TIMtheTOON

I mean this in the most literal sense: is nothing sacred?

Disney is finding new avenues to shill their latest feature film.

Dozens of churches nationwide will host sneak peeks of parts of the film before its December opening.

Hollywood Marketing Films Through Churches, reports Yahoo! News.

Said Dennis Rice, head of publicity at the Walt Disney Studios,

“As good business people, we’d be silly not to tap into every fan of the book and hope they will become a fan of the movie.”

As many people know, churches, synagogues and masonic temples are places where dozens of people congregate on a weekly basis. And as any advertising executive or suicide bomber knows, targeting that many people together just makes sense. There may or may not be some spiritual element to their gathering, it’s not important.

What bothers me here about mixing religion with advertising (although a case can be made against mixing religion and fill-in-the-blank) is that I believed religion was supposed to be the one thing that elevates us beyond our common, shallow or debased distractions (a “higher calling”, if you will) but here it seems religion itself is succumbing to the pitfalls of any other human endeavor and it breaks my heart. It may as well be a fan club.

So what do I say to the people who hawk their products in a house of God? To paraphrase Bill Hicks: “If you work in marketing or advertising… kill yourself.”

After all, there’s a vast untapped market awaiting you in the great beyond.