When I was a little boy I used to watch “The Wonderful World of Disney,” and they had heroes. There was Fess Parker playing Davy Crockett. There was Zorro, the Swamp Fox and the Scarecrow. They fought against tyranny.
(The kind of Americans we use to have.)
They did what was right at great risk.
I was a little boy in those far off days. Those characters were my heroes.
So, I have to ask. Do the people running Disney every watch their own programs? Do they care what kind of example they set? Do they look in the mirror and wonder where it all went wrong because wrong it is?
They gave into evil.
They surrendered to an orange make up covered villain. And they did it knowing that they will be bullied again and again. Once the bad guys understand what brought fear and collapsed the spines of the management at Disney, they will do it again and again. Surrender and appeasement never stop. The crawling abasement of the defeated and the cowardly continues forever.
It is said the coward dies a thousand deaths, the hero just one. Well, Disney is on one death among many. I almost pity them.
What happened to doing what was right? What happened to facing the threat of tyranny with courage and resolve?
Was it just programming? They portrayed heroic behavior to beguile children into buying merchandise? Was that all it was, just a con? Or did they at one time believe that Americans had to stand up for what was right?
We’ll never know. For what can they say that we can trust? What can they say that we will believe?
If you don’t have a spine or courage, what won’t you say? What won’t you do to give yourself one more day, one more minute of hiding from the bully, one more desperate plea, “Please don’t hit me! I’ll do anything you want me to!”
Courage is necessary right now. Many Americans are standing up against what is happening.
But not everyone is up to the standard of men and women of courage. They prefer to crawl and we should pity them but never forget that when the time came to take a stand, they ran like hell.
Getting even is a need for many people. Donald Trump has made getting even the central theme of his existence. The crawling thing inside him that passes for a soul only wants to punish and diminish his perceived enemies. He lives for this.
The Alumni Association says they changed their mind because it allows them to focus on its core mission of preparing cadets to lead, fight and win as officers.
I believe that is a lie and pitiful nonsense as well.
The award to Tom Hanks was well founded. It would be hard to find any American who has done more for the public of the Academy and the American military.
Why is this award being revoked?
Revenge.
Tom Hanks campaigned for Joe Biden. He was not one of Donald Trump’s friends.
He had to be punished.
This is despicable. It is the behavior of a tyrant. Every Middle Eastern despot, every fascist leader and every South American medal draped fool, all share the same need to make their enemies pay.
There is never enough praise, awards and attention to fill the empty hole of Trump’s tiny ego.
So, he settles for revenge.
The English has a phrase which I want to use on this occasion “he’s not fit to clean his boots.”
And so the fact of the matter is clear. Donald Trump is unworthy even to clean Tom Hanks’ boots.
Bugs Bunny is a cartoon version of an idealized American. He embodies many American virtues. He is not greedy and content with having just enough. Many simple pleasures make him happy. He loves a good meal, meeting new people, travel and a good joke. He is courageous and does not tolerate abuse or injustice. He is the very soul of patriotism, (He is an honorary United States Marine!)
(This is a 1912 picture from a book of stories. Alas, there is no picture of Bugs that is not under copyright protection.)
I used some of his cartoons in my classes to illustrate several different economic concepts. Like most Americans he does not aspire to be rich, he aspires to have “enough.” In the cartoons, his concept of “enough” boils down to a comfortable rabbit hole, food to eat, (many cartoons show him as visiting stores or cultivating food). He is often seen in bed reading what we assume is a good book.
The plot of the story in the cartoons revolves around Bugs’ response to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Various hunters, crooks, con men, grifters, mad scientists, monsters and the occasional vampire show up to steal from him, harm him or just kill him. Bugs defeats his opponents by determination, humor and inventiveness, qualities that Americans with considerable justification believe they have in abundance.
Using him as an economic example generally involved his less meritorious sometimes friend and often enemy, Daffy Duck.
The Economics of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck
In one cartoon I used “Ali Baba Bunny” (1957), Bugs and Daffy find the fabled treasure of Ali Baba, a huge and sprawling treasure similar to a dragon horde, which is promptly claimed in total with no justification whatever by Daffy – with the following line:
While Bugs is content with what he has, Daffy is the “other” American, the grasping “get rich quick” fool who never stops looking for some easy way to make piles of money. If that wasn’t bad enough he is perennially incompetent and constantly goes into situations over his head.
Of course, whenever you encounter treasure there must be a guard. Bugs saves Daffy from certain death at the hands of “Hassan,” although repeatedly the cowardly duck tries to betray him. Daffy’s greed keeps getting him into danger and eventually Bugs leaves him to his dire fate.
Daffy at one point bundles every last coin up for his own use while Bugs simply continues on his journey taking nothing, content with what he has and unwilling to take what isn’t his.
It’s a good lesson and I usually add examples of treasure hunters spending their lives in the fruitless search for immense wealth. You know pirate treasure, the lost Dutchman mine, gold prospecting and the list goes on.
In another cartoon showcasing his immense greed, Daffy captures the Tasmanian Devil. In the 1957 short feature, Ducking the Devil, Daffy a loudly self-proclaimed coward discovers that there is a 5,000 dollar reward for returned the escaped Tasmanian Devil to the zoo.
Daffy after many misadventures lures the creature back into its cage and collects the money. While he is walking away, a single dollar bill is caught by a breeze and carried into the monster’s cage, where upon an outraged Daffy charges in, beats the creature to a pulp and recovers his dollar. (My Chinese exchange students really enjoyed this cartoon.)
I use cartoons, short movie clips, jokes, etc. to lead into discussion of the more intricate points of law, of capitalism, the American Experience — you know – Teaching.
Why use cartoons and all the myriad things I find to interest my students?
It was my transcript.
As you might imagine I am quite capable as a student (317 college hours later). So, I have a large transcript and I happened to be looking at it and I realized there were many classes I had no memory of. I could not picture the instructor, remember the textbook and to my ultimate despair, none of the coeds I flirted with. It made me sad.
And so I decided to teach in an unforgettable manner. I took whatever subject was in hand (I’ve taught 23 different courses and I am qualified to teach quite a few subjects I never got around to teaching.) and divided it into a set of critical lessons. My Business Law course, one of them, boiled down to thirteen critical lessons.
Okay, very good, I knew what to teach. How to get it across? Not hard. Stories! At first I told stories from the law. Stories I’d learned in law school and from my wide reading. Then I added jokes and then I read large story collections and picked out a chosen few. Then I began my use of classic movies and I added discussions of literature, history, sociology and the struggles of Americans toward greater freedom, minorities and women. Every day I combed the Internet, magazines and sometimes just stuff I observed always looking for that hook that would catch their interest.
Years after being in one of my courses, students will remind me of a story I told, or a movie they watched or a class discussion they never forgot.
I think I did okay. I miss teaching.
But I will maintain against all opposition that Bugs Bunny has his place in Business Law and Business Ethics.
“Call Me Chato” is one of many sites poking fun at Disney’s “The Acolyte.” But there is no sport in it. Like shooting fish in a barrel, there is no challenge in criticizing this awful product. At this point in my life, even the idea of shelling any amount of money to watch a Disney Star Wars product carries the risk of nausea. The films consist of “Mary Sues” who often behave in illogical, irrational and often psychopathic ways. I believe in romance, heroism and remain fascinated by “The Hero’s Journey,” all the stuff that Disney disdains.
So, why am I talking about it today? I must confess I am bewildered. When Disney bought Star Wars, they essentially bought a license to print money just as long as they made movies celebrating the things the made the films great. Why didn’t they do that? Just to pick out the most egregious example, Rian Johnson’s “The Last Jedi” is a thumb in the eye to anyone who at any time found anything positive in value in the film series. I saw a video the other day in which a more skilled film analyst than I showed in excruciating scene after scene how Johnson belittled and humiliated every character in the film.
Again and again when confronted with the values and stories that made the Lucas films worth billions of dollars, Disney does something else. Why? Apparently feminist ideology is more important than story telling and making money. I’m not too surprised by the feminist silliness but the not making money part of the equation astonishes me every time I think about it.
And they hate the fans. They hate the fans bad. This is major hatred. And there is no fan they hate more than one who dares criticize what they’ve done with the Star Wars products. According to Disney, these fans only hate what they are doing because the fans are racist and misogynistic. Really? Bad writing, nonsensical stories and characters that don’t make act logically or intelligently might seem to many like a problem not associated with racism or feminism but I guess not being a fervent advocate of diversity and inclusion — and seeing that world through only that prism may keep me from understanding the full horror of my point of view.
I actually have a different theory about why Disney hates the fans. It’s the writing. Disney wants to change, well, everything. And fans remember the story and they want the rules of the story to be followed. They want Lucas’ vision to be honored. The only thing a Disney writer wants (besides a feminist, diversity cast) is to make a big splash by butchering story elements often when it doesn’t make sense or add any interest to the story. The last thing an enterprising writer who intends to butcher every element of a well established story wants to hear is a fan pointing out their mistake because butchering the star war canon is bad writing and is destructive of an intellectual product worth a bundle of money. And deep, deep in their little, tiny feminist heart, they feel just a twinge of guilt. Not real guilt, mind you, the historical White and Male kind of guilt from the distant past before Disney declared war on the Male Patriarchy — and led women to the glorious future of films they watch in relatively small numbers while men find them repulsive not watching at all but I digress.
When does the horror end? That is, when does Disney return to rational plots and once in a long while, a compelling male character.
Never.
Now, you’re probably thinking, “James, James, didn’t you see “The Marvels?” Disney lost 237 million dollars on that! They just can’t keep doing that, right?”
Wrong. The Disney corporation makes most of its money from its terrifyingly mediocre television channel and its theme parks and these billions of dollars make it possible for them to turn out losing films for year after year, decade after decade, and just maybe, corporations being essentially immortal, maybe forever.
So, what do I recommend?
Give up! Watch other products. Star Wars was good and we will always have the original films. Tune these looney people out. They’re not worth your time or pain or mine.
So, why am I so mad?
I’ll tell you the truth. I raised a son. We watched the Star Wars films together. I took him to the theater whenever possible to see them on the big screen. It was an important part of being a father, a big part of our relationship. And then he saw, “The Last Jedi.” He said, “Dad, that ends it for me. There’s nothing worth watching in that series any more.” And so we no longer share that common experience of a same program and how it was when he was five and watching Episode four with a big bucket of popcorn and actual enjoyment.
Everyone is very brave including America’s allies.
Gary Cooper
I’m very fond of Gary Cooper films. “Love in the Afternoon” is one of my all time favorites. It is odd to think that I who have loved the film for more than two decades have now arrived at the same age as Gary Cooper in that film. Here below is that film – http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/FLXUYnBwLXI/
I don’t know whether or not you can work the link. It’s a Chinese web site and they may be suspicious of occidentals.
But back to The Story of Dr. Wassell. Dr. Corydon Wassell was an Arkansan, a very real person not a fictional archetype. The story is full of references to Arkansas including a long soliloquy to Arkansas catfish. The film is fun to watch but the heroics so incredible as to defy rational belief. Of course, that is to be expected in a wartime film. This is directed by Cecil B. DeMille and carries his trademark taste for complex action sequences. If you are not tolerant of heroism without limits, you probably will find the film ridiculous. An interesting side note is that Wassell was a uncredited advisor on the film and all of the money he was due from the film he donated to charity.
Films receive a wide variety of responses in the college classroom. The response to Gasland was excellent. The class paid careful attention, had good questions and comments. I knew of the film but did not intend to use it in class. My Tuesday-Thursday class actually asked to see it. So, I read up on it, and it struck me as useful. I’ve shown it in three classes now with the same positive results in each class.
Josh Fox
This is a Josh Fox film. The first time you see it, you are shocked by his story of unregulated drilling of natural gas known as fracking. But is only the second time, you realize the skill of our documentarian. The film never sags. It always keeps the audience engaged. The film is well paced and its plotline beautifully constructed. I’ll be watching for any of his films in the future. It may well be that his work will grow in skill as time goes by.
It is troubling to consider that for most of us, Josh Fox is our only defense against the practice of fracking. Only a handful of states regulate it, and the response of most of officialdom to complaints is basically to drop dead.
You see, an act of Congress relieved the giant energy companies of the need to comply with federal environmental laws. Federal agencies aren’t even allowed to study what the companies are doing. We only have partial knowledge of the chemicals being used, and the very fact that these companies essentially placed themselves outside the law through a compliant Congress raises suspicions of their motives.
I think until strong regulation is enacted to deal with the fracking problem, I will be using the film in class.
Below is a link to the web address for Josh Fox’s film, Gasland.
I love those blog entries that list little teasers connected to links. It’s a sort of internet buffet, a little of this and a little of that. This one has some fun teasers and interesting ideas.
James Pilant
–A challenge to libertarians on the coecivene power of private entities. –A.O. Scott on superhero movies as a Ponzi scheme. –Richard Beck of Experimental Theology on why he blogs. –A political typology quiz from the Pew Research Center. (I scored as a “solid libera.l” Although I’d take issue with the way some of the choices were presented.) –An end to “bad guys.” –Def Leppard’s Hysteria and the changing meaning of having a “number 1” album. … Read More
David Gushee has some thoughts. He analyzes several recent movies for their virtuous elements. Here’s his view of True Grit –
True Grit is certainly the only movie in living memory that starts with a biblical quotation and has a musical score drawn from old Baptist hymns like “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” This Western of fierce retribution and family honor is indeed one of the most explicitly religious major films in a long time. (If you leave out the Left Behind movies, or anything with Kirk Cameron in it.)
But this is a religiosity of law and retribution, of wrath and justice. This is eye-for-eye religion; it’s about the price in blood and sweat and risk one is obligated to pay to avenge the unjust death of a loved one. True Grit teaches the virtues of, well, true grit, courage and toughness and unflinching justice. And yet the score hits grace notes in the margins, perhaps a reminder that frontier religion mixed justice in the street with grace in the sanctuary, a paradigm that is still with us.
I have a passion for movies. Last night, my wife and I watched I Hate Valentine’s Day, a romantic comedy. The film carried no great moral weight. It was sweet and funny. I can work with that. Not to mention the fact, that while I am watching a Korean film like Cyborg She, my wife is dozing in the background. So, fnding common film ground is important if she is to remain conscious or not flee the room.
I Hate Valentine’s Day
Cyborg She
I try to watch at least one film a night. I don’t manage it as often as I like.
Many films are just entertainment. But the great films like Ikiru, The Seven Samurai, The Apartment, Lawrence of Arabia, etc. often carry a great deal of moral weight.
Movies tend to bypass our analytical abilities and go straight to our emotions and unconscious. Sending moral and ethical messages more or less unconsciously has serious ethical implications. Nevertheless, since it is already a common practice, using this unconscious loading factor we can manipulate our own morality and the morality of others through film choices.
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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