Christians laud Walt, criticize Disney Co.

Hundreds of Christian filmmakers gathered in Texas on Monday to study the work of Walt Disney and discuss their belief that his corporate heirs at Walt Disney Co. have strayed from his family-friendly legacy.

The Christian Filmmakers Academy, which trains aspiring filmmakers and promotes films with “biblical values,” contends that Disney Co. has become “an engine of cultural decline after Walt’s death” that exercises an alarmingly vast global influence.

The two-day analysis of Disney, the man and the corporation, is part of the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival and the third annual Christian Filmmakers Academy.

Despite their admiration for its founder, the focus on Disney the company reflects some evangelical Christians’ growing discomfort with the content and reach of the company’s entertainment products.

Disney’s relationship with the Christian community has been strained over the last decade because of such issues as company policies that are considered friendly to gays, although Christian groups halted a nine-year boycott of the company in 2005.

The Texas event offers a rare glimpse into Christian entertainment and gives a platform to filmmakers who are trying to create alternatives to mass-market fare, using as a model the founder of a company they have criticized.

“What we really see is a decline in the ethics and standards of where [Walt] Disney was coming from,” academy founder Doug Phillips said. “We are making the case that there is a departure toward politically correct filmmaking that has a negative effect on family.”

Disney executives did not respond to requests for comment.

Over the years, evangelicals have been angered by what they described as Disney’s gay-friendly policies, which included airing a “coming out” episode of the ABC television show “Ellen” and allowing gay and lesbian days at Disney theme parks.

The groups also objected to some films with graphic or religious themes released by Disney’s art-house film unit, Miramax, including “Pulp Fiction,” “Priest” and “Dogma.”

The company has made big marketing pushes aimed at Christian consumers in recent years with the films “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” and Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto.”

“I have no illusions that the Walt Disney Co. is motivated out of love or even deference to Christians in America in their filmmaking decisions,” Phillips said. “They follow the dollar, and they play different sides against each other.”

Budding filmmakers will study Walt Disney’s mastery of then-cutting-edge technology and classic storytelling and the “19th century values” -- monogamy, faithfulness, patriotism and virtue -- that infused his stories, said Geoffrey Botkin, a member of the academy’s faculty.

“Walt really was inventive in ways that were really valuable to the filmmakers we are training,” Botkin said. “Walt was not tied into the dominating filmmaking center in New York. Our filmmakers want to be outside of Hollywood.”

Botkin said early Pixar films created by Walt Disney devotee John Lasseter had “an understanding of classic storytelling,” but he described such Disney blockbusters as “Pirates of the Caribbean” as “incoherent” and “not made for families.”