FCC chief slams ABC over raunchy television
Hat Tip: WorldNetDaily. Specifically, Michael Powell (Colin's son) asked rhetorically, "I wonder if [sic] Walt Disney would be proud."
Well, I wonder just what Walt Disney would have thought of all this. No, I don't imagine him being proud. I imagine him being horrified and mortified. But I'm not really sure why.
You see, Walt Disney was never a God-fearing man. He created magical God-substitutes and celebrated practices tantamount to sorcery--not to mention rebellion--in his films and cartoons. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is primarily a story of a truly wicked queen who daily practiced sorcery to maintain her control, of her much-oppressed victim, and of a team of miners, of all people, who resort to regicide with no thought whatsoever of the sort of precedent that might be setting. And that's typical. Because of this, Walt Disney never really gave himself or his company a proper moral compass. Those who remember him most fondly might think he did, but in fact he did not.
So why should we be surprised that the company that Walt Disney built now has turned to the advocacy of twisted ideas of what is proper and improper in our society?
If Walt Disney were alive today, and could feel anything, it ought to be the morification, embarrassment, and shame that Prof. Rupert Cadell (James Stewart) felt and expressed, in the motion picture Rope, upon discovering that two of his students had put his outrageous theories of the prerogatives of the superior intellect into practice. But he would not have the right to feel or express any moral outrage, given that he severely weakened the morals of his viewers in ways that few people, apparently, are willing to admit today--and that he, no doubt, would vociferously deny. At times like this I can understand why many highly respectable fundamentalist Christian scholars maintain that popular entertainments of any type, and particularly movies and television, are not suitable fare for any Christian and could never be made suitable. You have only to look at how far the most promising "wholesome studio" has now sunk--but if you look closely, you can recognize the critical design flaw that doomed the enterprise from the start.
Well, I wonder just what Walt Disney would have thought of all this. No, I don't imagine him being proud. I imagine him being horrified and mortified. But I'm not really sure why.
You see, Walt Disney was never a God-fearing man. He created magical God-substitutes and celebrated practices tantamount to sorcery--not to mention rebellion--in his films and cartoons. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is primarily a story of a truly wicked queen who daily practiced sorcery to maintain her control, of her much-oppressed victim, and of a team of miners, of all people, who resort to regicide with no thought whatsoever of the sort of precedent that might be setting. And that's typical. Because of this, Walt Disney never really gave himself or his company a proper moral compass. Those who remember him most fondly might think he did, but in fact he did not.
So why should we be surprised that the company that Walt Disney built now has turned to the advocacy of twisted ideas of what is proper and improper in our society?
If Walt Disney were alive today, and could feel anything, it ought to be the morification, embarrassment, and shame that Prof. Rupert Cadell (James Stewart) felt and expressed, in the motion picture Rope, upon discovering that two of his students had put his outrageous theories of the prerogatives of the superior intellect into practice. But he would not have the right to feel or express any moral outrage, given that he severely weakened the morals of his viewers in ways that few people, apparently, are willing to admit today--and that he, no doubt, would vociferously deny. At times like this I can understand why many highly respectable fundamentalist Christian scholars maintain that popular entertainments of any type, and particularly movies and television, are not suitable fare for any Christian and could never be made suitable. You have only to look at how far the most promising "wholesome studio" has now sunk--but if you look closely, you can recognize the critical design flaw that doomed the enterprise from the start.
posted by Temlakos at 10:51 AM
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