Disney, long a trusted creator of family-friendly entertainment, has recently alienated many less-than-woke parents with its embrace of left-wing causes.
SO WHAT
The Wonderful World of Disney is starting to look more like a woke fantasy — or nightmare.
WHAT HAPPENED
Here are six moments when Disney sided with the left and angered the right over the past year.
1. FIRING GINA CARANO
In February 2021, Disney subsidiary Lucasfilm fired actress and former MMA star Gina Carano from the popular television show “The Mandalorian” after she tweeted a meme comparing Republicans to Holocaust victims.
- Carano subsequently agreed to a film project with conservative media company The Daily Wire, declaring in an interview, “They can’t cancel us if we don’t let them.”
2. “CANCELING” THE SEVEN DWARFS
In January of this year, Disney said its forthcoming life-action remake of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” would take a “different approach” to the dwarfs to “avoid reenforcing stereotypes from the original animate film.?
- The announcement came after dwarf actor Peter Dinklage blasted Disney for retelling that “f*cking backwards story of seven dwarfs living in a cave together.”
3. FEATURING A LESBIAN KISS
After Pixar employees in March protested the studio’s alleged censorship of LGBT romance on screen, the Disney subsidiary reportedly reinstated a same-sex kiss in its next feature film, the Toy Story spinoff movie “Lightyear.”
- “Nearly every moment of overtly gay affection is cut at Disney’s behest, regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership at Pixar,” the employees wrote in a March 9 statement. “Even if creating LGBTQIA+ content was the answer to fixing the discriminatory legislation in the world, we are being barred from creating it.”
4. OPPOSING THE “DON’T SAY GAY” LAW
Also March 9, under growing internal and external pressure, Disney CEO Bill Chapek for the first time spoke out against Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill.
- “I understand that many are upset that we did not speak out against the bill. We were opposed to the bill from the outset, but we chose not to take a public position on it because we thought we could be more effective working behind the scenes, working with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle,” Chapek said on a shareholder call.
- On March 11, Chapek announced Disney was suspending its political donations in Florida, telling opponents of the bill that he was “an ally you can count on.”
5. PUSHING THE “GAY AGENDA”
After the Parental Rights in Education bill passed March 28, Disney executives spoke on a company-wide Zoom call about their commitment to advancing the LGBT agenda via children’s entertainment.
- “Last summer, we removed all of the gendered greetings in relationship to our live spiels,” boasted Vivian Ware, the diversity and inclusion manager at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, in one of five video clips from the call published by conservative activist Chris Rufo.
- “So we no longer say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.’ … It’s, ‘Hello, everyone,’ or, ‘Hello, friends. … We say, ‘Dreamers of all ages.’”
MEANWHILE
Some employees and erstwhile fans have expressed dismay at what they see as Disney’s abandonment of its mainstream audience.
- In an unsigned open letter published March 21, conservative Disney employees said they don’t feel they belong “in a company actively promoting a political agenda so far removed from our own.”
- In addition to hiring Carano, The Daily Wire committed Wednesday to spend $100 million on a children’s entertainment division to compete with Disney.