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Catholic cleric suggests Disney corrupts children’s minds

December 1st, 2008 by Scott Marks

At its best, classic Disney animation stands as age old primers for children on grown up neuroses. Hey, kids! Bambi has a mommy, too. And guess what? Just like Bambi, your mommy is going to die one day, hopefully from old age, not a hunter’s bullet.

The house that Walt built has recently come under fire from a Catholic cleric who blames Disney for corrupting young minds. Christopher Jamison, the Abbot of Worth in West Sussex, has accused the corporation of “exploiting spirituality” to sell its products and of turning Disneyland into a modern day pilgrimage site. While Disney purports to imbue its product with positive moral messages, it’s main goal is to turn impressionable youngsters into future materialistic consumers. He argues this is part of a ploy to persuade people that they should buy Disney products in order to be “a good and happy family”.

No stranger to the media spotlight, the abbot starred in the hit-BBC series The Monastery.

Fr Christopher Jamison: Holy man, Author, Spoilsport.

The Daily Telegraph quotes Finding Happiness, the abbot’s guide to helping people find a meaningful existence. In it, Fr Jamison warns that “society is in danger of losing its soul because of growing consumerism and the decline of religion.” He insists that films like Sleeping Beauty and 101 Dalmatians convince people that they should buy Disney merchandise in order to be “a good and happy family.”

“The message behind every movie and book, behind every theme park and T-shirt is that our children’s world needs Disney,” he says. “So they absolutely must go to see the next Disney movie, which we’ll also want to give them on DVD as a birthday present.”

What’s the matter, Padre? Not as much butt fetishizing since Uncle Walt passed?

According to Fr Jamison, people “will be happier if they live the full Disney experience; and thousands of families around the world buy into this deeper message as they flock to Disneyland. This is the new pilgrimage that children desire, a rite of passage into the meaning of life according to Disney.” It’s still a hell of a lot cheaper than springing for a Bar Mitzvah. He continues: “Where once morality and meaning were available as part of our free cultural inheritance, now corporations sell them to us as products.” Personally, I find it less offensive tithing money to the Disney corporate family.

Published this week, Finding Happiness suggests that many of the answers can be found by folks living more simply. The book urges people to reject the superficial temptations offered by contemporary culture.

I’d still rather park my kids at Disneyland than in a priest’s lap.

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Emulsion Compulsion makes pilgrimage to secular Bob Hope command post

November 29th, 2008 by Scott Marks

I awoke Black Friday morn with a peculiar ringing in my head. Like a cripple hobbling to Lourdes, the power of Hope beckoned me to Seaport Village to once again bathe in His glory. It was the busiest shopping day of the year and even in this most penurious of holiday seasons, throngs turned out to buy into the Hope mystique. In the shadow of the battleship Midway, hundreds flocked for reasons many didn’t know. Standing before Bob’s bronze replica reminded me of my initial brush with the oracular one.

Like a flying saucer buff at his first UFO convention, I feel compelled to finally make public a secret encounter I had with the sentient overlord, the right Reverend Lester Leslie Towne Robert “Bob” Hope. He first appeared before me in the Autumn of 1997 at the most unassuming of places: the Von’s supermarket in Burbank, California. My plane had just touched down at Burbank airport, now known as The Bob Hope Airport, and I stopped at the grocer’s to pick up some supplies. While at the checkstand, a ringing, similar to the one that awoke me earlier today, began to violate my cerebral cortex. Slowly I turned to see a familiar, albeit bent over and aged, ski-nosed “comic”  being led up the frozen food aisle by his Aryan manservant.

Under cover of darkness, Mr. Hope was given his nightly airing, plodding the same land that he owned decades before. It also gave Dolores an excuse to get him the hell out of the house for a few minutes.

Grabbing the keys from my driver, I made a mad dash for the camcorder resting in the trunk of the car. Recorder in hand, I caught up with Him in the parking lot. Surrounded the oracle, I began pelting him with comments and questions:

Scott Marks: Thanks for all the great movies. I’m a big fan of your work in Frank Tashlin’s Son of Paleface.
Mr. Hope: Huh?
SM: Would you elaborate on Tashlin’s working method?
Mr. Hope: Huh?
SM: Mr. Hope, do you agree with Iain T. Benson’s conclusion that suppressing religious symbols is an “equally terrible harbinger of anti-religion masquerading behind two veils: a veil or ignorance and a false veil of neutrality.”
Mr. Hope: Huh?
SM: Are there cue cards in the afterlife?
Mr. Hope: Huh?
SM: Do you get to see other dead celebrities naked?
Mr. Hope: Huh? Huh?
SM: Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of a secret government agency bent on interfering with the thought patterns of millions of people world wide.

He looked back at me and my blood ran cold. There was no response. A uniformed member of the Von’s Courtesy Patrol approached me and cautioned, “You’re standing in a no Hope zone. ” He looked around and lowering his voice said, “Beat it, buddy. Believe me, I’m doing you a favor.”

Continue reading Emulsion Compulsion makes pilgrimage to secular Bob Hope command post

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