The Lion, The Witch, and the Winger?

I know that the "Chronicles of Narnia" are very important to many Christians. I even knew that Disney planned to market this film primarily through churches, as happened with the 2004 blockbuster "Passion of the Christ".

But I didn't know that much about Walden Media, the production company responsible for "Narnia" (as well as the biopic about Ray Charles), or about the head of Walden, Philip Anschutz. This article could have shed light but is subscriber only. This love letter shed a bit more, but only a bit.

Please read this 1998 article on Phillip for a more sobering description of the "Christian billionaire". A few selected passages:

In 1991, the company's pipeline division announced plans to lay 132 miles of crude-oil pipeline adjacent to Southern Pacific track running between Kern County in the Central Valley and refineries in Wilmington and El Segundo. The project proposed the transport of 130,000 barrels of crude oil a day from tankers off the Southern California coast via a 20-inch steel tube passing underneath primarily urban, non-Anglo, working-class communities. Protests went up from neighborhoods all along the route. City councilman Richard Alarcon called the Pacific Pipeline "a classic case of environmental injustice."

Anschutz mounted a $394,000 counterattack headed by former councilwoman Joan Milke Flores that was dubbed by one City Hall observer "the full-employment act for lobbyists." It cut through city council opposition like a knife through cream cheese, easily defeating a weak courtroom challenge. The pipeline is now advancing toward the South Bay at 300 feet per day. Along the way, Anschutz spun off the pipeline operation from the railroad company to his personal holdings.

Anschutz has always used his money for political influence. In 1993, he gave $100,000 to a think tank controlled by his old friend Bob Dole. In '95 and '96, he spent $360,000 backing Republicans, especially the successful 1996 Colorado senatorial run of veterinarian Wayne Allard, a National Rifle Association stalwart who proposed "hangings in the streets" as a criminal deterrent. In the crucial final days of the successful campaign to pass Colorado's Amendment 2, which restricted the right of the state's cities to pass civil rights protection for gays, Anschutz donated $10,000 to the amendment's backers, Colorado for Family Values. At heart, suggests the Denver Business Journal's Dubroff, Anschutz isn't that interested in politics: "He's more of a person who doesn't like government interference."

If you know anyone who plans to see any films by Walden Media, please let them know more about Philip Ancshutz. If they still want to see the Narnia film, or Ray, or what have you, fine, but let them know what the media is not likely to tell them.

Comments

[oregondave]

Hmmm . . . and I thought that line in "Ray" about "laying pipe" was a sexual reference . . . not enough tin-foil in my hat, I guess.

Seriously, what purpose does a boycott serve here? Doesn't it need to be publically visible and linked with individual actions to be effective? I know my decisions are meaningful to me to not buy at McDonald's (Republican donor), or buy Hewlett Packard (job outsourcing), but those are personal consolations, and have no effect at all on those companies, absent some communication to them that they are losing minuscle revenue because of their corporate actions. I would be happy to join others in making a movement out of this, but, realistically, I know I'm not going to be the organizer.

[James]

I'm not calling for a boycott. I'm just troubled by some of the activities of the person whose company is producing this film. I wanted to mention those activities because I don't think the media will. We're probably going to hear endless hype about how this movie is to help kids, this is an example of "moral values", and all the rest. People should at least know what kind of political or religious activitities they might inadvertently end up funding if they see this film.

[al-Fubar]

I have a lurking suspicion that the movie is going to butcher the book in a pander to fundies.

When I read the Narnia books as a kid, the Christian allegory went right past me, even though they were suggested by a Sunday school teacher. I just thought they were cool stories. It would be a shame, though hardly a surprise, if the magic gets beaten to death by blatant prosyletizing.

-- Rick

[janinsanfran]

Those books meant a lot to me -- so I am NOT going to see the movie.

James -- I think you are right to fear what a winger may have done here, but I think we always have to hope that unexpected better influences get through, even inadvertantly. And I am pleased to be able to say that in the Episopal Church there is actually a national program, already started, that seems to aim to reflect on the work of CS Lewis, jumping off from the fact of the movie, but aiming to move beyond from many bits of his oeuvre that are racist and homophobic, toward those that lead in more inclusive directions. It is a gentle nudge, but at least someone thought mainline Christians needed their own interpretive materials.