Culture Disney CEO Warns Wokeness Will Go On Even If People Aren’t “Happy” - "We’re certainly not going to lessen our core values in order to make everyone happy all the time.”

November 29, 2022 by Daniel Greenfield



There was this odd misunderstanding going around conservative circles, promoted by some ignorant influencers, that the Disney coup was a rebuke to the company’s embrace of wokeness.

Exactly the opposite.

Bob Iger, who had championed wokeness, orchestrated the downfall of CEO Bob Chapek, who had tried to take a less aggressive stance on radical politics. Now Iger is back and declaring vocally that Disney intends to double and triple down on its political extremism. That’s even as Strange World, Disney’s big film entry, designed around wokeness, just bombed massively at the box office.

… the corporate giant’s stance on LGBTQ+ inclusion.

The latter was an Achilles heel for Chapek in his roughly two-year run as CEO. After floating the message that Disney should not be involved in politics, employees and content creators led a full-on social media rebellion decrying his silence on issues like Florida’s incendiary policies on trans children and classroom policies in acknowledging queer people.

When asked Monday during an employee Q&A about where the studio would now fall on the matter, Iger said “one of the core values of our storytelling is inclusion, and acceptance and tolerance. And we can’t lose that, we just can’t lose that… how we actually change the world through the good must continue. We’re not going to make everyone happy all the time, and we’re not [going to] try to. We’re certainly not going to lessen our core values in order to make everyone happy all the time.”

The remarks were tweeted by numerous employees at the content studios, as well as parks and stores. One staffer noted that Iger’s answer came with “no hesitation.”

No surprise there.

CEO Iger is warning that Disney will push radical ideologies and anyone who doesn’t like it can go to hell. Considering the company’s massive growth under Iger, from a struggling studio, to a dominant monster that has used its IPs to swallow up movie theaters and churn out content, owning everything from Marvel to Star Wars to FOX, it’s no surprise that he’s displaying arrogance and defiance in the face of the backlash.

As Iger puts it, Disney is not here to entertain you or to tell good stories. When he says that “one of the core values of our storytelling is inclusion, and acceptance and tolerance”, what that means is that political preaching is a core value, and “we’re certainly not going to lessen our core values in order to make everyone happy all the time.”

Or at all.

The Variety article references the Disney Adult. That’s what I used in my article, Disney Isn’t for Kids, to help explain the company’s transformation into a militantly family-unfriendly cult.

60% of Disneyland visitors were adults with no children. Only 36.7% of Disney World visitors had children under 18. The largest demographic for the theme parks, like the movies, are millennials. They are also members of the fandoms who are likeliest to spend money on licensed merchandise, and on toys and movie tie-ins that are Disney’s bread and butter.

In 1966, the idea that a single adult would spend more money on Disney merchandise than a family of four would have seemed ridiculous. In 2022, it’s just the new normal. If you doubt that stop by a theme park and see how many of the adults with no children wearing every single piece of Disney merchandise on sale would love to lecture you about queer theory.

These are the people Disney caters to now. Not little girls who want to be princesses. That’s why its theme parks will no longer address little girls as princesses. That’s also why rides like Pirates of the Caribbean or Jungle Cruise are being revamped to be more politically correct. Disney’s new woke demographic is much pickier than even the pickiest child could be.

It’s also sexually creepy.

Disney’s new demographic are adults who have never properly grown up and on some level still think of themselves as children. That’s also the profile for the average child molester. And of the kind of adult who insists that schools force children to “explore their sexual identities”

Iger knows what he’s doing. Whether he’ll get away with it is another matter.

Source (Archive)

 

[Chilson]

Okay. I will continue to buy nothing from Disney.

Good job continuing the massive decline in Disney you started Iger.

 

[._.]

too big to fail, they'll keep rehashing and buying up shit until they own everything

I mean also to be fair, the people who are Disney's 'core audience' I imagine, even if its just through shedding off some of the other family types, are woke 'Disney Adults'. I feel like some families may go to Disney World often, see the movies or whatever, but a family like that is only a high-profit consumer for like 10 years, theyre pandering to people who buy into 'Disney Cult' status now, which may make up the difference of sloughing off that other class of audience. I think their strategy is based on if you lose like even 1/3 of your kid audience, theyre hoping that at least the remainder will have a group that becomes obsessed with it or whatever. In some places, these too big to fail companies are one of the only games around, monopolies and shit so I do think they feel strong enough to do whatever.

 

[Plumber's Kokoro Wish]

Walt is spinning in his cryo chamber.

Iger probably pulled his plug years ago ....

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I thought the whole idea is woke is that inclusivity makes everyone happy, only now it's making a majority unhappy to cater to a minority. Weird how it works...

 

[Megaton Punch]

The diversity stuff alone has gone so far in visual media that when you see something non-diverse it makes you notice. I started a new job last month and I’m going through all the training stuff. For some reason this company hasn’t quite swallowed the look aid becasue… There are white men in my training slide decks. Some of them are not even cautionary examples during anti-harassment training. ..
Disney can continue to make gay shit and I will continue buying and watching absolutely nothing they’ve touched. Your job is to tell stories and entertain. Stop preaching your degeneracy at me, and tell innocent stories.

The best thing that could possibly happen to Disney is the complete collapse and bankruptcy of the company, triggering a mass kill-off of everyone involved in ruining it. Companies need to be beholden to the shareholders again, rather than "investment" firms like Blackrock.

 

[A-Stump]

To play devil's advocate it could be less about people wanting to watch it and more about the fact that their business strategy is not exactly fantastic. People know it will end up on Disney+ incredibly soon. It's not exactly a secret. Unless it's a big draw like a new Frozen or Zootopia 2: Fetish Boogaloo why would people waste their money?

 

[The Nothingness]

I guess they're banking on Avatar 2 to do well.

 

[Beak Thing]

Disney, unfortunately, has more money than god. They have been creatively bankrupt for well over a decade, and that might start to be taking a toll on their seemingly endless supply of money. The time when Disney no longer has the luxury to do this could be decades from now. In the meantime, it has cornered mass media, and so is in a position to continue to shape the soft mines of Gen Z and others. They could just manufacture consent before they run out of money.

Disney's stock has been getting hammered pretty hard over the past year, if it continues it might lead to some changes but I'm not too confident. The only reason it went up so much was due to the money printing in 2020-2021 so it's more of a mean reversion than anything.

 

[Marissa Moira]

Come my prince, return to me...

 

[TowinKarz]

"We won't alter our beliefs to make you happy" is all well and good.

But, what if your job is to make me happy?

Hummmmmm.......

 

[Flan Handler]

My husband and I, after we were married in the 2000s, made a habit of seeing most animated movies in the theatres. Our official reasoning was, we wanted to stay on top of it so we could share the best stuff with our kids later. We liked Disney movies, my husband’s first love was old Scrooge McDuck comics and he had a bunch of them.

I decline to expose my kid to any of Disney’s horseshit. We had some shares we planned to transfer to our kid, kind of a “babby's first brokerage account” thing. But they annoyed me so much I sold those shares (at a nice profit before the share price tanked).

Now we torrent Scooby Doo from the 60s and classic Looney Toons, the kid loves ‘em, it’s good enough. I’m teaching him to read with old duck comics, but our connection to modern media is almost nonexistent.

We are probably raising a misfit, but who wants to be a good match for this society?

Edit: a bit more on topic: high interest rates will be a cleansing fire on the entertainment industry. Free money distorted business decisions but the bill always comes due.

 

[Ewan McGregor]

This is some prime lolcow behavior going on here. Stubbornness even in the face of Armageddon. Spoken like a true and honest Chandler.

 

[Kosher Dill]

"We won't alter our beliefs to make you happy" is all well and good.

But, what if your job is to make me happy?

Oh come on, it's not like they run a theme park called "The Happiest Place On Earth" or anything.

 

[WonderWino]

Walt is spinning in his cryo chamber.

Pfft disney finally got rid of him a few years ago when he wouldn't greenlight the woke bs:

Hmmm...Where have I seen this before?

That reminds of me something a developer for meridian 59 said years ago that was pretty accurate: if you tell your customers to fuck off they will, and they'll tell everyone they know to stay the hell away from you as well

These companies would be wise to pay attention to that statement

 

[AnOminous]

Disney's stock has been getting hammered pretty hard over the past year, if it continues it might lead to some changes but I'm not too confident.

Somehow, I don't think autistically screeching REEEEEEE NORMIES GET OUT is a really good marketing campaign.

 

[draggs]

When the next Marvel phase underperforms and Disney+ continues hemorrhaging money, Disney still won't change course

 

[Beak Thing]

Somehow, I don't think autistically screeching REEEEEEE NORMIES GET OUT is a really good marketing campaign.

I know I'd be pretty concerned if I owned Disney stock and the CEO basically says he doesn't give a shit about the business or its future profits. They've got a lot of profits and cash on hand now but that doesn't last forever, just ask GE.

 

[Dan Abrams]

Okay. Keep shoving homosexual propaganda in kid’s faces and your movies will keep failing. Sooner or later the shareholders will start getting angry.

 

[PhoBingas]

This is some prime lolcow behavior going on here. Stubbornness even in the face of Armageddon. Spoken like a true and honest Chandler.

Bold business decision there. This new CEO must either hate money or hates having a job. I'm curious to see how their next few movies go. I'm sure shareholders will be breathing down Iger's neck once Big Red 4: Panda Period Power tanks because nobody gives a shit about teenage, diabetic Han Chinese immigrants.

 

[IAmNotAlpharius]

I hope Trump or Desantis becomes president and block the Apple-Disney merger.

Lol, Japanese and Korean animation is going to gut Disney.