THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 2, 1995 TAG: 9509020428
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
A Christian group is calling for Walt Disney Co. to remove ``The Lion King'' from video stores, saying the movie contains a sexual reference that is inappropriate for children.
American Life League, a Stafford, Va.-based conservative group, says it was alerted to the fleeting appearance of the word ``sex'' by a woman who said her 4-year-old son noticed it while watching the movie.
After seeing that the word appears to be formed by a dissipating cloud of dust about midway through the movie, the group began encouraging readers of its newsletter to call or write Disney and complain.
``It's just appalling for them to do that,'' said Tracey Casale of the Christian group. ``To put a sexual message, no matter how subtle, in what's supposed to be a family movie, negates everything they claim to be.''
The American Life League has demanded an apology, and more.
``What we'd really like,'' said Casale, ``is for Disney to remove the movies (from video stores) and edit them.''
Attempts to reach Disney officials for comment were unsuccessful, and a message left was not immediately returned.
The segment in question occurs when Simba, the hero, is rolling around laughing with friends Pumbaa and Timon. When he gets up and walks to the edge of a cliff and plops down on the ground, a cloud of dust rises above him.
It is as the dust begins to trail off that it appears to form the letters S-E-X, with each letter fading as the next becomes clear, according to American Life League.
According to New York-based animation historian Jerry Beck, the supposed ``sex scene'' wouldn't mark the first time an artist inserted a secret message or inside joke in a cartoon or animated feature.
In fact, he said artists see it as a way to leave their signature on the work and as a diversion to break up long hours. Generally, the artists use something innocuous like a friend's name on a saloon, he said.
But Beck and Harvey Deneroff, the publisher of an animation newsletter and a columnist for Animation Magazine, said the scene wouldn't be the first time a Disney project had a more daring artist's personalization.
They said someone working on Disney's ``Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'' slipped in a single frame of Jessica Rabbit nude from the waist down. To see the frame, though, viewers would have to know exactly where to look.
``That one was famous because it became public,'' said Deneroff. ``I'm sure those things may happen, but I don't know how frequently.'' by CNB