Karen, Kenney and I spent last night at Disneyland. We had a blast. I finally got to visit the park for the first time in my life. I'd been reading about it since I was a child but I've only been out to LA a few times in my life and Disneyland never really figured in my plans before.
I was watching the fireworks finale at the end, marveling at the choreography between the explosions and the music. I noticed the way that the songs quoted just enough of the various Disney movie dialogue that you were immediately taken to the same emotional space that you were in watching the movie. It was masterful manipulation. All the chicas and chicos were hugging, the children were in awe and the parents were misty eyed. (Except me of course... I always respond to emotional manipulation by getting fiercely analytical. It's a problem I have...) It was a brilliantly done bit of stagecraft with a final message that, if you just wished hard enough, and believed in yourself, you could anything you wanted.
Which isn't true of course, but it's a lovely bit of American mythology.
What really took me back though was the realization of how much better the smart folks of Disney were at presenting their message than we in the Church are at presenting ours. Would that we would commit to doing such a good job in our proclamation that people would stand for hours just to get a good view of the 10 minutes sermon...
Might make situations such as we're facing in the Episcopal Church right now be a thing of our past.
The reason Disney is so successful at'presenting the message' is that they know exactly what emotional buttons to push (i.e., how to manipulate)... and that isn't really what the church is about (one hopes!) I'm glad you weren't so analytical that it interfered with your enjoyment of the magic!
CJS
Posted by: Claudia Svara | July 07, 2009 at 04:13 PM