Drudge linked to an article covering the Catholic Abbot of Worth's attack on Disney as a source of instilling materialism in children. (Does anyone else think it's ironic that the Abbot of Worth is preaching on value and fetishization?)
His argument is perhaps best summed up in the following:
"Where once morality and meaning were available as part of our free cultural inheritance, now corporations sell them to us as products."
I think he's really hit on something particularly poignant when he describes how Disney transforms "free cultural inheritance" into a product. All of those famous Disney fairy-tales used to be public domain and folk tales. Today, it's hard to think about Cinderella or Snow White without thinking of Disney's version of them.
The more important point, though, that the Abbot makes is that all of these narratives are ultimately to drive merchandise and profit...and as someone who still squanders quite a bit of his income acquiring sci-fi collectibles, I think I have a pretty good idea of what the Abbot is talking about.
Whereas our narratives used to be a means of creating a cultural community or educating ourselves, our narratives have become secondary to driving cash cow franchises.
I don't think this is a particularly new phenomenon. Homer probably sang to keep himself fed. Shakespeare wrote plays to boost ticket sales. Even Wordsworth has been accused of becoming a sellout once he became poet Laureate.
And, in a way, these authors can be just as bad as Disney--(and I'm thinking of the giftshop at the Folger Shakespeare Library in particular).
Of course, a similar phenomena occurs even within religious circles. We all know young Catholics who approach their religion the way fourteen-year-old girls go batty over Hannah Montana bookbags. These are the members of the Jesus fan club, as I like to call them, and there are people who will try to make a profit off of religious fervor. If we are tolerant of Jesus fan club members it is only because we hope their enthusiasm leads them to something better than Miley Cyrus.
But as the Abbot points out, there is something very disturbing and unhealthy about using narrative to stir up a rabid fanbase rather than to question the state of humanity, using art to literally sell a fantasy of happiness or fulfillment rather than as a means of transmitting Truth in some sort or another.
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