Issues@Hand
AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs
April 1997 – Under the leadership of President Michael Eisner, the Walt Disney Company continues to promote immorality like homosexuality – and now even incest – in its corporate drive to generate even more profits.
Miramax Films, wholly-owned by the Walt Disney Co., snapped up The House of Yes, a film with a theme involving incest, at the Sundance Film Festival for $2 million.
The movie is described by movie reviewer John Brodie as “a dark comedy about blue-blooded incest,” and stars Parker Posey, Josh Hamilton, Genevieve Bujold and Tori Spelling. In the picture, Posey and Hamilton play twins (male and female) who have had a long-running incestuous involvement. Hamilton tries to escape that relationship with his sister in favor of a normal relationship with fiancee Spelling. But as reviewer Dennis Harvey said of the movie for Variety magazine, “Old habits die hard.”
Donald E. Wildmon, president of American Family Association, said, “Disney and its subsidiaries seem to have little or no standards in their search for profit. The Bible says the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and now even incest is being marketed for a buck.”
Disney has drawn criticism for Miramax films before. The subsidiary originally owned the distribution rights to Kids, a movie with explicit teenage sex and which Daily Variety called “the most controversial American film made in the modern era or maybe ever.” To side-step the controversy, the two principals of Miramax formed an independent company to market the film. Miramax also released the homosexual film Lie Down With Dogs and the anti-Catholic movie Priest.
Miramax appears to be enthusiastic about The House of Yes. One of the movie’s producers, Beau Flynn, said, “There was a lot of interest from several distributors in (the film), but we decided to go with Miramax after hearing how much they loved the film and hearing their marketing concept for the movie.”
Disney responsible for ABC’s Ellen
Homosexuality continues to be a staple in Disney’s buffet line. Since September the ABC sitcom Ellen has been teasing the issue with hints that its lead character, played by comedienne Ellen DeGeneres, would openly announce her homosexuality as part of its story line. ABC Entertainment President Jamie Tarses admitted that the episode was in the works, but she added that the network has not decided whether or not it would air the show.
The resulting buzz in the entertainment world has been fed by a steady stream of moments in the sitcom that hint at the “outing” of character Ellen Morgan. In each, the writers of the show are clearly indicating that Ellen is “growing” towards the moment when she admits her true sexual orientation.
In one such episode in February, Ellen attends a New Age retreat with Peter, who is one of the show’s two regular homosexual characters. The weekend is supposed to lead to self-discovery.
In one scene, the attendees at the retreat are each to look into a mirror and speak to themselves honestly. Ellen does so, then passes the mirror to Peter. But each time Peter tells himself something, Ellen interrupts and says that what Peter has said has reminded her about something else she wants to tell herself. Finally, Peter tells himself happily, “You’re gay!” Then he hands the mirror back, and asks, “Ellen?” While she doesn’t admit to being lesbian, the studio audience cheers loudly.
Then, the group pairs off in another exercise where each is to be totally honest with his or her partner. Ellen and Peter are paired, and Peter tells her, “I don’t think you’re as happy as you pretend to be. In fact, I think you pretend about a lot of things. And, in fact, I don’t think you’re completely honest with yourself.” Before he can finish, however, Ellen cuts him off, refusing to accept what he is saying.
Ellen struggles the entire show with whether or not Peter is right. Before the show ends, however, Ellen admits that she is not happy, but wants to be. The implication has little subtlety at all: Ellen is not happy because she is pretending to be straight, when she is really a lesbian.
It’s not clear whether most people outside Hollywood care whether Ellen stays in or comes out of the closet. After the initial furor over the possible lesbian plotline in September, the ratings for the show dropped. As a result, Ellen was moved from its 8 P.M. (ET) time slot to 9:30 P.M., following the Drew Carey Show, where its ratings have improved.
But some within the homosexual community have been frustrated with the stalling. Todd Simmons, co-chair of the Human Rights Task Force in Tampa, Florida, and a columnist for a gay and lesbian newspaper, said, “It’s been a little frustrating to watch the show and hope, week after week, that it would happen. I’m sure that ABC and the producers of Ellen will milk this storyline for every potential piece of publicity imaginable.” And beyond the show’s character, a cover story in the lesbian magazine Curve asked why the actress herself – Ellen DeGeneres – has not ‘come out’ of the closet if she is, as persistent rumor maintains, a lesbian in real life.
Meanwhile the Hollywood Reporter said its sources say the network will probably air the long-awaited lesbian episode on April 30, possibly in a one-hour show. That would put Ellen’s announcement at the start of the May “sweeps” period, when networks traditionally pull out all the stops in an effort to attract viewers.
However, even Hollywood Reporter is hedging its bets. It says ABC and Disney executives still haven’t given final approval for the show. While that decision would have to come from the highest levels of both companies, a TV Guide story said that the call is really Disney’s to make. Once Walt Disney Television president Dean Valentine gives his O.K. on the script, ABC executives would probably fall in line.
Sources at Disney told TV Guide that the script has Ellen receiving a visit from a man who was an old college friend, but Ellen finds herself attracted to his female companion. Preliminary discussions were targeting Laura Dern (Jurassic Park) as Ellen’s lesbian love interest, and Oprah Winfrey as the therapist whom Ellen seeks out for help in coming to terms with her true sexual identity.
“Gay Day at Disney World”
If Ellen Morgan does, in fact, reveal her lesbianism during the May Sweeps, it will merely pave the way for the June event that has come to symbolize the growing clout of homosexuals at Disney: “The Seventh Annual Gay & Lesbian Day at the Magical Kingdom” in Orlando, Florida. More commonly referred to as simply Gay Day at Disney, the event has been held on the first Saturday of June every year since 1991 – and this year the day falls on June 7.
Disney does not officially sponsor the event, but is apparently enthusiastic about reaping the windfall that Gay Day generates. Estimates of the 1996 numbers put the homosexual attendance at Gay Day at over 60,000, with 80,000 expected this year. Organizers estimate that the economic impact of the event allows Orlando to rake in $20 million, much of that going into Disney’s bank account. Homosexual activist Doug Swallow, whose “Official Web Site of Gay and Lesbian Day” is Grand Central Station for information on the event, said that Disney is learning that “Gay Day is a huge revenue generator, and that gays are an equal consumer.”
While Disney continues to deny any official sponsorship of the yearly gathering, one observer noted that the company has made sure that its “staff has been thoroughly sensitized to the needs of the gay community.”
And as much as possible, Disney seems willing to embrace the homosexuals in attendance. One homosexual writer more than agreed in an article detailing last year’s Gay Day. At one of the Disney bars on Pleasure Island, he said “the cast members had sprinkled gay comments throughout the shows, and the crowd ate it up.… They finished one show by singing, ‘Whenever we see a rainbow, we’ll think of you.’ We weren’t just accepted, but embraced.”
And the sponsors of Gay Day seem to sense that the welcome mat is in plain enough view that they regularly use Disney’s registered trademarks. Swallow’s website is one example, as the likeness of Disney cartoon characters are sometimes portrayed as homosexuals in the promotion of the event.
In any case, the Gay Day sponsors seem to be cozying up to their newfound benefactors. And there can be little doubt that Walt Disney World has welcomed the growing gay numbers while ignoring the growing chorus of complaints from families and family-friendly groups.
TV Guide, March 1-7/97; NY Post, 2/17/97; Hollywood Reporter, 2/17/97; Curve, 1/97;
Daily Variety, 9/20/96, 1/20/97, 1/21/97; St. Petersburg Times, 1/20/97;
Encounters Magazine, 7/96; Philadelphia Gay News, 7/5-11/96
