Representatives of the Southern Baptist Convention—America’s largest Protestant denomination (15 million members)—voted this summer to boycott the Walt Disney Co. in protest of its “anti-family,” “anti-Christian,” and “gay-friendly” policies.
The denomination’s action inspired a flurry of media coverage and reignited a long-simmering debate over the pros and cons of boycotts. We’re going to take a look at that debate and, along the way, examine the history of boycotts, as well as the complex subject of how effective they’ve proven to be.
Two centuries of boycotts
The boycott—the refusal to do business or have contact with persons, corporations, or countries—has been used for centuries, often as a desperate response by a group that feels it’s being harassed or ignored.
The first boycott took place in 19th-century Ireland, where English overlords practiced a form of ethnic cleansing against the native Irish. Captain Charles Boycott, an English land agent, was so harsh with his tenants that people living nearby refused to have anything to do with the captain or his family.
In the 1950s, southern blacks used boycotts against bus companies practicing segregation, such as forcing African American riders to “go to the back of the bus.” The lengthy boycott (during which many boycotters instead walked from place to place) brought the bus companies to their knees and helped propel the then-struggling civil rights movement.
In the 1980s, Christian crusaders like the American Family Association’s Donald Wildmon began using the boycott as a weapon in the pop culture wars. Wildmon organized one of the most successful boycotts ever, which began with protests against 7-Eleven stores, where 20 percent of the Playboy magazines purchased in America were sold. The chain responded by dropping Playboy and other men’s magazines. Wildmon also targeted companies that advertised in these publications. The results were stunning. Circulation dropped for Playboy, Penthouse, and similar men’s magazines. Soon many major advertisers began spending their dollars elsewhere. AFA, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, continues to use the advertiser boycott as a major weapon against pop culture products it sees as offensive or destructive.
But when some Christians went after Hollywood in 1988, the results were less successful. The target was Martin Scorcese’s film, The Last Temptation of Christ, a controversial adaptation of the Nikos Kazantzakis novel which portrayed Jesus as tormented by doubt and lust. Christian activists staged protests—one of which featured a mock crucifixion—and charged that “Hollywood Jews” were killing Jesus once again. Campus Crusade for Christ founder and president Bill Bright offered $10 million for the film’s original print, which he promised to burn. Nationally, conservative Christians pressured theaters not to show the movie. As an unintended consequence of all the hoopla, what would have been a little-noticed sleeper of a film became a national sensation and a mild box-office success.
Studio heads, who saw what Christian activists had done to help promote The Last Temptation of Christ, tried to generate similar controversy for The Handmaid’s Tale, a 1990 adaptation of a Margaret Atwood novel about a futuristic, sexually sterile, theocratic society that enslaved fertile women, making them “handmaids.” But Christian organizations didn’t take the bait—they refused to protest the movie, which was a dismal box office failure.
In the 1990s, debates over music have received the most attention. Bill Bennett has gone after gangsta rap. Police organizations protested Ice T’s rap song, “Cop Killer,” and just about everybody was grossed out by the violent and misogynistic lyrics of rappers the Geto Boys. But after getting dropped by their record label, Geffen, the Geto Boys were quickly snapped up by a competitor that sold hundreds of thousands of copies of their controversial album.
Dueling with Disney
This year’s big boycott was against Disney. The house of Mickey has been under fire for some time, actually. Its film subsidiary, Miramax, caused commotions after releasing Pulp Fiction, Priest, Trainspotting, and Kids. The company has been a boycott target before, with pressure coming from the AFA, the Assemblies of God, and the national Association of Free Will Baptists.
At the Southern Baptist Convention’s June meeting, a show of hands by 12,000 delegates led to passage of a boycott resolution, which urged members to “take the stewardship of their time, money, and resources so seriously that they refrain from patronizing Disney Co. and any of its related entities.”
In addition, Focus on the Family joined the SBC’s boycott in late August, while the Assemblies of God, the Presbyterian Church in America, Concerned Women for America, and the AFA were said to be in favor of the boycott as well. A USA Weekend phone-in poll showed Americans evenly divided over the necessity of the boycott.
But boycotting Disney, a conglomerate with an expected 1997 income of $22 billion, makes fighting city hall seem like swatting a wounded fly. As one Wall Street analyst put it, “Disney blankets our culture.”
Aside from the theme parks, movies, videos, and the ABC network, Disney owns cable networks (ESPN, AE, and Lifetime), book publishers (including Hyperion), magazines (including Discover and Women’s Wear Daily), newspapers (the Kansas City Star)—the list is endless.
While Disney’s sheer size means it’s not likely to suffer financially, it’s also forever a target for other groups with other agendas. The National Federation of the Blind protested Mr. Magoo (a long-popular nearsighted character) and Beverly LaHaye’s Concerned Women for America went after the Little Mermaid, saying her sea shell bikini top is “made to appear sexual to children.”
Weighing the pros and cons
Boycotts are relatively modern by-products of democratic capitalism, and perhaps not surprisingly, they’re not mentioned in the Bible. While some believers embrace them, others dispute their long-term effectiveness. Here are a couple of questions that may help you weigh the evidence.
1. How should Christians relate to culture?
This question has inspired a handful of probing books (including Niebuhr’s classic, Christ and Culture) and untold prayers. What counsel can we get from the Bible regarding a pop culture colossus that Peter and Paul couldn’t have foreseen? What should Christians consume? And perhaps even more important, what are the best ways for Christians to influence our culture’s movers and shakers?
Larry Poland is the chairman and CEO of Mastermedia International, a Redlands, Calif.-based ministry to Christians in the entertainment industry. He’s also one of the more outspoken critics of boycotts, which he calls “selective patronage.”
Poland lumps boycotts together with other “external pressure strategies,” such as letter-writing campaigns, awards and cash gifts for positive values, pickets, protests, and litigation. None work, he says. “None of the[se] strategies has been consistently or significantly successful in changing the decisions and policies of media’s leaders,” says Poland.
So what does work?
Action that’s a bit more low-key, small-scale, and personal, Poland says. Friendships, witnessing, discipleship, networking, and training, all of which Poland has been doing in Hollywood for more than a decade.
2. What’s the impact on young people?
What might Southern Baptist youths make of the Disney boycott? Do they wonder why suddenly the family no longer watches “Home Improvement,” a show the folks previously praised as a fine, family-oriented program? When a group of kids wants to see Hercules or George of the Jungle, will kids affected by the boycott excuse themselves, citing Disney’s anti-Christian agenda?
But perhaps even more important, how will these kids, as they grow up, view their faith as it relates to the broader culture? What happens when they realize that God may be calling them to incarnational careers, such as producers in Hollywood studios or as publicists for mainstream record labels?
Boycotts against entertainment entities have had mixed results, at best. Wildmon’s Playboy boycott was clearly a success. But boycotts against The Last Temptation of Christ, rap music, and other forms of entertainment—while making some power brokers sweat—have made successes out of sows’ ears. So we must weigh our options and be ever mindful that efforts to sock it to Disney—or similar media giants—may, in the long run, reap unintended and unwanted consequences.