The House of the Mouse
Sounds like Game of Thrones
Who would believe the happiest place on earth is run by one of the most controversial companies in the world.
Walt Disney Studios was originally known at The Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio. October 16, 1923, Walt signed a contract with MJ Winkler to produce a series of Alice Comedies. Walt founded the company with his brother Roy in the living room of their Uncle Robert's house. The icon Mickey Mouse was co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. And Mickey is the flagship character of Disney.
Disneyland was opened on July 17, 1955 and Disneyworld was opened October 1, 1971. Disneyland is the only Disney park that was designed by Walt Disney. There are several other Disney resorts around the world. They are very successful money-makers, however there is a cost of being a multi-media mogel and standing for what is right.
Indecision
They won't pick a side
Until recently, Disney managed to alienate both the left and the right by both being 'too inclusive' in their messaging to appease people on the right side of the politcal spectrum, and too focused on family values and showing 'normal' for the left leaning audience.
In the last several years of releases, they definitely picked a side: their focus has been on diversity and inclusion and they have now released a few dozen projects showing the "first ever homosexual character in a Disney project!"
They even went so far as the plan the upcoming release of Rey by hiring a diverse and feminist director with no experience with fiction or interest in Star Wars to helm the film.
However, their largest struggle from this decision has been two-fold:
- Turns out their audience didn't want to watch movies written by committee and AI
- They are bleeding money like crazy
- Hiring people uninterested in the stories they are creating who only see them as a "vehicle" for promoting their message isn't a great strategy.
Their is a worse problem that is starting to take root, however, and that is their constant goal to gaslight their audience.
They picked a side in content creation but they don't want to own it. This pisses of their conservative audience who isn't blind and stupid and can see with their own eyes what Disney's agenda has become, and it pisses off their liberal audience when Disney tries to take a step back and gaslight everyone by saying: "oh no, we don't focus on one side or another, we just tell stories."
Criticisms abound with Disney for their stereotypical portrayal of non-white characters, sexism and alleged plagiarism.
Controversies
The original Disney princesses were all white. However, that hasn't been the case for more than twenty years, but no matter how many new non-white princesses are released, the liberal audience still only talks about how 'white' the princesses are.
People might point out that: 'even the character in the first Disney princess movie was named "Snow White".' That is true, sure, but it was also based on a Grimm's Fairy Tale of the same name.
Liberal audiences want to focus on and hone in on racist portrayels in movies like Peter Pan. Conservative audiences want to hone in on the exact opposite with modern movies that do basically the exact opposite in their character portrayels.
More recent princesses including Moana, Tiana and Mulan represent a more diverse world and reflect beauty standards of more cultures as Disney has sought to reach a more global audience. They have found varying levels of success (to downright failure and mockery with their live action version of Mulan in China).
The biggest controversy, obviously: Song of the South
In 1946 in a tone deaf move that was even controversial then, Disney released "Song of the South". The characterization of black people during the Reconstruction period after the Civil War was based on Jim Crow ideology, and insenstive to a whole group of Americans that were struggling and continue to struggle with ongoing racism, segregation, and unprovoked violence.
This movie is atrocious. Disney knows it, everyone knows it, and Disney does not stand by it. I think this is one of the things that gets lost in the conversation: Disney does not defend this movie and say it is great or a masterpiece. It was made almost eighty years ago and does not deserve to be defended. If Disney was even remotely interested in pretending it existed they would be making a live action remake of it as we speak.
Retaliation from the Right
Their move from X (formerly Twitter) followed Musk supporting an antisemitic tweet and a liberal watchdog group saying pro-Nazi content was being shown near advertisements from major corporations on the platform after excessive "gamification" of the algorithms.
After Disney participated in the advertiser exodus from X, Musk called for Disney's board chairman to be fired and is actively supporting a shareholder seeking a seat on Disney's board. There are rumors that given Disney's current weakness in the market after their focus on commitee driven content that Musk is planning even stronger takeovers.
Florida
Governor Ron Desantis of Florida believes that Disney has been allowed to self-govern too much. They were granted huge legacy benefits early on in their tenure in the state, and he thinks that the State of Florida should be more involved in Disney and what Disney is allowed to do or say. This is mostly considering how much he devalues their current diversity and inclusion propaganda campaign.
Desantis critics say that he has made Florida's government toxic and undermines free speech, gay rights and inclusivity.
Donations
Recently, Disney donated $2 million to Israel aid groups. Many Muslims believe that Disney does not care about Palestinian lives. Even though some want to boycott Disney, others still want to support Ms. Marvel as the only female Muslim superhero.
Firings
Actor Gina Carano was fired in 2021 from "The Mandalorian" for expressing right-wing views on social media.
She compared hating someone for their political views to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust on an Instagram post in February 2021. She also mocked the use of face masks during COVID. She also repeated beliefs that there was voter fraud in the 2020 election.
In February 2024 she filed a lawsuit for her firing. The iissue at stake here leads back to gaslighting. Essentially, Disney was willing to fire her for having conservative views, but when someone spoke up with as much vitriol on social media with liberal views they were spared. Once again, Disney can claim they don't have an agenda and haven't picked a side, but it's just words.
Labor
Disney's labor practices and employee welfare policies are the subject of many other controversies as well.
Disney says: "At Disney we foster a culture where employees are inspired and empowered to do their best work. We are home to some of the most exceptional, extraordinary people. We are where creativity meets opportunity and careers are a journey of accomplishment and celebration."
Sounds wonderful...right?
Wrong! Disney's ticket prices have skyrocketed over the past ten years while Disney worker wages are stagnant. Their CEO Iger who is stepping down got an 80% boost in compensation. His annual compensation is 1,424 times what the median Disney worker earned and it is one of the widest CEO-worker income gaps of any American corporation.
Disney has a troubling history of work abuse around the world. Many products sold at the resorts and retail stores were made in Bangladesh, China, and Haiti.
Mickey Mouse and Pocahantas pajamas were made in a factory in Haiti that paid its workers as little as $.12 per hour per a 1996 National Labor Committee (NLC) report.
In a 2002 NLC report, a Bangladesh factory was making employees work 14 to 15 hour shifts 7 days a week with no overtime. The average per hour rate was about $.19 per hour. Workers had to work in a verbally and physically abusive factory that was hot and poorly ventilated.
In China 2007 the China Labor Watch reported widespread labor violations in eight factories including underage works, excessive overtime, unsafe conditions and sexual harassment.
Definitely Disney does not appear to be the happiest place in the world to work.
The Mouse
Most likely to Disney's dismay, after 95 years of copyright protection Steamboat Willie is officially in the United States public domain. So images of that original little mouse are available and ready to use for everyone.
The happiest place on earth is definitely not all its cracked up to be.
Disney picked a lane, but now they need to own it. Their agenda in recent years has been to hard sell liberal ideals of trans rights, diversity, and inclusion. Those are definitely worth promoting, and I am glad that Disney has decided to spend their social and monetary capital trying to build something new.
However, they should just own up to it and stop pretending otherwise. They have destroyed the legacy of Star Wars, the MCU, and most of their original properties in this endeavor and instead of saying: "this is what we want to do and we are all in for it" they pretend like instead when their new content isn't popular it is the fault of their audience, particularly the conservative one.
If they were so interested in maintaining their conservative audience, then maybe they should have catered to them the tiniest bit more.
But hey, what do I know. Clearly their box office numbers tell a compelling story about why they made the decisions they made...
