Reply #19: As someone who works for Disney; yeah, we knew

[Lorien]

Most of the creative people-including the majority in management-at Disney ARE Democrats and environmentalists. True with most film studios. But the governing board-the "top brass"-is often repug (also true with most entertainment corporations). ABC's management is definitely repug, while Pixar and Disney Feature Animation lean liberal. We're a very fractured company, and many departments are very independent from one another. Just the process of moving a style guide or set of model sheets from a film production into marketing or merchandising is a frigging nightmare; you'd think that every department of the company were a COMPLETELY separate entity-and a competitor at that! That said; all the top brass cares about is how well the film scores with test audiences and what the merchandise tie in possibilities are. They don't give a crap about the message. "Pocahontas" had a very strong pro environment message and the Right Wing did deluge the company with complaints about it. Disney didn't care. They also don't care when we complain about conservative propaganda on ABC unless we swamp their advertisers with hard copy complaints.

WALL-E won't win Best Picture because the Academy set aside a separate category for animated films when "Beauty and the Beast" came within 30 votes of winning that prize in 1992. Many Academy members were miffed that our lowly hand drawn animated picture would dare to take on more "serious" film makers. It'll win best animated picture hands down, no doubt about that!

I just saw the film about two hours ago. It was a bit gloomy-and particularly disturbing for me as my father is in about the same state as the people on the Axiom were. I'll urge him to see it as I hope it'll be a small wake up call for him-but I won't hold my breath. I think it is a warning to us all; we are making the earth unlivable RIGHT NOW, and there's no floating cruise ship in space to save our species. Connecting to one another and preserving our home is far more important than shopping and continual entertainment. I hope that the message does come across to the youngest of viewers. I don't know how much hope I have for our own generation.