Apparently, Disney is going to take a step back on its progressive policies and focus on entertainment. Yeah well, we’ll see how long that lasts - or if it ever even begins.
In an investors meeting Tuesday, Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger told investors that Disney will “quiet the noise” amid the smorgasbord of backlash the company has received from being so incredibly woke. Disney has been on the chopping block for a few years now, and, supposedly, this is their attempt to allocate roughly $60 billion to get out of hot water.
In 2022, Disney became the center of the culture wars when it criticized Florida legislation that limited inappropriate LGBTQ related discussions in school classrooms. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) bashed the company calling it “woke Disney” and worked “with the state legislature to strip it of self-governing authority over the parks,” as Yahoo Finance reported Wednesday.
Since the start of their nosedive into progressivism, Disney has released more and more woke garbage. Whether its through LGBTQ characters in shows, giant celebrations for "pride," hiring actors based on skin color or gender identity or reframing works for social justice warriors sensitivities, Disney has strayed away from the classic stories and magic we all once knew and loved.
However, Iger says he's interested in getting back to it. He plans to allocate $60 billion dollars in new investments in parks in the next ten years and supposedly wants to launch three more cruise ships by 2026. These are the areas Disney does the best in as their media is too chock full of wokeism.
In a report from Newsmax late last month, author Charlie McCarthy underlined the main issue with Disney’s failing financial situation, like its stock being at a nine-year low and its streaming service, Disney+, losing more than $11 billion since it was created in 2019.
The real issue on Disney's hands at this time is that it's burned too many bridges with its would-be audience. It's politicized itself so heavily that half the country despises the company, and on top of that, few people want to show up to a Disney flick to get preached at or bear witness to another boring CGI-fest whose stories were written by activists and not storytellers.
Disney has shown a clear disdain for Americans and their values while embracing a bubble-like mentality surrounding radical leftist social justice values. They don't see their product as an artful creation but as a soapbox from which to finger-wag.
Wokeism just ain't cutting it anymore. People are getting fed up with politics being shoved in entertainment, and that's exactly why Disney is failing so much.
It seems like Iger is at least slightly recognizing that his company is going to s**t.
In April at another meeting, Iger said, “Our primary mission needs to be to entertain...and to have a positive impact on the world. I’m very serious about that. It should not be agenda-driven."
While all this is good and there's a glimmer of hope for the future of Disney, at this point Iger is like the boy who cried wolf. Until we see actual changes made and implemented, the house of mouse is likely to continue declining in success.
