c. 2004 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) In 1940, if you were a wood carver in a Disney animated film who needed to bring life to a puppet named Pinocchio, you would look to the heavens and wish upon a star _ where dreams, not prayers, come true.

But, if it’s 2002 and you’re a little Hawaiian girl named Lilo who needs a friend, you might kneel by your bedside and actually pray for an angel _ “the nicest angel you have.”

So goes “The Gospel According to Disney,” according to Mark Pinsky, the religion writer for the Orlando Sentinel who previously explored “The Gospel According to The Simpsons” in a 2001 runaway hit.

His new book (Westminster John Knox Press, $14.95, 286 pages) chronicles two sides of the same story: an unchanging message of “faith, trust and pixie dust” at the heart of the Disney gospel, and an evolving treatment of overt religion that has matured over time.

From the magic spells of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” to the vaguely Hindu and Buddhist-inspired theology of “The Lion King” in 1994, it is almost as if Mickey Mouse has left Fantasyland for a meeting of the Parliament of the World’s Religions.

Pinsky found one thing that remains constant throughout the films, an ideology he calls “secular ‘toonism,” a “gospel without God” that helps to shape moral sensibilities in children through quasi-religious values.

“Good is always rewarded; evil is always punished,” Pinsky writes. “Faith is an essential element _ faith in yourself and, even more, faith in something greater than yourself, some higher power. Optimism and hard work complete the basic canon.”

Pinsky is quick to note that Disney’s gospel (unlike the Simpsons’) is not an explicitly religious one. Indeed, in more than 35 animated Disney films, Pinsky found “scarcely a mention of God as conceived in the Christian and Jewish faiths.”

Mostly that is because Walt Disney saw overt religion as “box office poison” that would not appeal to wide audiences, Pinsky said. Disney himself was ambivalent toward organized religion after a strict fundamentalist childhood. Pinsky notes that the one building you won’t see on Main Street USA at Disney World is a church.

The Disney gospel in the early Disney films is fairly easy to spot: lessons of conscience in “Pinocchio,” tolerance and acceptance in “Dumbo,” and truth and consequences in “Alice in Wonderland.” Peter Pan is the chief apostle of Disney’s gospel when he tells the Darling children that “all it takes is faith and trust, but the thing that’s a positive must, is a little bit of pixie dust.”

Preaching the Disney gospel, and living it out, were not always in sync. Pinsky faults “Peter Pan” for dragging out “almost every demeaning cliche about Native Americans,” and later, “Aladdin” for its stereotypical portrayal of Arabs.

Along the way, Disney films embodied a distinctive social message that helped shape young minds. Disney films portrayed environmental protection in “Bambi,” Christian caring for the poor in “Robin Hood” and put a suspicious eye on class distinctions in “Lady and the Tramp.”

After Walt Disney died in 1966, Disney’s animated films went into “the wilderness period,” as Pinsky put it. Most of the films were lackluster, both in style and substance. Take “The Black Cauldron” from 1985, which was bubbling over with sorcery and the occult. “That movie’s a mess,” Pinsky said in an interview.

The Disney franchise was resurrected and reinvigorated in the late 1980s under Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg. What followed were a string of blockbuster hits _ “The Little Mermaid,” “The Lion King,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “Mulan.” In 1996, Disney put religious faith center stage with “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” a film set in a cathedral. Its most poignant lyrics are, “God Help the Outcasts.”

The most striking feature of the later Disney films are the strong female lead characters _ certainly not ladies who will wait for Prince Charming to wake them from their beauty rest. The self-reliance and strong will embodied by Ariel, Belle and Mulan reflect central tenets of the Disney gospel.

Pinsky chose not to look at Disney’s computer-animated films, such as “Toy Story” or “Finding Nemo,” because those films are co-produced by Pixar. Pinsky said the wildly popular films are almost like Disney stepchildren with a new kind of Disney DNA. He also excluded “super lightweight” films like “The Rescuers” and “Aristocats” that were mostly fluff.

In recent years, Disney has also weaved more overt _ and diverse _ expressions of faith into its films: Islam in “Aladdin,” Animism in “Pocahontas,” Buddhism and Hinduism in “The Lion King” and Shaminism in “Brother Bear.”

“As the country’s attitudes toward religion, values and culture have shifted,” wrote Pinsky, “Disney’s animated features _ its historic corporate center of gravity _ have shifted to accommodate them.”

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

Pinsky also examines the Southern Baptist-led boycott of Disney over its gay-friendly policies, which was really one skirmish in a larger cultural battle. “Singling out Disney for blame was like blaming one brand of thermometer for causing a raging fever,” he said.

Pinsky said he’s had “zero reaction” from Disney headquarters, and company officials declined to talk as the book was written. Calls to a Disney spokeswoman were not returned.

While the Disney gospel remains at the core of all the films, Pinsky wonders what Walt Disney would make of the new films, and their open, diverse embrace of religious faith.

“I think he would be more resistant to explicit representations of religion in any form,” he said. “But at the same time I think he would applaud and accept the representation of other cultures in a more authentic way.”

MO/JL END ECKSTROM