Disney and The Dobsonites

by digby

Are Disney and ABC becoming willing tools of the right wing? Or are they simply currying favor with James Dobson and the far right out corporate necessity? Either way, something very strange is happening in Mouseland.

Earlier this year, you’ll remember that they cancelled, at the last minute, a reality TV show called “Welcome To The Neighborhood” which featured a gay couple competing for a house. The NY Times reported:

Ten days before the first episode was to be shown, ABC executives canceled Welcome to the Neighborhood, saying that they were concerned that viewers who might have been appalled at some early statements made in the show –including homophobic barbs –might not hang in for the sixth episode, when several of those same neighbors pronounced themselves newly open-minded about gays and other groups.

ABC acted amid protests by the National Fair Housing Alliance, which had expressed concern about a competition in which race, religion and sexual orientation were discussed as factors in the awarding of a house. But two producers of the show, speaking publicly about the cancellation for the first time, say the network was confident it had the legal standing to give away a house as a game-show prize. One, Bill Kennedy, a co-executive producer who helped develop the series with his son, Eric, suggested an alternative explanation. He said that the protests might have been most significant as a diversion that allowed the Walt Disney Company, ABC’s owner, to pre-empt a show that could have interfered with a much bigger enterprise: the courting of evangelical Christian audiences for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Disney hoped that the film, widely viewed as a parable of the Resurrection, would be the first in a profitable movie franchise.

In the months and weeks before Welcome to the Neighborhood was to have its premiere, as Disney sought to build church support for Narnia, four religious groups lifted longtime boycotts of the company that had been largely prompted by Disney’s tolerance of periodic gatherings by gay tourists at its theme parks. Representatives for two of those groups now say that broadcasting Neighborhood could have complicated their support for Narnia. One, the Southern Baptist Convention, with more than 16 million members, lifted the last of the boycotts against Disney on June 22, a week before ABC announced it was pulling the series.

[…]

Asked whether Disney’s plans for Narnia had affected Neighborhood, Mr. Brockman of ABC referred a reporter to comments made on July 26 by Stephen McPherson, the president of ABC Entertainment, to a gathering of television critics. At that time it was not widely known that a gay couple had won the competition. Instead, Mr. McPherson, a champion of the show until its sudden cancellation, was asked if he had been influenced by criticism by civil rights groups.

“If I stopped airing things just because advocacy groups had issues with it, we would run a test pattern,” Mr. McPherson said. Rather, he said, he had begun to worry that some of the neighbors’ most intolerant statements early on could confuse the audience’s understanding of “the message you were trying to get across.”

Right. Mr. McPherson, very slickly avoided the question of whether it was pressure from the religious right and implied it was done for the benefit of gays, which is not credible — particularly since we know that he hired a religious cultist to direct his 40 million dollar mini-series “The Path To 9/11” written by a well known, far right wing writer.

David Cunningham, the young director, is the son of a famous leader of a controversial evangelical youth ministry called Youth With A Mission. It has been heavily criticized over the years for its authoritarian teachings and cultlike attributes. Cunningham’s alma mater is the YWAM “college” called the University of Nations, which teaches filmmaking as a way to spread the gospel. Some members of the group even worked on the film.

Cunningham has worked with other members of the religious right in Hollywood with the intention of spreading the word. His previous film, received ecstatically in the Christian right community, was called “To End All Wars”* produced by Jack Hafer, a fellow religious rightist. Cunningham was chosen as one of the 30 emerging voices who are the “future of the American church” by Charisma Magazine. He’s quoted saying:

“My life’s mission is to challenge and shape culture through film.”

The writer of this project, Cyrus Nowrasteh, is a well documented rightwing filmmaker:

“To quote Team America, he’s [Michael Moore] an out of control socialist weasel.” —Interview, June 9, 2005.

There is obviously nothing wrong with these conservative activists making films. There have always been those with a conservative point of view in Hollywood; studio bosses and network executives tend to be conservative in all senses of the word. But it is more than a little bit odd that ABC chose this particular creative duo to develop and film a hugely expensive six hour mini-series about the political culpability for 9/11. You’d think they could have found some people who were less politically invested in a particular point of view than these two.

It’s even more odd that they have gone such great lengths to advertise it as being based upon the bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report when, in fact, they optioned two other books as sources for the film, one of which is widely touted on the right. Therefore, the series is quite obviously a compilation of several sources and the product of the worldview of its rightwing creative team. In other words it is a work of fiction. To advertise it as being “based” on the 9/11 Commission Report is a fraud on the public.

And now they have announced that they will not show advertising on this big 40 million dollar investment and will distribute it for free to 100,000 educators around the country and on i-tunes. It’s basically a gift to the Republican party and the conservative movement.

What is going on over at Disney/ABC? Are they selling out their shareholders to a small shadowy group of Hollywood rightwingers because they share their worldview? Or is it just a gambit for Disney to keep Focus on the Family on their side as they roll out the “Narnia” franchise? Has Disney been so successfully mau-maued by the religious right that they are now in the business of blatantly propping up the Republican Party on its behalf?

Whatever it is, it’s quite clear that they are determined to make the nation believe this work of fiction is a credible depiction of the events leading up to 9/11 when it is quite clearly a biased political drama written with the intention of making the Clinton administration culpable for the attacks in the minds of Americans. They chose people with a politiical and cultural agenda to make this film and have been dishonest in promoting it.

What is going on over at Disney?

Update: After refusing to screen the movie for anyone to the left of Hugh Hewitt and then disappearing the public blog after numerous “clarifications,” they are now refusing to allow any lefty bloggers on a promotional phone call today with their paid shill Thomas Kean, who lends his official impramatur as co-chairman of the 9/11 commission to this work of fiction.

* “To End All Wars” actually has an embedded message that would frighten the war-mongering 101st keyboarders to the depth of their bunny slippers. At the end, it’s all about forgiveness, which, as we all, know is anathema to any self-respecting wingnut. But I’m sure they enjoyed the gory crucifixion and beheading scenes. What rightwing Christian tale would be complete without them?

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