Remember yesterday when I said that Disney was in a no-win situation of its own doing? Yeah, well, prepare for the repercussions…
Pixar employees are livid with The Walt Disney Company and CEO Bob Chapek. At least, that’s what the mainstream headlines are saying. Thus, it’s probably what most mainstream media readers are believing. You might be surprised to hear from Pixar employees though — they are the studios, after all, that can’t seem to get a movie into theaters since a certain John Lassater left for misconduct reasons. Still, livid they are, and now that’s out in the public sphere. Cue the progressive critique:
In a statement attributed to “the LGBTQIA+ employees of Pixar, and their allies” obtained by Variety, employees of the animation studio allege that Disney corporate executives have demanded cuts from “nearly every moment of overtly gay affection… regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership at Pixar.”
— Variety
Note from the author: if an acronym grows too cumbersome or a group has too many subgroups, it becomes harder to know what exactly it is anymore. I’m going to need that plus sign defined.
So what did the Pixar employees of a particular persuasion have to say?
We at Pixar have personally witnessed beautiful stories, full of diverse characters, come back from Disney corporate reviews shaved down to crumbs of what they once were. Even if creating LGBTQIA+ content was the answer to fixing the discriminatory legislation in the world, we are being barred from creating it.”
Oh well just perfect… now it’s morphed from an issue about teaching kindergartners about gender identity in official school curriculum to an overall condemnation of Disney’s tongue-in cheek-promotion of progressive issues so long as it doesn’t aggravate the Chinese. I’m sure that’s going to sell way more rainbow Mickey ears now. Again, this is not something that Disney had to step into, but now they’re in it. They’re getting hammered by the left because they’re not left enough. Or at least they like to be left when being left makes them money.
Cue the conservative critique:
Ron DeSantis took a call from the most powerful corporation in his state and told them to pound sand. Teddy Roosevelt.pic.twitter.com/iwV0xScgWg
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 10, 2022
Well how about that, eh? What could you use more than the governor of the state where you have your largest and easily most lucrative theme park… condemning you for soaking in the riches of the Chinese Communist Party and their organ harvesting, slave labor, genocide, and more. Oh yeah, that really helps with your business. Not to mention, you’re stuck if you’re Disney because every bit of that one is true. Righties and lefties may disagree about school curriculum, but they don’t disagree about Chinese slave labor.
There’s a term in chess when you make a really stupid mistake that could cost you the entire game. I believe it’s called a “blunder”. Getting involved in this topic is a 100% major blunder by Bob Chapek et al.
Listen, if you want The Walt Disney Company to be an ideological corporation or a political movement or a social change factory, I guess you can see this as a win. But if you are a shareholder for Disney, this has gotta suck. I mean, there was zero upside in getting involved in this. Yes, Mark Hamill can type gay 69 times on Twitter until the cows come home, but Mark Hamill isn’t going to get hammered by a popular governor about being involved with a genocidal economy propped up by slave labor. Disney is. And it’s true. So what are they going to do? Are they going to seriously fight Florida over making five year olds learn about gender fluidity when Florida is going to respond by pointing out Disney is simultaneously thanking genocidal governments as they film near concentration camps? There’s no moral high ground here. Disney cannot win.
That’s why it is utterly stupid to get involved in this whatsoever. Now you have a bunch of no-name employees at a once-great studio that has become straight-to-DVD level bad calling you out in the trades anonymously. So what good did it do to get involved?
The legislation isn’t going to change. Disney isn’t going to do a single thing to punish anyone in Florida. Disney is walking on eggshells terrified that China is going to invade Taiwan and fracture their company like never before. And all of this is on Robert Iger who had the gall to build a Disney World style investment inside a communist country without the foresight to think that might be a horrible idea. Meanwhile, now we’ve got Bob Chapek leading the company, and clearly he can be pushed into making a really, really stupid decision that makes everything worse for himself. When half the country thinks you’re on the wrong side of history and the other half thinks you’re on the wrong side of history, you’ve put yourself in a bad position.
You know who isn’t having to deal with any of this whatsoever? Sony. Universal. Paramount. SeaWorld.