Disney, based on fairy tales and fantasy, tackles the real world

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Since its founding in 1923, The Walt Disney Company has stood alone in Hollywood in a fundamental way: its family-friendly movies, television shows, and theme park rides have, at least theoretically, always been accompanied by potentially political everyone. and avoids cultural loss zealously.

The Disney brand is all about wishing the stars and finding true love and living happily ever after. If fairy tale castles are too subtle, Disney theme parks promise an escape from reality with outright welcome signs that read, “Here you leave today and enter a world of tomorrow, tomorrow and fantasy.”

Recently, however, real-world ugliness has been creeping into the Magic Kingdom. In this overarching moment, both sides of the political divide are pounding on Disney, which is threatening one of the world’s best-known brands—one that, to many, is a symbol of America itself—as it increasingly tries to navigate the changing entertainment industry.

In some cases, Disney has voluntarily gotten into cultural issues. Last summer, to thunderous applause from progressives and the far-right, Disney removed gender-neutral loudspeakers at its theme parks, ditching “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls” in favor of “dreamers of all ages”. decided to announce But the entertainment giant has also found itself dragged into the fray, as has been the case recently with controversy over a new Florida law that, among many things, on sexual orientation and gender identity in third grade classes. Prohibits instruction and has been labeled as “don” by opponents. Say no to gay.”

At first, Disney tried not to take a side on the law, at least publicly, which prompted an employee rebellion. 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 it “woke Disney” “You’ve lost any moral authority to tell you what to do.” Florida lawmakers began threatening to repeal a 55-year-old law that would have mandated Walt Disney World to be under its municipal government. (Disney was already with the governor on pandemic issues like vaccine mandates for employees.)

In trying to hurt anyone, Disney had lost all.

“The mission for the Disney brand has always been clear: Don’t do anything that might upset or confuse family audiences,” said the Norman Lear Professor of Entertainment, Media and Society at the University of Southern California and former Walt Disney. studio executive. “Fun for everyone. Nothing offensive. Let’s all be transformed with a magic wand. But today we’re so divided, so excited that even Disney is having a hard time getting us together.”

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Avoiding socially divisive subjects, of course, in itself reflects a certain worldview. The namesake founders of the Walt Disney Company were, after all, anti-union conservatives. Main Street USA patriotism is on major display at Disney’s theme parks. The traditional Christmas story is told each December at Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California with candlelight procession events, Bible verses and all.

It took until 2009 for the company to introduce the Black Princess.

But in recent years, a remarkable change has occurred. Robert Iger, who served as CEO from 2005 to 2020, grew the world’s largest entertainment company with an emphasis on diverse casting and storytelling. As he said at Disney’s 2017 shareholder meeting, referring to inclusion and equality, “we can take the values ​​we see as socially important, and actually change people’s behavior — giving people a lot of fun.” Inspire us to accept differences and cultures and races and all. Other aspects of us and our people’s lives.”

In short, entertainment as advocacy.

Iger was the one who spearheaded the global blockbuster “Black Panther,” which featured an almost entirely black cast and a powerful Afrocentric story. During her tenure, Disney refocused the “Star Wars” franchise around female characters. A parade of animated films (“Moana,” “Coco,” “Rae and the Last Dragon,” “Soul,” “Encanto”) featured a variety of races, cultures, and ethnicities.

The result, for the most part, has been one hit after another. But a slew of Disney viewers have pushed back.

“Eternal,” a $200 million Disney-Marvel film, was “review bombing” in the fall as it featured a gay superhero kissing her husband, prompting online trolls to flood Internet movie databases with hundreds of homophobic one-star reviews. Went. In January, Disney was accused of smuggling into the stereotype by actor Peter Dinklage and others by going ahead with the live-action “Snow White” film—until it was revealed that the company had created the Seven Dwarfs digitally. Planned to replace with “magical creatures”. ” Which in turn prompted murmurs by others about the “erasing” of people with dwarfism.

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Disney executives dismiss such incidents as storms in the teapot: Today in trend, tomorrow replaced by a new complaint. But even moderate online storms can be a distraction inside the company. meetings are held about how and what to answer; Desperate talent partners should be reassured.

As Disney prepares to launch its streaming service in 2019, it began a comprehensive review of its movie library. As part of an initiative called Stories Matter, Disney added a disclaimer to content that the company determined contained “negative depictions or abuse of people or cultures.” Examples included the 1970s episode of “The Muppet Show” and the 1941 version of “Dumbo”.

“These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now,” the disclaimer read.

According to two current Disney executives, the Stories Matter team flagged other characters as potentially problematic, with the findings distributed to senior Disney leaders, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the confidential information. had spoken.

At least some people inside Disney are concerned that such sensibility goes too far. One of the authorities is concerned that viewing artistic creations through a “politically correct filter” could stifle creativity.

Disney declined to comment for this article.

This all comes at an alarming time for Disney, which is racing to remake itself as a streaming titan as technology giants like Amazon and the likes of Amazon. Apple Get deeper into the entertainment business and traditional cable networks like Disney-owned ESPN slowly fade away. Disney is also facing a disruptive change of guard, with him stepping down as executive chairman in December.

During his time as CEO Iger occasionally spoke out on hot-button political issues. His successor, Bob Chapek, decided (with support from the Disney board) to avoid weighing in on the state’s political battle. However, Disney lobbyists will continue to work behind the scenes, as they did with Florida law.

“Our diverse stories are our corporate statements – and they are more powerful than any tweet or lobbying effort,” Chapek wrote in an email to Disney employees on March 7. “I firmly believe that our ability to tell such stories – and they have received an open eye, ear and heart – will be diminished if our company becomes a political football in any debate.

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In the case of Florida, the approach backfired, first with employee protests and walkouts and then with right-wing backlash. Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Disney had “a sexual agenda for 6-year-olds” and was “scary as hell”. Tweets with the #boycottDisney hashtag accumulated millions of impressions between March 28 and April 3, according to ListenFirst, an analytics firm.

Disney executives have long held the position that the boycott has minimal impact, if any, on the company’s business. Disney is such a giant (it generates nearly $70 billion in annual revenue) that its products are nearly impossible to avoid.

But the same vast reach that makes Disney hard to boycott makes it an increasingly visible part of the country’s cultural debate. Rarely does a month pass without some sort of dusting, usually with sexual identity and gender as the sign.

In March, when Disney held its most recent shareholder meeting, Chapek was put on the spot by political left and right shareholders.\

One person called on Disney to act for contributing legislators who have supported bills restricting voting and reproductive rights. Chapek said Disney gave money to “both sides of the aisle” and was reevaluating its donation policies. (He later withheld all contributions in Florida.) Another representative of a shareholder advocacy group then took the microphone and noted that “Disney has always represented a safe haven for children since its inception,” homophobic and To “ditch the politicization and gender ideology” before going into transphobic comments and asking Chapek.

In response, Chapek noted the opposite shareholder concerns. “I think all participants on today’s call can see how difficult it is to try to thread the needle amid the extreme polarization of political perspectives,” he said.

“We want Disney to be a place where people can come together,” he continued. “My opinion is, when someone walks down Main Street and comes into the gates of our parks, they put their differences aside and see what they have as a shared belief.” Disney A shared belief in magic, hopes, dreams and imagination.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.



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