If you want to know what’s going on behind the scenes with major studios, the marketing and merchandising partners are often the first to find out.
A toy industry expert and insider with more than three decades of experience at a Disney merchandising partner has been leaking information to us on a fairly regular basis. Now, the level of spice is being cranked up by more than a little. According to our anonymous source, whose identity we have corroborated but keep anonymous for purposes of protecting their career, Lucasfilm has a very interesting system going on behind the scenes. It lines up with other things we’ve seen and heard out of Disney, specifically out of their DEI initiatives “Reimagine Tomorrow” and “Stories Matter.
Our source is telling us that Lucasfilm maintains a “diversity grid” system for determining diversity ratios throughout their programs. Just as interesting, the source who works with researching market reactions to franchise toys has informed us that Lucasfim’s diversity grid does not differentiate between “white” or “Caucasian” and “Latino” or “Hispanic”. As a result, Lucasfim properties supposedly can use a “Latino” or “Hispanic” character in lieu of a “white” character and still fulfill their “white ratio”.
On their diversity grid (which is not written down, but is part of discussions at project ground zero), Latino/Caucasian count as “the same thing”. So basically, Diego in Andor is considered Caucasian because he hits two birds with one stone. Totally crazy.
Furthermore, having too many “white characters” in a show or movie is allegedly not permissible. And apparently that’s part of what caused major changes in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series on Disney+. Having the show be about Anakin, Luke and Obi-Wan in the original script treatment had resulted in a show that was deemed “too white, too male”. As a result, Luke had to be cut out of much of the show in favor of Leia, even if the narrative didn’t make terribly much sense with prior lore. Also, since Darth Vader and Obi-Wan couldn’t be dismissed easily, significant screen time was allocated to a woman of color. It’s not that diversity is bad at all — it’s that good stories with characters fans love can’t be had if they’re “too white”. That seems nonsensical. Yet stories, movies AND merchandise all need to reflect this diversity grid at Lucasfilm.
An international merchandising agent had the following to say to our source:
White men are so rejected at Lucas that they would not authorize a TV show starring Obi-Wan, Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. It was forbidden because there were too many white men. Even though they knew less people would watch and buy, they had to rework and delay production to replace one character by a female character…
Again, in my opinion, diversity is a wonderful thing. It should be lauded. But as with all things, when a concept is taken too far, it becomes malignant. Water is healthy and should be used to hydrate, but even water if taken in excess becomes toxic. The sun is the source of all life, yet sitting outside in July with no shelter from the rays of sunlight will cause pain. So too is diversity. Everything needs parameters. Having a diverse background for people working in and around a project is important — but if you can’t tell a great story with great characters because of diversity, you’ve not constrained the concept to its appropriate usefulness. Imagine if Wakanda Forever had to have some artificial quota of Asian actors that made Wakanda be not so much about Africa but about multiculturalism. That would artificially change the story in a way that isn’t appropriate. When Luke, Obi-Wan and Anakin can’t be featured in a story due to a diversity grid system, there’s a problem.
It’s reasonable to be frustrated that Kenobi, once a film then a show, wasn’t given the same care or budget as Andor. Especially with it being the return of two Legacy actors after 17 years
— Okiro (@TheFirstOkiro) November 3, 2022
Of course it isn’t just Lucasfilm. As we’ve been documenting, this unconstrained paint-by-numbers system of setting arbitrary race quotas seems to extend throughout The Walt Disney Company. Again from our main source:
At Marvel, the -mid to long term future is for certain key projects to be balancing acts: continue down the current “society of tomorrow” path BUT with just enough wider appeal factors (some male characters that register, hetero romances maybe even including canon Caucasian couples, etc) to hit a decent bank. Imagine a She-Hulk line of toys (ha!), with the desperation pitch on licensed being “Look we gave you Daredevil! The core (audience) really like him, right? Right? He should sell, right?… right? Ok, after initial ship just do solid cases so the Tatianna figures won’t stick (to shelves)” Taking licensed producers for fools. They really want to do both: their “social” objectives but with, and this is what a key guy (20+ years at Disney) told me: “They want to do the society, but also sprinkle in enough sugar to make the medicine go down”. English is not his first language, but it’s a great metaphor. Yep, seeing a Marvel show or film will be like taking medicine. But it will be grape flavored so you won’t spit it out.
Imagine the added difficulty they’re setting for themselves when making a successful run of projects is already difficulty enough when the single objective is to “entertain”!
There are many at Disney who legitimately believe the “society of tomorrow” stuff is actually a growing pain to building what will ultimately be a larger audience, and that they just need ”to stick with it”, albeit compromise a bit, but not too much, in order to make more money in the long run. They couch this in marketing talk of “broader appeal”, etc.
For now, it seems, Disney leadership has not yet given up on their idea of replacing the Chinese market with a “broader appeal” system that seeks to grow revenues at the cost of legacy characters and fans. I only wish they would do all of this under the obvious umbrella of financial impetus rather than the faux virtue signaling. But maybe there’s hope given CEO Bob Chapek’s recent mushy responses to direct questions about “wokeness”. For now, there’s just not the same level of enthusiasm for upcoming Disney fare — and that’s a dangerous place for an entertainment company to be.
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