FTC report, Disney immediately moved to guarantee that none of its advertisements for R-rated films--including those movies produced by its subsidiary companies like Miramax and Dimension Films--would ever air on its ABC network during prime-time hours. A statement from Disney said it was "committed to the responsible marketing of all its motion pictures." Disney was the only entertainment company to react to the charges leveled in the FTC report.
The change represented quite a departure for Disney. A Parents Television Council (PTC) study conducted during the same month as the hearings found that 83% of the films advertised during the "family hour" on the networks were R-rated. A PTC newsletter said Disney and its subsidiaries accounted for 29% of those R-rated ads.
The company has also taken some steps toward producing films under the Disney name with enough impact to draw adults as well as kids. One example was last summer's surprise hit Remember the Titans. According to Peter Schneider, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, the initial script was full of profanity--including numerous uses of the F-word. In The Wall Street Journal, Schneider said he told Titans producer Jerry Bruckheimer, "Take out all the swear words."
An article in Daily Variety said that Schneider's actions reflected his desire to restore faith in the Walt Disney Pictures label by making movies like Titans "that will play for the whole family."
Merely window dressing
Those steps, however, while praiseworthy in and of themselves, have failed to impress AFA President Donald E. Wildmon. "We'd be the first to applaud any company--including Disney--for making these sorts of changes," he said. "But the reality is that, in regard to the issues which triggered the boycott in the first place, such changes are merely window dressing. The Disney of the 1990s still inhabits the Mouse House."
There's no doubt that Disney live-action films, distributed through its Walt Disney, Touchstone and Buena Vista labels, often depart from the unblemished fare of yesteryear. However, the real heavy lifting in the trash department is usually done by Miramax Films, the company bought by the Mouse for an estimated $60 million in 1993.
Miramax was founded by Harvey and Bob Weinstein, brothers who had turned their small independent film distribution company into a solid money-maker. When Disney bought Miramax, the pair were allowed to continue running the company, and last Spring Disney inked the Weinsteins to another seven-year contract. At the time of the reenlistment, Disney Chairman and CEO Michael Eisner described the Weinsteins as "creative geniuses."
The movies coming out of Miramax have been a boon to Disney. According to Entertainment Weekly, the speculation within the industry was that the Mouse had recouped its costs within three years after purchasing the film company. However, Miramax was not only a money-maker, but tossed out hits that have been a critical success as well. Miramax films have received Oscar nominations for Best Picture in 10 out of the last 11 years, and have garnered more than 109 nominations in other categories, all since 1993.
Oscars aside, Miramax has shown itself to be a major producer of films that are full of vulgarity, sex, and violence. "Movies full of trash and bloody violence are a standard offering on Hollywood's menu nowadays," Wildmon said. "But for a company owned by Disney to be a major cultural polluter--that's unacceptable. Disney can't claim to be a family-friendly entertainer on the one hand, and then with the other hand be pocketing Miramax's cash."
Wildmon noted that the company has been a major contributor to the resurgence of gory-horror teen-targeted splatter films, especially through its Dimension Films label, which it created in 1994. The Scream trilogy, for example, which as a spoof of the older generation of slasher movies actually revived the genre, also had plenty of the serious stuff--stabbings, dismemberment, and even disemboweling. The three films were a favorite with teen audiences, raking in nearly $300 million in the U.S. alone.
Other movies follow the same violent trail, from the stomach-churning impalings in The Faculty, to the bloody EXistenZ and the sadistic From Dusk Till Dawn.
Last year's surprise hit Scary Movie was actually a spoof of slasher-film spoofs like Scream, as well as a handful of other popular movies. Complete with the usual violence, profanity, and sex, Scary Movie was a monster financial windfall, piling up more than $157 million--the highest-grossing film in Miramax history, according to the company's website. The Weinsteins, not ones to sit on a possible blood-filled franchise, have green-lighted a sequel.
The offensive fare from Miramax goes beyond just gore, however. Summer of Sam, for example, which is about the 1977 Son of Sam serial murders in New York City, not only contains its own violence, but also plenty of graphic sex and an incredible 435 uses of the F-word, according to Preview.
Other movies developed at Miramax--like Priest (1995) and Dogma (a 1999 box office flop), defame Christianity, while numerous films embrace homosexuality (Chasing Amy, Happy, Texas, Priest, and Velvet Goldmine) and even incest (The House of Yes).
At the other end of the spectrum is a movie like Cider House Rules. This Miramax film, graced with an Oscar nomination for Best Picture last year, is a warm-and-fuzzy film that makes a brazen pitch for legalized abortion.
If such films lead Eisner to call the Weinsteins "creative geniuses," the Miramax brothers are just as effusive in their praise for Disney. After re-signing with the Mouse, the Weinsteins said, "We wouldn't have been able to accomplish [all Miramax has done since 1993] without the unique combination of autonomy and backing from Disney."
"That's precisely why Disney's ownership of Miramax was a major factor in AFA's call for a boycott," Wildmon said. "If Disney backs Miramax, then Disney also backs Priest, Scream, and Summer of Sam."
Promotion of homosexual activist agenda
If Miramax is a misdemeanor for AFA, Disney's promotion of homosexuality is a felony. Nothing disappointed the organization more than Disney's enthusiastic embrace of a movement that rejects everything that is sacred to Christians about human sexuality, marriage, and family.
The first step came in 1995, when Disney announced it would begin granting health benefits--normally reserved only for married couples--to same-sex couples.
The Mouse House was simply following a Tinseltown trend begun by Hollywood Supports, a powerful workplace advocacy group that wanted to influence cultural attitudes concerning homosexuality. Founded four years earlier, Hollywood Supports succeeded in influencing every major U.S. film studio to offer domestic partner benefits to its employees.
No one had to twist Disney's arm. The Board of Trustees for Hollywood Supports had included Disney heavy-hitters like Eisner and then-chairman of Walt Disney Motion Pictures Joe Roth, clearly indicating sympathy with the advocacy group's mission.
Perhaps nothing demonstrated Disney's wink-wink affinity with the homosexual movement like Walt Disney World's hosting of "Gay Day" at the renowned theme park. Begun in 1991 after a publicity effort throughout the city's homosexual community, the first Saturday in June has come to anchor four days of "gay" and lesbian activities throughout the Orlando area. In fact, the celebrations are now called "Gay Days."
In 1999, around 130,000 homosexuals flooded Walt Disney World and the greater Orlando area, leaving an estimated $80 million behind.
Disney does not officially sponsor the event, but there is no doubt--at least in the minds of the park's thousands of homosexual patrons--that the Mouse is playing the part of eager host. The official website for the homosexual gathering, www.gaydays.com, said in a 10th-anniversary survey of the event's genesis and history that Disney unofficially embraces this event, pointing out "the quiet, behind the scenes cooperation at all levels of Disney management."
Such cooperation turned embarrassing for Disney two summers ago, when the 250,000-member Christian Action Network (CAN), sent an undercover team to videotape some of the "Gay Day" activities at Disney's Orlando theme park. At a nighttime performance at the park's Mannequins Dance Palace, video footage showed Disney dancers simulating homosexual sex acts in graphic fashion, much to the delight of the "gay" patrons.
"Disney acts like Gay Day is this spontaneous, informal mass influx of homosexuals into its theme park, and that the company has nothing to do with it. But I can't imagine the company ever renting space to the Ku Klux Klan for 'KKK Day,' and rightly so," said Wildmon. "Disney should just admit that it believes homosexuality is fine and ought to be embraced by our culture. The charade should end."
The 'gay' small screen?
Disney's theme parks are not the only place where a sympathetic homosexual theme can be found. The small screen of Disney's ABC network has been a favorite vehicle for advocates of the cultural acceptance of that lifestyle.
The infamous sitcom Ellen, with its out-loud-and-proud push of homosexuality, had an enthusiastic endorsement all the way from the top dog at Disney during the 1996-97 television season. While certainly not the first presentation of the subject nor the only homosexual character to appear on TV, actress Ellen DeGeneres' first-ever homosexual lead character shattered forever the tottering television taboo of homosexuality.
ABC, however, has been beating that drum for quite some time. The network's so-called unbiased journalistic news programs--like 20/20, Nightline, and Primetime Live--have all done segments which shilled unashamedly for the homosexual movement on issues such as "gay" parenting, transgendered individuals, and homosexuals in the military.
Only ABC sitcoms and dramas present a more imaginative view of homosexuality. Numerous ABC shows, including Spin City, Gideon's Crossing, NYPD Blue, The Drew Carey Show, Relativity, Roseanne, and Wasteland, have portrayed homosexuality as a natural and normal variant of human sexuality.
Disney's one-sided presentations on this subject go beyond ABC, and include Lifetime, one of Disney's cable channels. What Makes a Family?, for example, which aired on Lifetime beginning in January, was a sympathetic look at same-sex relationships and advocates for homosexual marriage and adoption.
The film not only boasted Whoopi Goldberg and Barbra Streisand as executive producers, but also homosexuals Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. That pair produced--in affiliation with Disney--the controversial 1995 made-for-TV movie Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story, about a lesbian Army officer trying to avoid discharge because of her homosexuality. Zadan and Meron told the homosexual magazine The Advocate, "We've always found Disney more than willing to let us present gay stories."
The nearly feverish demand for acceptance of homosexuality is something of a regular theme for Lifetime. Last August it aired The Truth About Jane, an unabashed bit of propaganda which centered on a high school lesbian who discovers her homosexuality when she falls in love with a female classmate--and then has sex with her. At the end of the movie, the girl's mother, who has opposed her daughter's homosexuality throughout, finally comes to accept it, and even turns up at a "gay" rally.
Other pro-homosexual Lifetime offerings include Change of Heart, about a woman and her family being forced to deal with her husband's announcement after 20 years of marriage that he is "gay;" Labor of Love, about a heterosexual woman who tries to have a child through her male homosexual best friend, who wants to adopt the baby later so the two of them can raise the child; and The Object of My Affection, which not only presented homosexuality as normal but also twisted the concept of family until it was almost unrecognizable. Lifetime has also twice approached the subject of homosexuality in more documentary style on its Intimate Portraits series.
Wildmon said such blatant disregard for the beliefs of the large majority of Americans is a sign that the foundations of the Mouse House are still crumbling. He said the few encouraging signs of change at the company are undermined by its continued pollution of the culture.
"Disney hasn't changed its ways, and AFA remains firmly opposed to what the company has been doing since the mid-1990s," said Wildmon. "So until we see a fair amount of change, or until we find a more effective way to raise these important issues, then AFA remains committed to raising them through the Disney boycott." 
