The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger recently addressed the company’s massive amount of “woke” characters it has pumped out in recent years.
Bob Iger via New York Times Events YouTube
During an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin during an appearance at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit, Iger was asked about how he is supposed to deal with numerous amount of characters and storylines the company has created that have been deemed “woke.”
Iger answered, “Let me start about content and your comment about ‘woke’ characters. Our primary objective in creating content as a company — save for ABC News, which is obviously to inform — is to entertain whether it’s sports, whether it’s Disney, whether it’s Marvel. Make things that entertain people. And the good news is that there’s a marketplace out there that demands entertainment. It’s a fantastic business to be in because of that.”
“I think what had happened over a period of time and was building and building and maybe it reached a peak of some sort while I was gone, is that creators lost sight of what their number one objective needed to be,” Iger said. “Often when we entertain and we’ve entertained as a company over the 100 years we’ve been in business, we have entertained with values and with having a positive impact on the world in many different ways. I use Black Panther as a great example of that, just in terms of fostering acceptance, or the movie Coco, which Pixar did about the Day of the Dead. I like being able to do that: entertain and if you can infuse it with positive messages that have a good impact on the world, fantastic. But that should not be the objective.”
Bob Iger attend the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Premiere at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood CA on Thursday, April 27, 2023.
(Photo: Alex J. Berliner/ABImages)
RELATED: Pop Culture Expert Explains How ‘Doctor Who’ Was “Murdered By The Message”
“When I came back what I have really tried to do is to return to our roots, which is, remember, we have to entertain first,” Iger said. “It’s not about messages. Again, if your story can have a positive impact, so there’s that, and I’ve worked hard since I’ve been back in reminding the creative community that are our partners, okay so our employees, that that’s the objective.”
“And I don’t really want to tolerate the opposite, so there’s that,” he stated.
Bradley Cooper and Bob Iger attend the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Premiere at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood CA on Thursday, April 27, 2023.
(Photo: Alex J. Berliner/ABImages)
Eternals was a direct product of these initiatives. Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige admitted as much telling Variety, “Well, the notion of switching up the genders, sexualities and ethnicities of the characters from the comics, was baked in initially — that was part of what Nate Moore was really advocating for in moving Eternals to the top of the list for us to start working on.”
(L-R): Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), Gilgamesh (Don Lee), Thena (Angelina Jolie), Ikaris (Richard Madden), Ajak (Salma Hayek), Sersi (Gemma Chan), Sprite (Lia McHugh), Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) and Druig (Barry Keoghan) in Marvel Studios‘ ETERNALS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
What do you make of Iger’s comments about “woke” characters?
[…] […]
[…] […]