Since its inception in 1923, Disney has stood alone in Hollywood in one fundamental way: Its family-friendly movies, television shows, and theme park rides, at least in theory, have always focused on everybodywhere potential political and cultural pitfalls were diligently avoided.
The Disney brand is about wishing stars and finding true love and living happily ever after. If the fairytale castles are too subtle, Disney theme parks frankly promise an escape from reality with welcome signs that read, “Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy.”
Lately, however, some real ugliness has been creeping into the Magic Kingdom. In this hyper-partisan moment, both sides of the political divide have pounded Disney, endangering one of the world’s best-known brands — a brand that to many symbolizes America itself — as it tries to navigate a rapidly changing entertainment industry.
In some cases, Disney has willingly dived into cultural issues. Last summer, to the applause of progressives and grunts from the far right, Disney decided to make speaker announcements at its theme parks gender neutral, removing “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls” in favor of “dreamers of all ages”. But the entertainment giant has also been dragged into the fray, such as with the recent confusion over a new Florida law that, among other things, limits classroom education to third grade on sexual orientation and gender identity and has been labeled by opponents as “Don’t Say Gay.”
At first, Disney tried not to side with the legislation, at least not publicly, sparking a workers’ revolt. Disney then aggressively denounced the bill — only to find itself in the crosshairs of Fox News hosts and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who sent a fundraising email to supporters saying “Woke Disney” had lost any moral authority to tell you what should we do.” Florida lawmakers began threatening to repeal a 55-year-old law that would allow Walt Disney World to essentially function as its own municipal government. (Disney was already at odds with the governor over pandemic issues such as a vaccine mandate for workers.)
In an effort not to offend anyone, Disney had seemingly lost everyone.
“The mission statement for the Disney brand has always been very clear: don’t do anything that could upset or confuse family audiences,” said Martin Kaplan, the Norman Lear professor of entertainment, media and society at the University of Southern. California and former Walt Disney. Studios executive. “Fun for everyone. Nothing objectionable. Let’s all be transformed by the magic wand. But we’re so divided today, so excited that even Disney is having a hard time bringing us together.”
Avoiding socially divisive topics naturally reflects in itself a certain worldview. After all, the eponymous founder of the Walt Disney Company was an anti-union conservative. The patriotism of Main Street USA is prominent in Disney theme parks. The traditional Christmas story is told every December at Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California with candlelit processional events, Bible verses and the like.
It wasn’t until 2009 that the company introduced a black princess.
But in recent years there has been a clear change. Robert A. Iger, who served as CEO from 2005 to 2020, forced the world’s largest entertainment company to focus on diverse casting and storytelling. As he said at Disney’s 2017 shareholder meeting, referring to inclusion and equality, “We can adopt those values we care about socially and actually change people’s behavior – making people more accepting of the multiple differences and cultures.” and races and all other facets of our lives and our people.”
Essentially, entertainment as advocacy.
mr. Iger was the one who pushed the global blockbuster “Black Panther,” which featured an almost all-black cast and a powerful Afrocentric storyline. Under his tenure, Disney refocused the “Star Wars” franchise on female characters. A parade of animated films (“Moana”, “Coco”, “Raya and the Last Dragon”, “Soul”, “Encanto”) showed a wide variety of races, cultures and ethnicities.
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For the most part, the result was one hit after another. But some of the Disney audience has withdrawn.
“Eternals,” a $200 million Disney-Marvel film, was “bombed” in the fall for portraying a gay superhero kissing his husband, while online trolls flooded the Internet Movie Database with hundreds of homophobic one-star reviews. In January, Disney was accused by actor Peter Dinklage and others of smuggling stereotypes by moving forward with a live-action “Snow White” movie — until it was revealed that the company planned to replace the Seven Dwarfs with digitally created “magic ones.” beings”. ‘, which in turn led to complaints from others about ‘wiping out’ people with dwarfism.
Disney executives tend to dismiss such incidents as storms in teapots: trending today, replaced by another complaint tomorrow. But even moderate online storms can be a distraction within the business. There is a discussion about how and whether to respond; petulant talent partners need to be reassured.
As Disney prepared to launch its streaming service in 2019, it began an extensive overhaul of its movie library. As part of the initiative, called Stories Matter, Disney added disclaimers to content that the company said contained “negative images or mistreatment of people or cultures.” Examples were episodes of ‘The Muppet Show’ from the 1970s and the 1941 version of ‘Dumbo’.
“These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now,” the disclaimers read.
The Stories Matter team privately flagged other characters as potentially problematic, and the findings were circulated to senior Disney leaders, according to two current Disney executives, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information. Ursula, the evil sea witch from “The Little Mermaid” (1989), was one. Her dark color palette (lavender skin, black legs) can be viewed through a racial lens, the Stories Matter team warned; she’s also a “queer coded” character, with mannerisms partly inspired by those of a real-life drag queen.
Tinker Bell was flagged for caution for being “body-conscious” and jealous of Peter Pan’s attention, according to the executives, while Captain Hook could expose Disney to charges of discrimination or prejudice against people with disabilities for being a villain.
Some people at Disney are concerned that such sensitivities go too far. One executive worried that looking at artistic creations through a “politically correct filter” would curb creativity.
Disney declined to comment on this article.
All of this comes at a dangerous time for Disney, which is racing hard to recreate itself as a streaming titan, as tech giants like Amazon and Apple step deeper into the entertainment business and traditional cable networks like Disney-owned ESPN slowly wither. . Disney is also facing a disruptive changing of the guard, with Mr. Iger stepping down as executive chairman in December.
Mr. Iger occasionally spoke out on current political issues during his time as chief executive. His successor, Bob Chapek, decided (with support from the Disney board) not to get involved in the state’s political struggles. However, Disney lobbyists would continue to work behind the scenes, as they did with Florida law.
“Our various stories to be our corporate statements — and they are more powerful than any tweet or lobbying effort,” Mr Chapek wrote in an email to Disney employees on March 7. “I am confident that our ability to tell such stories — and receiving them with open eyes, ears and hearts – would decline if our company became a political football in any debate.”
In Florida’s case, the approach backfired, first with worker protests and a strike, then with a right-wing backlash. Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Disney had “a sexual agenda for 6-year-olds” and was “creepy as hell.” Tweets with the #boycottDisney hashtag racked up millions of impressions between March 28 and April 3, according to ListenFirst, an analytics company.
Disney executives have long held the view that boycotts have minimal impact on the company’s operations, if any. Disney is such a behemoth (it generates about $70 billion in annual revenue) that it’s nearly impossible to avoid its products.
But the same sheer reach that makes Disney hard to boycott is also making it an increasingly visible part of the country’s cultural debates. Hardly a month goes by without some form of vacuuming, usually involving sexual identity and gender.
Last summer, “Muppet Babies,” a Disney Junior series for kids ages 3 to 8, cautiously explored gender identity. Gonzo donned a dress and defied a directive from Miss Piggy “that the girls come as princesses and the boys as knights.” Out magazine wrote that the episode “just sent a powerful message of love and acceptance to gender-variant kids everywhere!” And a far-right pundit chided Disney for “pushing the trans agenda” on children, starting an online brushfire.
Around the same time, some LGBTQ supporters criticized Disney over “Loki,” a Disney+ superhero show. In the third episode of “Loki”, the title character briefly admitted to the screen for the first time what comic book fans have long known: he is bisexual. But the blink-and-you-miss-it treatment of the information infuriated some prominent members of the LGBTQ community. “It’s just one word,” Russell T. Davies, a British screenwriter (“Queer as Folk”), said during a panel discussion at the time. “It’s a ridiculous, cowardly, weak gesture.”
The fights will no doubt continue: The Disney-Pixar movie “Lightyear,” due out in June, will feature a loving lesbian couple, while “Thor: Love and Thunder,” arriving in July, will feature a key LGBTQ character.
Last month, when Disney held its most recent shareholders’ meeting, Mr. Chapek caught in the act by shareholders of the political left and right.
One person called on Disney to make contributions to lawmakers who favored bills that restrict voting and reproductive rights. Mr Chapek said Disney was giving money to “both sides of the aisle” and was re-evaluating its donation policy. (He then paused all contributions in Florida.) Another representative of a shareholder advocacy group then picked up the microphone and noted that “Disney has always been a safe haven for kids from the very beginning,” before turning to homophobic and transphobic comments. and Mr Chapek to “do away with the politicization and gender ideology.”
In response, Mr. Chapek noted the conflicting concerns of shareholders. “I think all participants in today’s call can see how difficult it is to try to thread the needle between the extreme polarization of political positions,” he said.
“What we want Disney to be is a place where people can come together,” he continued. “My view is that, when someone walks down Main Street and enters the gates of our parks, they put their differences aside and look at what they have as a shared belief – a shared belief in Disney magic, hopes, dreams and imagination. ”
