In Powell Tennessee, a town that serves as a suburb of Knoxville, there is a wildly popular independent pharmacy. The drug store is a lot like other pharmacies, featuring a seemingly bizarre mix of items to browse or buy while you’re waiting for your prescription to be filled.
Closer inspection of the shelves reveals that perhaps the mix isn’t as bizarre or as ill thought out as an initial inspection would lead one to believe. There are a myriad of unguents and ointments of questionable value but worth a shot if the promise to alleviate your condition without the side effects of the prescription the pharmacist is working on. The selection of candy seems to be straight from the 1920s: horehound hard candy, Old Mame’s Pecan Spackle, and John Maine’s All Natural Big Spruce Chewing gum (made with real spruce!).
It seems puzzling until you see an octogenarian standing there staring at the horehound candy while obviously thinking to himself, “By cracky, I haven’t had horehound candy since the caliphate was pushing chocolate apricots!” The guy buys the candy and, assuming his taste buds haven’t been blown out by his heart medicine, realizes upon tasting why horehound candy is marketed solely at those who don’t remember the taste with anything more than the haziest of accuracy.
And, of course, the pharmacy has toys. All manner of cheap plastic junk that a gumball machine should be embarrassed to sell, but stuff that toddlers quickly fall in love with. In the fifteen minutes it takes to get a prescription filled a parent will be hit up innumerable times to buy a multitude of trinkets. A poorly made rubber snake, perhaps a ring with a fly where the stone would be or a GI Joe knockoff called GI Jake with rifles carefully sized to lodge firmly in a two year olds throat and slathered in lead paint. One thing your kid won’t hit you up to buy at the Powell Pharmacy is anything with a Disney character on emblazoned on the item.
Why have a toy aisle full of shoddy junk and not the super high profit Disney endorsed plastic crap? Turns out the drugstore is making a small statement for, what the proprietors see as, family values. The thing that turned the otherwise standard drugstore into a a small quiet protest was Disney’s decision to extend insurance coverage to same sex partners, a move many derided as patently liberal, anti family, and something only the scurviest of liberals would consider actually doing. Word on the street is that the stand hasn’t had a detrimental effect on Disney’s bottom line, but it is the principle of the thing.
Of course in the world of “what have you done for me lately?” it isn’t what happened ten years ago, it is all about what you’re doing right now. And right now Disney is busy pissing a lot of people off. Why are they so incredibly angry? Why is Dailykos pulling strings with Scholastic? Why is Bill Clinton firing off angry letters? Turns out they are all upset about a movie.
The movie in question is “The Path to 9/11.” Reportedly, the movie places blame on Bill Clinton by depicting him overly distracted by Monica Lewinsky. Man, that Monica must know some special tricks or something. Actually, it wasn’t so much the act as the aftermath. In any event, a goodly part of the blame is laid solidly at the feet of Bill Clinton, at least that is the take of the assembled internet punditry. And, as noted earlier, those folks seem pretty pissed.
Disney is now seen as the broadcast arm of the GOP (bet FOX feels like Hillary did) and, to make things even worse the whole movie is seen as some weird Republican led conspiracy owing to the fact that one of the writers is Rush Limbaugh’s buddy. Obviously these criticisms are untrue, if the movie really were Republican propaganda there would be a lot more Hitler.
But here is the salient thing: it is a freaking movie. When Michael Moore made “9/11” he offended a lot of people but the same people attacking Disney were defending Moore. When CBS did “The Reagans” outrage reached a level where CBS pulled the movie. When Scorcese did “Last Temptation of Christ” churches went ballistic.
A cursory examination will reveal any number of movie outrages over the years. For example, people with taste find “Chairman of the Board” insufferable. That a studio would foist that on the public in unconscionable. The larger point remains, we don’t need censors be they liberal or conservative to decide what to watch, the public needs options. We are smart enough to figure it out sans the help of sanctimonious, though well intentioned on both sides, bloggers.
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