[BlackBird]

Hi Aloka
It is tricky isn't it.
As I see it there are two sides to the argument. Firstly, in defence of the marketing side "Buddha" doesn't belong to anyone and hence it is open to interpretation and manipulation even for material greed e.g. Disney.

Secondly there is no such thing as bad advertising. So Children or people exposed to "Buddha" may result in further interest in Buddhism and the end of suffering, although that may not have been the purpose of the marketing/Disney. So there might be some positive effects.

The problem is that images of "Buddha" become political when people express their wants. That is their want to stop "Buddha" in adverts/cartoons, this is political as wants are political. So Buddha moves into politics which does in itself appear to contain more suffering, greed and aversion, as people express their needs and find oppression. So perhaps it aggrevates the issue rather than lessens it. Perhaps laughing it off is the safest way.

The issue here is that one then needs to define right use and who is or isn't a Buddhist etc. It starts to come down to "us versus them" or "mine versus yours". The problem could be considered to be approaching the concepts leading to justification for anger and even killing for what is right or to stop what is wrong.

Metta
Edited last paragraph to remove references to other religions Peace.