The last year couldn’t have gone worse for Disney. Since picking a fight with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over parental rights in schools, the company has taken fire from conservatives and angry parents over woke themes and sexual content aimed at children in their parks and content. Of course, that didn’t mean Disney hadn’t been slipping inappropriate content in for some time, but people finally started to notice.
In 2023, people started to notice and actually act upon what they saw. Not only did the theme parks see shockingly low attendance numbers, but nearly every single movie the studio released tanked. Disney has managed to sink once-unsinkable franchises like Toy Story, Indiana Jones, and The Little Mermaid by inserting woke themes and making wholesale changes to characters that serve no purpose but diversity.
Disney recently announced even more jobs will be lost, as Pixar is cutting almost 20% of its staff, amounting to nearly 300 jobs. Naturally, the company attributed the job loss to anything but ratings. Pixar said: “Pixar Animation Studios is set to cut jobs as the studio has completed production on some shows and now has more staff than it needs.” News service Reuters elaborated: “TechCrunch reported earlier that Pixar was set to undergo layoffs as high as 20% this year, with the studio’s team of 1,300 people reduced to under 1,000 over the coming months.”
The failures have been impressive for Disney in the last year. Indiana Jones and the Marvel franchise have foundered, and the studio was responsible for Elemental, Strange World, Wish, and others in 2023, amounting to a nearly billion-dollar loss for the Mouse. Aside from Indiana Jones and Wish, the other Disney movies that failed usually had common threads in that they focused on children’s characters that had underlying sexual themes.
Disney content was once a wholesome source of family entertainment that parents could trust to entertain and delight their kids. Unfortunately, parents now must vet every offering from the House of Mouse or risk fielding very uncomfortable questions on the way home. Those questions will eventually come, but parents want those questions organically, not after an afternoon at the Cineplex. The revenue loss and string of failures prove that parents are done with the indoctrination.
Perhaps Disney is getting the message. Two huge budget, highly anticipated features have been shuttled for an extra year, ostensibly to be tweaked. The live-action Snow White and Captain America: Brave New World has been shelved until well after the 2024 election.
The reasons are largely social and political. Snow White star Rachel Zegler famously talked unnecessary trash about the beloved original, and when the screen grabs showing full-size adults in place of dwarves were revealed, social media went nuclear over the woke change.
Perhaps Disney has learned its lesson. Or perhaps shareholders have spoken, and the billion-dollar losses can’t continue. The question still remains: will viewers come back? How long will it take Disney to regain the trust of parents? Apparently, the studio isn’t counting on 2024, and by the next year, no one may care.
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