I think IOTM meant this guy(?)
Posted on 06/28/2005 11:19:26 AM PDT by JDBrown90
In a marriage of modern mythmakers, the Walt Disney Co. is marketing a film based on C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. And in doing so, Disney will take a page from Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Walt Disney Pictures/Walden Media Disney's adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia follows the exploits of four children in World War II England who enter the imaginary world of Narnia through a magical wardrobe.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, based on Lewis' novel for children and Christian allegory, will be released Dec. 9.
For Disney, the Christian marketing campaign represents a sharp break with corporate policy. Apart from Disney World's annual Nights of Joy concerts, the film is the company's first undertaking with the religious community. For some evangelical leaders, it represents the effective end of their Disney boycott.
The entertainment giant, which bills itself as a "Magic Kingdom," has carefully avoided religion for most of its history. Yet Disney has launched a 10-month campaign aimed at evangelical Christians to build support for Narnia, a $100 million, live-action and computer-generated animated feature it is co-producing with Walden Media.
Disney has hired several Christian marketing groups to handle the film, including Motive Marketing, which ran the historic, grass-roots efforts for The Passion. That film has grossed $611 million worldwide and is now in re-release. "From a marketing point of view, it could be a marriage made in heaven � if the movie is any good," says Adele Reinhartz, professor of religion at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada.
Dr. Armand Nicholi, who for decades has taught a Harvard seminar on C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud, agrees. The entertainment world realizes there's a big audience "that embraces a spiritual world view," he says. How well these groups interact "will determine how successful this marriage is."
Paul Lauer, founder of Motive Marketing, declined to comment on his campaign for Narnia, apart from confirming that his firm is handling it.
"Disney, as the consummate corporate animal, is looking at Paul as the guy who delivered the audience of The Passion," says Barbara Nicolosi, of Act One, a program designed to bring Christian writers and executives into the entertainment industry.
Another Christian firm, Grace Hill Media, also has been hired, and several groups have joined the marketing effort. For instance, the Christian Web site hollywoodjesus.com launched a special feature on its site recently devoted to The Chronicles of Narnia.
For its part, Disney is trying to play down the Christian marketing approach, noting that it will reach out to the science-fiction and fantasy communities, as well.
"We don't want to cater to one fan base over the other, or at the expense of another," says Dennis Rice, Disney's senior vice president for public relations.
Failed boycott Leaders of the religious boycott, launched with great fanfare in the 1990s, accused Disney of betraying its family-values legacy by providing health benefits to same-sex partners, allowing Gay Days at theme parks and producing controversial movies, books and TV programming through Disney subsidiaries.
Financial analysts said the boycott had no effect on Disney's bottom line. The Disney-Narnia campaign appears to acknowledge implicitly that the Disney boycott has been a failure.
One of the groups that led the boycott, Colorado-based Focus on the Family, has been included in the early stages of the marketing campaign.
The 16.3 million-member Southern Baptist Convention officially ended its eight-year Disney boycott this week at the denomination's annual meeting.
Bob Waliszewski, the head of teen ministries for Focus, attended a Disney presentation for Narnia at the Burbank studio.
"We have still told families there are disappointing elements at Disney," he says. "We haven't changed that disappointment in Disney. But with Eisner leaving, we're all hoping that Disney will be a better company."
Disney chief executive officer Michael Eisner plans to retire Sept. 30.
For its part, Disney is circumspect about the boycott's apparent end.
"I don't think that this movie is being done as a response to earlier criticism of the company," says Rice. "We think it's a terrific property that's going to make a terrific movie."
Some evangelical critics are not willing to abandon the boycott.
"The departure of the prickly, anti-Christian Michael Eisner, and the advent of the Narnia project might open lines that could lead to a new understanding," says Bob Knight of Concerned Women for America. "Political realities are catching up to Disney, as well, as wiggle room disappears in the culture war."
Best seller Since it was published in the 1950s, Lewis' Narnia series has sold 85 million copies worldwide. Disney's animated features have been international staples for nearly 75 years.
In the Narnia story, a lion named Aslan is a Christ-like figure who offers himself as a sacrifice to save another character. He is tortured and killed.
Then later he is resurrected to transform Narnia into a heaven on Earth.
So far, small groups of Christian leaders and opinion makers from Western states have been invited to Disney's Burbank studios for briefings and screenings of sequences from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Ted Baehr, founder of the Christian-oriented Movie Guide, called the presentation a "wonderful dog-and-pony show. I think they're going to do a great job marketing to the church."
Baehr is author of the forthcoming overview of Lewis' work, Narnia Beckons: C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe � and Beyond, which is being published by an arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.
There is reason for skepticism about how Lewis, who is beloved by Christians for his religious commitment and his influential collection of essays, Mere Christianity, will be treated in popular culture.
Memo revealed In 2001, HarperCollins, the U.S. publishers of the Narnia books, issued an internal memo � revealed by the New York Times � in which executives urged colleagues to downplay the books' religious dimensions to market them to a mainstream audience.
Any efforts to de-emphasize the religious aspects of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe film are bound to backfire with Christians, according to Take One's Nicolosi.
"Disney and (co-producer) Walden Media are aware that there's a proprietary sense about The Chronicles of Narnia," she says. "C.S. Lewis is our guy. They better not take that away from us." The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, based on Lewis' novel for children and Christian allegory, will be released Dec. 9.
For Disney, the Christian marketing campaign represents a sharp break with corporate policy. Apart from Disney World's annual Nights of Joy concerts, the film is the company's first undertaking with the religious community. For some evangelical leaders, it represents the effective end of their Disney boycott.
The entertainment giant, which bills itself as a "Magic Kingdom," has carefully avoided religion for most of its history. Yet Disney has launched a 10-month campaign aimed at evangelical Christians to build support for Narnia, a $100 million, live-action and computer-generated animated feature it is co-producing with Walden Media.
Disney has hired several Christian marketing groups to handle the film, including Motive Marketing, which ran the historic, grass-roots efforts for The Passion. That film has grossed $611 million worldwide and is now in re-release. "From a marketing point of view, it could be a marriage made in heaven � if the movie is any good," says Adele Reinhartz, professor of religion at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada.
Dr. Armand Nicholi, who for decades has taught a Harvard seminar on C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud, agrees. The entertainment world realizes there's a big audience "that embraces a spiritual world view," he says. How well these groups interact "will determine how successful this marriage is."
Paul Lauer, founder of Motive Marketing, declined to comment on his campaign for Narnia, apart from confirming that his firm is handling it.
"Disney, as the consummate corporate animal, is looking at Paul as the guy who delivered the audience of The Passion," says Barbara Nicolosi, of Act One, a program designed to bring Christian writers and executives into the entertainment industry.
Another Christian firm, Grace Hill Media, also has been hired, and several groups have joined the marketing effort. For instance, the Christian Web site hollywoodjesus.com launched a special feature on its site recently devoted to The Chronicles of Narnia.
For its part, Disney is trying to play down the Christian marketing approach, noting that it will reach out to the science-fiction and fantasy communities, as well.
"We don't want to cater to one fan base over the other, or at the expense of another," says Dennis Rice, Disney's senior vice president for public relations.
I'm gonna see it. It looks great. You should reward Disney when it does something right. Whatever their motives, it looks like they are doing this right.
Do have an issue with part of the review - Aslan does NOT tranform Narnia into a "heaven on Earth." He just undoes the harm the White Witch has done.
That's funny.... I know some pagans who have complained about how betrayed they felt, when they realized that Narnia was Christian allegory.
WOW! I had Deja vu about halfway through the article.
You don't celebrate Christmas either right? It's the Saturnalia after all...
I didn't realize there were sects that missed the old witch burning days. ;)
Who says I am missing them.
I celebrate the birth of Christ, but leave the santa stuff. I know you all feel good trashing me, but its to be expected.
I browsed your link. I hope you don't base all of your life decisions on the word of liars such as wrote this drivel of propaganda. I mean, really, linking Tolkien and Lewis to the Priory of Sion crap? If you take this sort of thing as truth, you have been seriously misled.
Brush and floss after every meal! And get your tetanus booster before you pick up Santa Claws!
But seriesly, if you find certain literature or films disedifying, that's your privilege. Nobody's life is going to be ruined by missing a particular book or movie. There's more out there than anyone can ever get through.
I'm sorry that you'ge getting trashed on here. I got into occult things, really without knowing what I was doing, in high school and for many, many years afterwards, I would not look at or read anything occultist for fear of being drawn back into it. So you are wise, my friend, in being on the alert against this insidious evil. You need to do what you believe is best in protecting your grandchildren.
That said, I really don't believe that Lewis falls into that category, although I can understand that reading selected things by him could lead you to that conclusion. I wrote my master's thesis on Lewis and read many of his works, a lot of what he wrote about his works and what others wrote about him, plus a lot about his life. One of the things that I most remember about him--and that I come to appreciate more and more in this post-modern world--is that he refused ever to use the word create in relation to what he did. He was adamant that he reflected God's glory and never created anything--that was God's domain.
He was fascinated by mythology and there is nothing wrong in that as long as a person does not confuse it with truth. I don't believe Lewis ever did. I recommend to you a short book he wrote that I want to get back to this summer. I wish to teach and I want to remember what he wrote there as I go into the classroom. It's The Abolition of Man. I think you would appreciate it. It's short, but a thought-provoking read. God bless you as you help with your grandchildren in a difficult world.
I too celebrate the birth of Christ. I do not, however, believe in zombies or laughing about dismemberment, as you did in a post on another thread. =P
(I know, I'm not supposed to bring up other threads. Just showing an inconsistency in 3dognight's hardline Christian stance)
better stay out of the book of revelation... and song of solomon... oh, and many of the prophets... and lets not forget the parables in the new testament...
heck, the whole bible is an allegory of sorts so us flesh and bone humans with 5 senses can get our little minds around the existance of a spiritual realm and understand true reality.
the entire old testament provides abstract "pictures" of the reality in the new testament.
all the jewish feasts and traditions are concrete abstractions of things that take place in the spiritual realm.
if you have a hard time understanding the allegory in C.S.Lewis' books i suggest you stay away from the bible too.
Ever heard of READING to your kids? You can start that in the cradle - I was reading to my daughter in the womb, for heaven's sake.
My parents got me the full set of the Narnia books at age FOUR. It was amazing how fast I learned to read so I could find out What Happened Next without waiting for Mom to read the next chapter.
I don't recall anybody drinking a potion in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. There IS a witch of course, but she is obviously and unrelievedly evil - she has enchanted Narnia so that it's "always winter and never Christmas" . . . The witch does give Edmund enchanted Turkish Delight that appears when she pours a potion on the snow, but (of course) it turns out to be poison. Lucy is given a cordial that heals wounds, but I don't recall anything else. What's with the Sun worship? I don't remember any of that.
If you really feel that none of the trappings of romance can be "Christian", you better not read Paradise Lost, The Faerie Queene, or any of the medieval legends. Of course that is the tradition Lewis draws on (in his day job he was a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature at Oxford and later at Cambridge) and it is absolutely, undoubtedly, and thoroughly Christian -- much more so than the modern age, believe me.
Lewis would agree with you about one thing you said here: he was adamant that his work was not allegory.
Thank you. I will take a look.
There is so much Christian symbolism in the movie. If you can't see it, I don't know what to say to you.
Aslan is the Lion of Judah, also the Lamb, the breath of Aslan is the Holy Spirit, the White Witch is Satan.
In the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Eustace is turned into a monster by his greed. He has a dream where he must get undressed out of his monster suit, but everytime he tries he just springs more monster scales beneath. Finally Aslan comes to him and tell him, "I must undress you". He reaches out with his claws and gently tears the monster skin off him.
It hurts so much Eustace thinks he will die, and then he sees his skin is pink underneath like a newborn baby. Aslan then throws him in a pool of fresh water, and he is a child.
It is a beautiful, understandable analogy for children of being "born again" - I used it to show my kids how we could not "undress" ourselves - only Jesus can do it.
I think IOTM meant this guy(?)
Well actually I'm reading and teaching my grandkids. We have them for the summer. See their parents are both TDY in the Air Force. But I can't get them to read Narnia quite yet.
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