Disney CEO Bob Iger conceded that his company needs to pull the e-brake on woke messaging and instead focus on entertainment and storytelling.
In an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times, Iger said that while he was away from the company in 2022, things went particularly haywire.
“Creators lost sight of what their number one objective needed to be. We have to entertain first. It’s not about messages,” he said.
“We have entertained with values and with having a positive impact on the world in many different ways,” he added.
Many films are flopping because they were infused with woke messaging
Iger’s comments come after a few box office flops that have been chastised for being uber woke.
Their 2022 release Strange World features a gay main character and a teen romance, which utterly bombed at the box office and lost an estimated $197 million USD.
Meanwhile, the 2022 film Lightyear included a lesbian kiss scene. Beloved actor Tim Allen, who voices Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story franchise, said of Lightyear: “It just doesn’t seem to have any connection to the toy, and it’s a little…I don’t know. It just has no relationship to Buzz. It’s just no connection. I wish there was a better connection.”
Disney Snow White actress is a woke, third-wave feminist
Moreover, Disney’s forthcoming film Snow White is getting shredded online even before its release due to obvious signs of wokeness that has upset millions of fans.
The film is set to be released sometime in 2025.
Despite the 1937 animated classic describing Snow White as having “skin as white as snow,” the film’s director Marc Webb decided to cast a Hispanic actress, Rachel Zegler, to play the lead character.
In late 2022 and 2023, Zegler was making the rounds addressing the adaptation of the film, suggesting that the original version reinforces patriarchal stereotypes that are harmful to women.
In fact, Zegler claimed the forthcoming version is not about a love story at all, the prince is not a main character, and it’s possible his scenes are cut from the film altogether.
“It’s really not about the love story at all which is really really wonderful,” she said during a Disney Expo event.
Not only is Snow White not White, but Disney has also decided that the seven dwarfs shouldn’t be dwarfs at all – or at least, six of them shouldn’t be.
“To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community,” a Disney statement read.
