May 24 1999

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Leaders of evangelical, Southern Baptist, and Roman Catholic groups are declaring victory in the latest skirmish of an ongoing battle against entertainment giant Disney, Inc.

In April, brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein, whose Miramax Films unit counts Disney as a major investor, said they would pay the media conglomerate $12 million for Disney's share of the controversial new film Dogma. They will set up a separate company to distribute the movie. Disney officials refused repeated requests from CT to comment on the move. How ever, critics of the company believe the new film far exceeds Disney's tolerance for controversial subjects.

According to media reports, Dogma, written and directed by Roman Catholic Kevin Smith, stars Academy Award–winners Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as angels seeking a return to heaven after being banished. The film also stars Chris Rock as a trash-talking thirteenth apostle. Plot elements include a female descendant of Joseph and Mary who works in an abortion facility; a Skeeball-obsessed God, played by rock singer Alanis Morissette; and a Christ figure giving a thumbs-up salute instead of suffering during crucifixion.

Smith, 32, burst upon the Hollywood scene in 1994 with the hugely profitable and vulgar Clerks, a movie produced for $27,000 about denizens of a convenience store. He received critical and commercial acclaim by the time of his third movie, Chasing Amy—about a man who falls in love with a lesbian—in 1997.

CROSSING THE LINE? The blasphemies suggested in Dogma are too much for critics such as Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in Nashville and William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious ...