OPINION:
When young Walt Disney arrived in California almost a century ago, he could not have imagined that his name and vision would become adored American treasures. Perhaps it’s a good thing he’s not here to see what havoc the left is wreaking on his legacy, hijacked by woke Disney management.
Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, and many more Disney characters have adorned our children’s backpacks and clothing for years, and America’s children have fallen asleep nightly cuddling their Disney plush toys. Millions of families have scrimped and saved for family vacations at a Disney park or on a cruise. Movie soundtracks from “Frozen,” “The Lion King,” “Tangled” and others have played in countless family cars, as children and parents sing along together.
For decades, families gathered around their televisions, first watching “The Mickey Mouse Club” and now the Disney Channel. It was a safe haven for families because they trusted the Disney brand and knew their children could enjoy wholesome entertainment free from political agendas and indoctrination. Walt, who was so devoted to quality family entertainment that he himself voiced Mickey for almost 20 years, would have burst with pride to know the American legacy he built in the country he loved was sustained into the 21st century.
Today, however, “woke” executives are hard at work unraveling Walt’s legacy and Disney’s goodwill.
Take for example Disney’s Corporate President Karey Burke, who wants “many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories” and supports at least 50% of Disney characters to be LGBTQIA and racial minorities. Executive producer Latoya Raveneau proudly boasts her “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” that is regularly “adding queerness” to children’s programming, and “no one is stopping [her].” Disney production coordinator Allen March shared on a Disney call that his production team “explor[es] queer stories” and has a “tracker” to ensure enough “gender-nonconforming characters,” “canonical trans characters” and “canonical bisexual characters” are created. Disney parks now treat “ladies,” “gentlemen,” “boys” and “girls” as four-letter words; “woke,” though, is warmly embraced.
It was Disney CEO Bob Chapek who revealed what’s really going on in Disney’s not-so-magic kingdom when he railed against a new Florida law, mischaracterizing it as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. As is now widely known, nowhere does the word “gay” appear in the law’s text. Instead, it mandates that Florida schools cannot teach sex and gender education in kindergarten through third grade, reinforcing the fundamental right of parents to make decisions regarding the upbringing of their children. Mr. Chapek still vows to challenge the law.
Why do some Disney execs flout their role as custodians of the goodwill of the Disney name they were entrusted to protect and promote? What’s behind this fanatical mission to exploit and destroy our children’s innocence and instead expose them to sex at Disney’s parks and cruises, in movies, characters, images and stories? Could Disney leadership really think this is good for business? It isn’t.
A recent poll of 2022 voters shows nearly 70% say Disney’s focus on creating content to “expose young children to sexual ideas” makes voters less likely to do business with Disney. This same percentage states they are likely “to support family-friendly alternatives to Disney.” Make no mistake; this view is shared by all parties: 58.6% of Democrats, 72.1% of independents and 77.6% of Republicans. Only 9.4% say they are more likely to do business with Disney.
Furthermore, non-woke employees are silenced or marginalized if they dare voice their opposition to this ideology. So uncomfortable are they that some employees anonymously penned a letter to management, writing Disney “has come to be an increasingly uncomfortable place to work for those of us whose political and religious views are not explicitly progressive. We watch quietly as our beliefs come under attack from our own employer, and we frequently see those who share our opinions condemned as villains by our own leadership.”
Sorry, Walt, this leadership is destroying a joyful experience that has bound generations of families. They ignore their responsibility to American children, parents and grandparents. Woke execs are neglecting their obligations to their employees and their fiduciary duty to shareholders. Instead, they’ve joined a massive gender ideology war to unravel the sacred fabric of the American family.
America First Legal Foundation recently sent a letter to Disney’s chair of the Board, demanding information: why Disney mischaracterizes and attacks Florida’s new law; what is behind Disney’s woke agenda; and whether Disney management directs and sanctions a pattern and practice of civil rights violations against certain Disney employees for their political and religious beliefs that don’t comport with those of Disney management. Has Disney breached its fiduciary duty to its shareholders to prevent damage to and waste of corporate assets and failed to maintain other critical legal mandates? One thing is certain. Some Disney executives have abandoned the legacy of Walt Disney and his devotion to producing family entertainment and instead intend to demolish the House of Mouse, and your household with it.
• Julie Alexa Strauss is senior counsel at America First Legal Foundation.
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