Art and culture have a reciprocal relationship. Artists reflect the world that they perceive, augment it with their own objectives, and in return the audience accepts or rejects the message that comes out. The artist gets rewarded or punished accordingly.
Unavoidably, mass media must include an element of social programming, though no one seems to want to avoid it. Even the “Keep politics out of kids’ shows” crowd wants children’s programming to an end. Mr. Rogers wanted us to know we each had value and were loved. Which seems apolitical, except that the basis is the inherent worth of the individual, and that concept is fiercely debatable (I side with Mr. Rogers on this one).
You see, there is a perverse truth in, “The personal is political!”
Mickey walks down Main Street USA at Disneyland. (Credit: Mortimer Productions)
In a recent filing Disney stated that, “The decline in domestic advertising revenue was due to a decrease of 14% from fewer impressions, reflecting lower average viewership…”. That’s a clever bit of obfuscation since they don’t actually tell us what the decline was, but 14% does reflect it. Astounding how with this plethora of ways to watch a Disney show (ABC, FreeForm, ESPN, Disney Channel, Disney+…) there are so many fewer people who want to watch what you produce that you have to report it to the federal government. Dang, that’s got to be embarrassing. Back when a 50s kid wanted to watch the next episode of Davy Crockett he had to convince dad to let him. Now everybody’s got a screen in their pocket, and you can’t get them to pay attention to you even with picture in picture.
What’s going on? Did they forget how to entertain people, or did something else become more important?
(L-R): Jade (Erin Kellyman), Kit (Ruby Cruz), Willow Ufgood (Warwick Davis), Elora (Ellie Bamber), Boorman (Amar Chadha-Patel) and Airk (Dempsey Bryk) in Lucasfilm’s WILLOW exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
That’s actually right here too, in the same filing I mentioned above. Disney is so wildly out of step with their former customer base that it represents a risk to the company. They had to report that, “Generally, our revenues and profitability are adversely impacted when our entertainment offerings and products, as well as our methods to make our offerings and products available to consumers, do not achieve sufficient consumer acceptance. Further, consumers’ perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals, often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brands.”
Let’s unpack that because, as its own paragraph, it means practically nothing but as a safeguard against fines or litigation it might mean millions. The first sentence basically says that they make less money when people don’t watch their stuff, which we know because they told us about the 14% reduction in impressions. But then they have to tell us that different people think different things about the agenda Disney is pushing and that the diversity of opinions causes the risk.
That’s like a kid getting caught throwing a baseball through a window and blaming his friend for not catching it. It’s not a problem, they say, that we want to “Reimagine Tomorrow” or that we put sexual issues into PRESCHOOL shows, it’s that you all have different opinions about us doing it. That’s the problem.
(L-R): Master Yoda (voiced by Piotr Michael) with Jedi Younglings, Kai Brightstar (voiced by Jamaal Avery Jr.), Lys Solay (voiced by Juliet Donenfeld) and Nubs (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) and their friends Nash Durango (voiced by Emma Berman), and RJ-83 (voiced by Jonathan Lipow) on planet Tenoo, in a scene from “STAR WARS: YOUNG JEDI ADVENTURES” exclusively on Disney+ and Disney Junior. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
When was the last time you saw a show that was an unironic celebration of middle America? Intact families who struggle together and overcome problems. Maybe making ends meet is hard, maybe it’s not. Mom and Dad love each other, the kids respect them both, and when Grandma and Grandpa show up for a guest appearance everyone learns a lesson. Back in the day, ABC had a string of hits with the TGIF line up featuring exactly that kind of programming. Full House had the Tanners, an upper-middle class extended family of people in the entertainment industry. Family Matters had the Winslows a working-class family in Chicago. Step By Step had a blended family of entrepreneur parents who I think were in Wisconsin, but I’m not going to bother looking up. And once a year everyone went to Disney World. At least that’s how it seemed to my kid brain.
All of that was crass corporate synergy and it maybe could have been done with more elegance (probably not on the budgets and timelines required), but the strategy was sound. Disney’s omnichannel sales approach needs the intact middle American family who are going to watch a little TV together, go to the movies, buy a princess dress and a Buzz Lightyear costume, and every once and a while scrape together enough money to visit a theme park. But Disney seems to have assumed that they will always have that audience, because they’ve had them for so long.
These days Disney would rather court the Disney adult.
Cinderalla’s Castle in Walt Disney World via 4k WDW YouTube
Other than Bluey (which Disney licenses), their programming isn’t made for families. A lot of it is OK to watch with your kids in the room. A lot of it they want the kids watching without you in the room. But they’re basically out of the family-audience-light-comedy business. For a while there you had Modern Family which I’m sure was a delightful slice of life comedy for Angelinos and it made ABC a bunch of money, but who was watching it with the kids?
America had missions back in the post-war era when Walt built his first park. We had a Cold War to win, space to colonize, and cool cars to drive across our cool country. None of that was getting done without more people, so what did we see? TVs filled with happy families having kids at or above the replacement rate. The entire Disney company is built on the dynamic of an ever-expanding population training the next generation to be another Disney generation. Sometime in the last 20 years Disney forgot that. They started to make kids shows that are cool enough for college burnouts to watch, or slipping the “not-so-secret gay agenda” into everything they can. None of that helps create the next generation.
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)
In fact, Disney is encouraging a reduction in the size of the next generation. When Roe v Wade was overturned, and states were allowed to fulfill their constitutional role in lawmaking, Disney announced that they would fund the travel for abortions for any employees. Which really is putting their money where their mouth is since the dominant narrative in entertainment media has for years been that women who have abortions are making brave health-conscious decisions.
If I’m being fair, providing abortions to employees is probably cost effective. A mother is a less available employee than a childless woman, there is a loss of efficiency in providing coverage during maternity leave, and if the mother doesn’t come back after maternity leave then you have to find and train her replacement. All that for the cost of nothing more than a life never lived, congratulations Disney, you saved a buck. For the nonemployee women out there who’s decision to end a pregnancy is reinforced by the proabortion zeitgeist the business math is radically different. Every baby Disney encourages to be aborted is a future customer missing only to gain a little more spending money for the woman to spend on herself which is a bad business trade-off.
Walt Disney World sign via Orlando Streets YouTube
A disturbing amount of Gen Z doesn’t want kids. There is a constant drum beat of catastrophic climate change or generally unrest fed by the media including Disney. This generation looks at the world and all its trouble then say to themselves, “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” So, Disney gives them 23 new Instagramable cupcakes each month and a new cocktail inspired by the new D+ show, but what happens when they’ve eaten and drank? Who will be left with the fond memories of long car rides and finally seeing the entrance gates? Who will have the overpowering urge to take their own children to the parks just like Mom and Dad did for them?
Disney needs America to believe in a great big, beautiful tomorrow. A future with plenty for our growing families. We’re back on the verge of the interplanetary age and we need some of that jet age swagger back. But Disney doesn’t believe in that future anymore and so they can’t sell it to us.
Some good points here about family viewing and the lack of kid-friendly content. Yes, some worldview will be represented in everything you produce, but what is out of sorts here is that the worldview Disney is endorsing is actively hostile to families rather than supportive and conducive to families. Its all part of a greater agenda to tear down western civilization, the Judeo-Christian heritage, and the central role of family and replace it with… well not much other than a one-world government that controls everything.