No movie company squandered customer goodwill faster and more fatally than Disney. That a name literally synonymous with wholesome family entertainment would be soiled to mean the opposite bothered no one at the studio. “Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children,” Walt Disney said. Thus, his successors went to work corrupting them. This “children’s crusade” is so crucial to them that not even financial disaster will keep them from it.
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A brand-new box-office analysis disclosed that Disney’s last eight studio releases have cost the company nearly $900 million in losses. And its streaming service lost a catastrophic $1.5 billion in the fourth quarter, far more than the crippling $630 million lost the previous year. How Disney got to this point is a study in left-wing fanaticism that drove the Mouseketeers from the real world of business to their private woke Fantasyland.
First, they had to correct the brand’s 70-plus years of misguiding little girls into wanting to be romantic princesses rather than feminist warrioresses. To paraphrase a song from Disney’s Mulan, they made a man out of them. Author Faith Moore astutely describes the madness in her book, Saving Cinderella: What Feminists Get Wrong About Disney Princesses And How To Set It Right. The studio had some success with this first phase of its mission. But it ran into trouble on the second — sexually reorienting, or “re-gendering,” kids. Ron DeSantis broke them.
In an effort to embarrass the Florida governor for his “Parental Rights in Education” bill — which Hollywoke idiots called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill — Disney defiantly added a lesbian kiss to the Toy Story spin-off, Lightyear. They knew little boys who enjoyed macho hero Buzz Lightyear would be put off by the scene, but that was their problem. They would be made to appreciate it. Disney had already replaced conservative actor Tim Allen, the voice of Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story films, with liberal Chris Evans. Given this one-two punch, Lightyear flopped. But, boy, they sure showed DeSantis.
Disney executives can’t be deterred by inconveniences like box-office failure. They’re on a religious mission for the alphabet cult. Thus followed their big 2022 Christmas release, Strange World, featuring the gay teen hero’s gay romance, with climate change the impetus. Young audiences would see the light, they promised, and pay for the illumination. The only one who paid was Disney. Their picture didn’t just bomb, it irradiated movie houses all over America. (RELATED: Why Strange World Flopped)
Undaunted, Disney moved to secure the captured girl audience with a live-action remake of the property that began their 1990s renaissance, The Little Mermaid. But not for the new generation, the original’s feminine white heroine and the dashing prince who saves her and kills the witch. No, this year’s The Little Mermaid is black, badass, boring, and consequently also bombing. (READ MORE: Disney’s New Live-Action The Little Mermaid Is Just a Corrective for Past ‘Mistakes’)
Which brought Disney brass to last weekend’s piece de resistance, Elemental. This one had to drive the stubborn little brats into the theaters, thought the execs. It had it all — Disney’s first non-binary character (how do you like that apple, Sleeping Beauty?), and lessons against racism and xenophobia. The kids would understand everything and pretend to be enchanted, much like late-night TV live audiences pretend to be amused. The result was the worst Disney-Pixar movie disaster of all time. In a normal business, heads would roll, and a total reevaluation of priorities would ensue.
But this is showbusiness, where entertainment falls much lower on the mission statement than liberal persuasion, and an Oscar nomination means much more than profit. Earlier this month, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unveiled the new rules for Oscar consideration in lieu of a suicide note. They represent the final nails in the Hollywoke coffin, for nothing remotely resembling art can come of them.
Starting next year, no film will be considered for an Oscar unless they meet two of the following standards: At least one of the lead actors or significant supporting actors must be from an underrepresented minority group (including “Latinx”, a term Hollywoke refuses to abandon despite Hispanic disdain for it). At least 30 percent of all secondary actors must be minorities or women. The storyline or theme must be about an underrepresented group. Two of the main crewmembers must be minorities, in addition to 30 percent of the crew.
This, of course, would disqualify 95 percent of the greatest films ever made. But let’s just look at Oscar contenders at the end of three consecutive decades in the 20th century and imagine if any of them had been bound by Hollywoke stupidity:
All the nominees were not only masterpieces but also huge moneymakers. Today’s filmmakers might welcome the new rules, since they lack the talent to even approach the quality of their predecessors. At least now they’ll have an excuse for their Disney-level flops and still be able to virtue signal at the Oscar afterparty.
Yet there may be a flicker of hope for normalcy. Last week, the New York Post reported that Disney’s chief diversity officer, Latondra Newton, is “leaving” after six years of forcing woke policies down the company’s throat. These included abolishing the traditional theme parks greeting, “Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls,” and replacing “Fairy Godmothers in Training” with the gender-neutral “Fairy Godmother’s Apprentices.” While the parks are separate from the screen entertainment division, it could be that the ghost of Walt Disney has begun to haunt the progressive cultists destroying his Magic Kingdom. Now if only they could conjure up his talent.
