Inside the toxic woke row between Disney and Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis overshadowing its 100th birthday
ANYONE who has watched their children gaze up in wonder at a Disney firework display will know why the group’s theme parks call themselves the “Happiest Place on Earth”.
And in the year that the entertainment giant celebrates its 100th anniversary, the pyrotechnics will be bigger than ever — but perhaps not in the way the House of Mouse intended.
While a concert tour, exhibition and “Wonder of Friendship Experience” are coming to the UK to mark the centenary, behind the scenes, the magic is wearing off. For rather than receiving a birthday bonus, around 7,000 Disney staff will lose their jobs as soon as Monday in a round of brutal lay-offs — with more to follow.
Its Disney+ streaming service lost more than £1billion last year, the chief executive was axed in November and now its biggest theme park is caught up in a “woke” war.
The politician who could be the next US President, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, this week threatened to build a prison right next to Walt Disney World in Florida, which attracts 58 million visitors every year.
DeSantis appears to be taking revenge on the California-based media company for objecting to the so-called Don’t Say Gay law — which effectively bans teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender issues with primary-school kids — that was passed in Florida last year.
Child labour
DeSantis said the “woke” company had “crossed the line” by objecting and was “in far too deep with the Communist Party of China” after it opened a theme park in Shanghai.
On Tuesday Disney appeared to respond by promoting a new Disneyland After Dark: Pride Nite in June, which will “celebrate LGBT communities and allies”.
To advertise the event, the firm released a picture of Mickey and Minnie Mouse and cartoon pals dressed in the rainbow colours of the LGBTQ+ flag.
For many of Disney’s fans its embracing of woke culture is a laudable move — but the firm has not always been so right on.
Indeed, when Walt Disney formed the company on October 16, 1923 with his brother Roy there wasn’t anything left-wing about him.
On its anniversary website, the company behind Snow White, Avengers and Frozen says proudly that “Walt Disney did more to touch the hearts, minds and emotions of millions of Americans than any other man in the past century” — although perhaps not in the way that statement suggests.
Walt, who died in 1966 aged 65, is reported to have attended Nazi rallies, associated with anti-Semites, discriminated against women, complained that Hollywood was full of “Reds”, used armed guards against striking workers and supported racist ideas.
The only element of the company that the workaholic mogul might recognise today is its attitude to staff.
In recent years Disney has been accused of using child labour in its overseas factories, and paying some US employees so little that they have ended up homeless and underpaying tax.
That’s not in line with the liberal messages of its studio productions, such as the recent £1.85billion hit Avatar: The Way Of Water.
In 1923 when Walt set up a camera stand in his uncle’s garage to record moving cartoons he surely had no idea his firm would end up as a global giant.
But his innovative approach soon reaped rewards, and in 1928 he had a hit with Steamboat Willie, the world’s first properly synchronised sound cartoon, and Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated musical movie, in 1937.
But there was little diversity in the organisation.
Walt told a female animator: “Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen.”
He also allied with the anti-Jewish Motion Picture Alliance For The Preservation Of American Ideals, and one historian claimed Walt mixed with members of pro-Nazi group the German American Bund, or German-American Federation, in the 1930s.
When Disney+ launched during the pandemic it included warnings about racist content in classic films such as Dumbo and The Jungle Book.
Its 1946 musical Song Of The South, in which a black plantation worker reminisces fondly about the days of slavery, is not available to subscribers.
On the other hand, Walt did create several anti-Nazi propaganda films in World War Two and did all he could to put Mary Poppins, with its message that family is more important than money, on the big screen.
Undoubtedly, Walt was a movie-making genius, winning 23 Oscars and numerous other awards, and an innovator in business as well, opening the Disneyland theme park in California and starting the Mickey Mouse Club TV show in 1955, followed by a record company the following year.
After his death the film company struggled for a couple of decades until it enjoyed a revival in the early 1990s with Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King.
In the past decade and a half Disney’s purchase of Marvel, giving it the rights to Black Panther, Captain America and Iron Man, Lucasfilm, which owned Star Wars, and 20th Century Fox, that made Avatar, have made it a global media giant.
But its pursuit of world domination came at a price.
Human rights groups accused Disney of using sweatshops in China, Bangladesh and Haiti to make its merchandise.
Fantasy wages
In 1996 what workers in Haiti were paid over five days was the equivalent of the price of a piece of Pocahontas clothing in the US.
Then in 2011 undercover investigators found children as young as 14 making Cars-themed toys in China.
Even in the US, workers have been exploited.
Five years ago two reporters found 11 per cent of Disneyland staff had ended up homeless.
Abigail Disney said her grandfather Roy would not have accepted the fantasy wages of then chief executive Bob Iger when employees were so poor.
She said in a documentary last year: “I cannot see him taking $66million home for a year’s work in the same year when, at the same company, people can’t afford food.”
The Disney family has not been involved with the company since Abigail’s dad Roy E Disney left two decades ago.
It is Iger who is now taking on DeSantis.
Iger, who returned as chief executive after Bob Chapek was fired in November, defended Disney’s right to speak out on social issues.
He accused the Republican governor of trying to “punish a company for its exercise of a constitutional right.”
DeSantis, who is expected to run against Donald Trump to be the Republican Party’s presidential candidate next year, is trying to restrict the special powers that Disney has in Florida.
When Walt bought a piece of swamp to build the theme park he insisted that the company be made a “special taxing district”, meaning it could raise its own taxes locally.
DeSantis dissolved this arrangement in February, and has also accused Disney of giving in to China.
A 2020 report by free speech charity PEN America accused the company of self-censoring its movies to appease the communist dictatorship.
It said a Tibetan character in the 2016 superhero film Doctor Strange had been “whitewashed” and a Taiwanese flag had been removed from 2022 film Top Gun: Maverick.
In 2019 Disney’s live-action remake of Mulan faced calls for a boycott after its star Liu Yifei voiced support for the Hong Kong police’s handling of pro-democracy demonstrators.
China is the world’s second biggest movie market, which Disney needs to boost its flagging profits.
Making big-budget productions for Disney+ in a bid to catch up with streaming rival Netflix is draining its funds.
A report by financial news service Bloomberg yesterday said that 15 per cent of the entertainment division staff could go this year.
And that’s not one of the “heartwarming new stories” promised by Disney100 as part of its birthday celebrations.