Thomas Kinkade Painter of Crap

[Telefrog]

Thomas Kinkade, the born-again artist who once claimed "God became my art agent" after conversion, has a reputaion of painting dubious works that attract a mostly older Christian crowd. Well, now it looks like he may be getting another reputation (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/18/MNJ11893SP.DTL) as a deceitful and predatory business partner.

http://i43.tinypic.com/xcqctk.jpg

In their lawsuit, Hazlewood and Spinello, former San Ramon residents who operated their art galleries in Virginia and were married at the time, said the company had exploited their faith to reel them in.

At a weeklong presentation for prospective Kinkade Signature Gallery owners, company executives "said they would support us as partners in spreading the light," Spinello said at the time of the arbitration award. "They said their business was blessed."

In its February 2006 decision, the arbitration panel said Kinkade and other company officials used terms like "partner," "trust," "Christian" and "God" to create "a certain religious environment designed to instill a special relationship of trust" with the couple.

What the company didn't tell them, said their attorney, was that they would have to sell Kinkade's works at minimum retail prices while the artist undercut them with discount sales, some of which he made himself on cable television.

It was part of a plan, they claimed, to lower the value of the publicly traded company before Kinkade bought it in 2004, at steep losses to many investors. Hazlewood and Spinello put their $122,000 savings into galleries in Charlottesville and Fredericksburg, Va., that opened in 1999 and 2000 and closed in 2003.


This could probably have worked just as well in the Screen, Page, and Song section, but I figured that since it's hard to separate the use of Christianity as a selling technique, it should go here.

We used to have a Kinkade gallery in the nearby Tacoma Mall, which was thankfully replaced with a Victoria's Secret annex. The gallery used to have the most hideous pieces of "art" hanging in the windows. I always wondered who the Hell was buying that crap. Terrible stuff.

So, my question is about taking advantage of people. Is there a special punishment for people or businesses that prey on the religious? Should there be? Are the religious more easy to dupe? For example, if people believe in angels or demons as real entities, do they then possess a disposition more easily led into cons or bad business situations?

Caveat: In my time in the military, I met a lot of people of various flavors and I never noticed that religious folks were more easily duped. That said, I did notice that it was much harder to get a religious person to try new things in foriegn countries, but I can't say whether or not this wasn't a result of most of them having led insular childhoods due to their economic backgrounds.

[Ox]

So, my question is about taking advantage of people. Is there a special punishment for people or businesses that prey on the religious? Should there be?
Maybe. There isn't a statutory hate crime for this sort of thing, but criminals who exploit "trust relationships" to carry out their crimes often get punished more severely than people who victimize total strangers. Moreover, the overall effect of society is sometimes considered in sentencing decisions: if my crime makes you more suspicious of people who profess your own faith, that seems a lot more damaging to society than just getting conned by some asshole.
Are the religious more easy to dupe? For example, if people believe in angels or demons as real entities, do they then possess a disposition more easily led into cons or bad business situations?
If they were, that would be a strong argument for punishing their attackers more severely. But as a practical matter, very few people purport to have no metaphysical beliefs at all. We might believe in different things, but our beliefs are equally idiotic. So there's nothing for comparison there.

If anything, I would be inclined to say that people with no metaphysical beliefs might be more at risk of deception. A big part of many deception schemes is feeding the victim's ego and making him think he's special. Someone who belonged to a tiny minority of religious belief, like atheism, might arguably be more susceptible to believing himself smarter than others and thus fraud.

Obviously, religion is not totally separate from economic class and education, both of which do affect one's susceptibility to deception.

[Generation ABXY]

I'm not big on the idea of affording one group more or less protection than any other. So - just as I don't support some of the hate crime laws being suggested - I wouldn't want to see anything special for religious groups. A con is a con, no matter how it is done; religion just happens to be the angle someone can get at these people at.

[Wraith]

I don't generally consider those who are religious any more gullible or easily swindled than anyone else, on average. Certainly there are other things on which people can build trust (family, heritage, race, gender, community, hobbies).

Not really related to your question, but taste in art tends to be highly subjective. Sure, Kinkade's stuff isn't going to be put up in museums, but what you think is "crap" may be something totally different to someone else. Starting out a discussion thread (especially in P&R) with "omg I hate his art" isn't exactly helpful.

[Hawkzombie]

Holy crap I remember that Kincade store...was that the one where if you had kids with you, you were asked to leave?

[J Arcane]

As someone who grew up immersed in mainstream American Christianity, absolutely there's crooks in that industry that take advantage of Christians. The sheer volume of crap that gets pumped out and sells simply because it's "christian" is staggering. Of course, in part this is made possible because of sheltered or deliberately self-censoring souls who won't buy anything that's "secular", like my mother used to be.

The term "bible salesman" used to be pejorative for a reason, and in the face of an honest to God industry pumping out overpriced $60 bibles on cheap paper to sell to the more gullible faithful, it was perhaps never more apt than it is today.

[Telefrog]

Holy crap I remember that Kincade store...was that the one where if you had kids with you, you were asked to leave?

I don't know, I never went in with my kids. Actually, I never went in at all.

[civil]

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q135/tlots/CoG/TF.jpg

[roboninja]

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q135/tlots/CoG/TF.jpg

Simply awesome.

[Telefrog]

*Sniffle*

You guys make me so happy.

[alienmastermind]

Religious people are easy to swindle...if the con involves things they already profess to believe.

Non-religious people are easy to swindle...if the con involves things they arlready profess to believe/know.

Thomas Kincade's art was notable for the illusion of being lit when no direct light was on it. I thought the effect was interesting. The Kincade store at the Florida Mall was a hangout for teens and adults who were high, so...make of that what you will.

I find Christians more willing to believe that people who profess to be Christian will behave a certain way. They're not dupes, per se, I'd say they're follownig the 'turn the other cheek' philosophy, though they'd probably not trust the person again in the same way, but again, forgiveness is the main tenet.

Watch the Jesus Rocks Hard episode of South Park.

Sad, but true.