In the past couple of days, famous public journalist and OMG Founder/Boss James O’Keeffe has revealed undercover interviews that have exposed The Walt Disney Company to potential serious civil and criminal liabilities and public relations disasters involving unfair, prejudicial, and racial/sexual hiring practices at the company that many have suspected for years but that now stand pretty blatantly verified if even a small portion of what these interviews expose is true.
PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS – “Episode 107” (Disney/David Bukach)ARYAN SIMHADRI, LEAH SAVA JEFFRIES, WALKER SCOBELL
These secretly-recorded videos are of a Michael Giordano, attorney and high-level exec for The Mouse telling the interviewer about how the company chooses employees both in front of and behind the cameras and scenes based on their ethnic visibility–and yes, you read that right–”visibility” as in NOT “are you Black?” but as in “Do you LOOK Black enough to fool people?” and automatically eliminates from consideration those who don’t fit top management’s DEI goals.
Yes, that’s racial, sexual, and other kinds of illegal hiring practice–the kind of thing which was once a secret and unwritten rule in all kinds of companies that led to powerful laws to stop it but that now seems to be the status quo with “woke” companies, institutions, and even some in government.
BREAKING: Senior Vice President at The Walt Disney Company details discriminatory hiring practices: “Nobody else is going to tell you this, but they’re not considering any white males for the job,” says Michael Giordano, a Vice President of Business affairs, “there’s no way we’re… pic.twitter.com/IMOsFOLKro
— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) June 20, 2024
READ: Filing With EEOC Accuses Disney Of Engaging In Illegal Racial And Sexual Hiring And Promotion Bias
When this came out, we covered it on our channels and some even within them feared that we took too much pleasure in the fact that the guy who gave the game away was now utterly screwed in his career, how his web presence and professional links vaporized from the Internet in hours, and did a bit too much giggling that it was in talks with two women he met on dating apps who were actually camera-and-mike-armed journalists that he committed this public auto-da-fe.
In considering that and trying to figure out just how much sympathy this fellow and his ilk deserve and trying to be compassionate as possible, I realized that my honest attitude was “Throw the book at him. He’s an idiot and should get whatever he gets.” BUT…that’s not enough to say on the subject, so here I am–see what you think of my reasoning.
(L-R): Olega Padawan (Ed Kear), Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett), Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae), Jedi Padawan Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) and Osha (Amandla Stenberg) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©.
The object of any organization is to do what it does, make what it makes, sell what it sells, and deal with its customers and regulators as efficiently, honestly, and profitably as possible. That’s true whether they sell industrial widgets, financial services, or plushies representing Mr. Giordano’s probable emotion right now–a frazzled ball of orange symbolizing “Anxiety.”
To do that, while you can’t ever guarantee success at it, you HIRE the people who are MOST likely to achieve that goal–the best people for the job that you can find–Period–and do so legally and ethically, too.
Well guess what? IF you hire based on ANY other factor, especially those proscribed by laws about equal opportunity for all–not just some–races, sexes, etc. etc., then ASIDE from doing something unethical and potentially illegal, you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT HIRE THE BEST because when you put that “filter” on the choice, you will inevitably rule out those who cannot meet BOTH criteria at once.
MEET ANXIETY — Disney and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” returns to the mind of newly minted teenager Riley just as a new Emotion shows up unexpectedly. And Anxiety, voiced by Maya Hawke, isn’t the type of Emotion who will take a back seat either. Directed by Kelsey Mann and produced by Mark Nielsen, “Inside Out 2” releases only in theaters Summer 2024. © 2023 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.
IF you hire based not on the best alone as your own professionalism and ethics instruct you, right or wrong in the abstract but without the good intent implied, you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT HIRE THE BEST because when you engage in a conspiracy that way and set your entire company’s policies based on it (and if, as this guy explains, you have come up with company-wide “code words” to avoid being caught in that very conspiracy that requires those “code words” to avoid detection) you’ve already elevated the cause of secrecy and conspiracy HIGHER than that of excellence.
And IF you do this corruptly you have de facto thrown out the concept of excellence and y’know what? You’ll get people who are less than excellence–whether in doing the jobs in question OR in keeping the corrupt secrets that have now been exposed.
So you see, here’s a really huge potential reason for the lapses in management, financial prudence, core competency, AND creativity that have been the norm at Disney for years–at least as many as this hidden, crooked, prejudiced, and utterly inefficient way of doing business has prevailed.
(Right): Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez in Marvel Studios’ Echo, releasing on Hulu and Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. ©Marvel Studios 2023. All Rights Reserved.
We can spend the rest of our lives arguing over the legalities, the ethics, the company’s honesty or this inadvertent whistle-blower’s basic awareness and intelligence (and of course his OWN corruption for having actively participated in what he describes all this time) but the ONE THING THAT IS INARGUABLE that this story has revealed is this:
The people at Disney from Bob Iger on down who took stockholders’ money and customer’s money and used it in this way with this–not excellence–as their primary goal have, once again, LIED to us about their desire for quality, transparency, and legal business dealings and, once again, shown their complete and utter contempt for ethics, legality, and your custom and trust.
HULU ON DISNEY+ CELEBRATION – Some of the biggest stars across The Walt Disney Company celebrate the official launch of Hulu on Disney+ at an exclusive cocktail reception hosted by Dana Walden and Alan Bergman, along with special guest Bob Iger, on Friday evening in Los Angeles. (Disney/Greg Williams)
DANA WALDEN (CO-CHAIRMAN, DISNEY ENTERTAINMENT, THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY), ROBERT A. IGER (CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY), ALAN BERGMAN (CO-CHAIRMAN, DISNEY ENTERTAINMENT, THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY)
IF you cannot or won’t do things free of corruption, if you choose to do things in a way that is palpably conspiratorial, then you cannot avoid incompetence and decay in your alleged aims for excellence.
Fail at being free of corruption, fail even at keeping your conspiracies secret, and you will fail at everything from creating compelling products, keeping to budgets and schedules, and, yes, presenting your audience with animatronic alligators that can keep their heads on straight.
And THAT is why I have, on contemplation, ZERO compassion for crooks, whether stupid or smart, and ZERO care about the consequences that come to racists, sexists, or others who lie to you and to me about their ethical intentions, and ZERO sympathy for a highly educated and credentialed attorney destroying his life because his desire to score with a computer date encounter couldn’t keep him from hoping to have reason to unzip his fly by first opening his big, fat mouth.
(L-R): Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers, and Teyonah Parris as Captain Monica Rambeau in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo by Laura Radford. ©?
NEXT: Disney CEO Bob Iger Says It Is Not The Company’s Job “To Advance Any Kind Of Agenda”
