Walt's (Disney) Empty Christmas

A buffet of new, animated cartoons have one thing in common – a Christmas without Jesus, Mary or Joseph, notes Mark I. Pinsky.

THIS CHRISTMAS brings the customary buffet of animated holiday releases to screens large and small.

Polar Express has drawn children and parents to US multiplexes for weeks, earning more than $50 million at the box office. Davey and Goliath's Snowboard Christmas, produced by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, will air on cable television systems and local stations. And from Disney, Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas DVD is destined for hundreds of thousands of stockings.

Although evangelical Christianity seems ascendant in America today, all of these cartoons offer one thing in common – a Christmas without Jesus, Mary or Joseph.

Polar Express, marketed as a "film of faith" to 50,000 pastors, is about faith in Santa Claus. In Davey and Goliath's Snowboard Christmas, a clueless boy and his talking dog and conscience learn "understanding and respect for people who are different," according to the show's producers.

Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas features five holiday vignettes "about discovering the true joys of the holidays," including learning "a valuable lesson about selflessness and giving," according to the press kit.

For Disney, this approach to religion, values and animation continues a 70-year tradition of presenting faith to children without theological context. That is, Judaeo-Christian morality without God or Jesus. With one generally overlooked exception – the 1978 biblical allegory short, Small One – Disney's Christmas servings have eschewed explicit references to the Nativity.

So, if the faithful ask, "Who took the Christ out of Christmas?" one answer is Walt Disney.

DISNEY'S HANDS-OFF approach to Christianity is reflected in the studio's full-length animated features from Snow White to Brother Bear. Time magazine called Walt "the poet of the new American humanism." A better term, I think, might be "secular 'toonism," a variation of a favorite culture-war target, secular humanism.

In a sense, Disney was well ahead of his time, presenting an inclusive approach to faith in a predominantly Christian nation. "The things we have in common," Walt once wrote, "far outnumber and outweigh those that divide us."

Other areas of Disney's entertainment empire reflect this view. No theme park has a Main Street church; no cruise ship has a chapel. This magic kingdom has little reference to the kingdom of heaven. Disney World national television ads entice visitors to a special, seasonal presentation "for those who believe in the magic of Christmas."

Why the magic, rather than the sacredness? Perhaps it is more evidence of a Hollywood disconnect. Walt, the storyteller, knew his movies would need some agent of supernatural intervention, but he did not want religious figures. Children who were not Christian, both in North America and worldwide, might feel excluded from cartoons infused with a different faith, and their parents might not buy tickets.

So instead, Disney chose magic, something universal to all cultures – and customers. While characters may use theological vocabulary ("miracle," "blessing," "divine"), they wish upon a star when they are in need, rather than pray. They rely on fairy godmothers rather than a Savior, and sprinkle pixie dust rather than holy water.

WALT DISNEY WAS NO Grinch, but he was a religious anomaly. He considered himself a Christian, yet rarely, if ever, set foot in a church as an adult, reacting against an uncomfortable childhood brush with rigid fundamentalism. He said he preferred to teach values, rather than to preach them.

Wariness of sectarian religion did not keep Disney from articulating his own core beliefs in the cartoon features that were the foundation of his corporate edifice. This gospel has simple tenets. Good is always rewarded; evil always punished. Be optimistic and work hard, and you're bound to succeed. Most of all, faith is essential – faith in yourself and faith in something greater than yourself.

Amid today's heightened religiosity and polarization, the Disney gospel displayed in the Christmas releases helps reinforce what some have called America's "civic religion," which is faith in faith: At this season of the year particularly, it doesn't matter what you believe in, as long as you believe.

Mark I. Pinsky is religion writer for the Orlando Sentinel and author of The Gospel According to Disney: Faith, trust and pixie dust (order on Amazon UK or US).

Santa Claus is ripe for a historic Mel Gibson treatment.

There's a nasty old saying "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts", probably an allusion to that unfortunate incident involving the Trojan Horse...which should have ended forever another phrase, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth!"
At Christmastime, don't be beware of anyone bearing gifts, and don't look too closely at their teeth, either. Some people don't want to look too closely at Santa Claus, for fear he'll melt away like a snowflake.

But fear not - Santa does exist..and he's a Greek. His alternative name, St. Nicholas, reflects his true identity. From gift-giving to red clothes, Nikolaos of Myra was a model for the modern Santa Claus.

In Asia Minor at the Greco-Roman city of Myra in about AD 300, a pious young man named Nikolaos was born. He was one of the youngest men to ever become a priest, and his devotion and piety were renowned. So was his practicality. In a time when extra daughters might be sold into slavery if the family couldn't afford a dowry for them, Nikolaos stepped forward, providing funds to destitute women and men, sometimes to assist in their marriages, other times to just relieve their crippling poverty. Some tales have him throwing bags of gold down the chimney, a precursor of the modern Santa's travel down the chimney.

His generosity was born of an understanding of the potential pain of those he chose to help - Nikolaos was persecuted and imprisoned for his faith, so his compassion for the potential loss of freedom for those he helped was a very real and personal one.

Nikolaos later became a bishop, helping to set up the formative Council of Nicaea which decided many points of orthodox Christian practice. Bishops got to wear dramatic red robes, and some images of Nikolaos depict him with a flowing white beard, though others show him clean-shaven.

Later, he became a patron saint of Russia, which reaches above the arctic circle into traditional Santa territory. While in the Far North, he may have acquired an association with reindeer, as he is known as the patron saint to another arctic animal, the wolf. Or images of him riding on a horse carrying his bishops' crook may have been misinterpreted as him riding or being accompanied by an antlered animal.

St. Nikolaos became the Dutch Sinterklaas, which then evolved into the modern "Santa Claus". The most renowned depiction of Santa Claus comes from "Twas the Night Before Christmas", when all through the house - whoops, sorry - whose original title is "A Visit from St. Nicholas".

His "Name Day" is December 6th, the anniversary of his death, which is still a gift-giving date in many countries, though most have conformed to the 25th as the date for distributing presents.

After Nikolaos' death, he was made a saint, patron of sailors and children, butchers and bakers, and judges, to name just a few. Part of the saint-making process requires attested miracles, and he accumulated plenty. While those miracles don't list traveling around the world in a single night, dropping gifts everywhere, once miracles can be managed, why should anything be impossible?

In the present day, St. Nikolaos the Wonderworker of Myra is called upon to preside in spirit over Orthodox meetings seeking to unify the churches.

May your own winter festivals, however you celebrate them, be full of richness, unification, and miracle as well.

http://gogreece.about.com/od/agreekchristmas/a/wassantagreek.htm

There are various versions with much of the same information all around. It would be nice to do a historically accurat telling of the real "santa's" life without the elves, north pole and other mousekateer marketing. The truth need not be gloomy.

I agree to a point. After all, "Miracle on 34th Street" didn't have Jesus in it, either, and "It's a Wonderful Life" only has passing references to God and heaven.

I can enjoy "Christmas Vacation" or "Jingle All the Way" as much as the next person, but after a while at some point you yearn for SOMEONE to explain in cinematic terms WHY the Christmas season should feature "giving," or why it should be "special" beyond just "presents" for the kids. What do those presents represent, and why?

The commentary on Disney is interesting---and is something I missed, being something of a Disneyophile. I never noticed, for example, the absence of the church on Main Street---which should be obvious. But WD was a complex man, who believed in "American values" of liberty and self-reliance, yet who wanted to create a "planned" community where people were deprived of most choices. A true paradox.

Actually, it's not up to Disney to produce religious Christmas movies. Walt Disney was an entertainer, and that's what he gave you--fun for the kids and the whole family. For religion, you can go to church, sing carols, say a grace at meals, and things like that.

Walt Disney was certainly a very different kind of man from Michael Eisner, who is deliberately and maliciously anti-religious and doesn't have any qualms about corrupting kids if he gets the chance.

I haven't seen Polar Express, and I don't intend to. It was an interesting book, which I read to my kids when it came out. But the artwork, although powerful and innovative, is also dark and gloomy--OK in a picture book, but I should think very oppressive in a movie.

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