Disney wants Christians to work for free

She’s a Narniac, Narniac at your door

And she’s hyping like she’s never hyped before…

Ahem. Sorry ’bout that.

The following item related to the upcoming Narnia movie was recently posted to a SF-related listserv that I subscribe to, and the person who posted it wasn’t particularly happy about it.

:::::: Ground Force Network ::::::

OK, everyone, we’re about to give you the CHANCE OF A LIFETIME. Only a select group of people are being given this opportunity and you’re one of them.

So listen up!

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

This is the most influential and ground-breaking campaign we’ve ever been a part of since The Passion of The Christ, and we’d like YOU to team up with us from the beginning!

It will be an exciting adventure you’ll never forget…

JOIN THE EXCLUSIVE TEAM

Starting July 11th, Ground Force is going to be working with Disney, Walden Media, & Motive Entertainment to be a part of the grassroots campaign for C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. If you read these books when you were younger, you know they were magical, and the movie will be nothing short of a masterpiece.

We’ll be starting a campaign for The Chronicles of Narnia in July, and WE NEED YOU!

On this campaign, there will be two different roles all field agents can play:

1. “Narniacs” – general field agents for this campaign. These field agents will have anopportunity to receive and distribute movie materials, help with special Narnia events in their city, and be actively involved in promoting the December release of this magical film. We’ll have more information about becoming a Narniac in July.

2. “Narnia Generals” – a.k.a. “City Leaders.” This Field Agent will be the leader of all the Narniacs for their city as well as be trained as the city “expert” on all things relating to the movie. This is a really exclusive position that only 50 field agents will be selected for. Will it be YOU?

Before we can begin bulding the team of Narniacs in July, we need to select our Narnia Generals. This is where YOUR journey begins TODAY…step inside…

To find out how to become a Narnia General, visit the following website, and DON’T DELAY!
http://www.groundforcenetwork.com/narnia.aspx

VIEW THE TEASER TRAILER NOW

Visit www.narnia.com to view the teaser trailer now – YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS THIS!

We look forward to hearing from you soon! This is going to be an INCREDIBLE campaign!

Christine, Susan, & Eric
Your friends at Ground Force Network
narnia@groundforcenetwork.com

Make of all that what you will.

As my friend put it, “Do we want to be known as ‘Narniacs’? Sounds a lot worse than Trekkies.” Personally, I’m quite happy to be a “Trekkie” — and I think those who insist on being called “Trekkers” instead because they think it means they are being taken seriously are just way too anal, but the term itself doesn’t sound so bad — but I think “Narniac” has to be one of the dumbest names I have ever heard. Especially if what it means in the end is “someone who is oh-so-happy to be doing Disney’s publicity work for free”.

And as for whether the movie is a “masterpiece” … well, of course, we’ll just have to wait and see about that. Certainly the trailer making the rounds is inconclusive on this point.

JUNE 10 UPDATE: BTW, does anyone know where or when the word “Narniac” originated? My friend has been Googling this, and so far all she has found is the product description for this book which won’t be out for another three months. Well, that and some other sites of dubious moral stature that have nothing to do with The Chronicles of Narnia. But even if we count those, there isn’t more than a page of Google results. So it would seem this word is nothing more than a marketing term that has been invented for this film’s release. Heaven help us if it actually catches on.

Or, as my friend puts it: “But mostly, fandom is a grass roots phenomenon, and Google doesn’t reference the term ‘Narniac’ on any fan sites. So I resent the marketing machine conjuring its own label for us, not to mention attempting to exploit us…what makes me sad is that there will probably be plenty of church folks ready to jump on this bandwagon because it’s just The Thing to Do…..”