Jay Weber Show transcript 11/28/23 7:10am
This was the easiest prediction to make last week: that Disney’s new movie ‘Wish’ would be a flop at the box office.
First-it looked stupid. Disney’s creative teams are getting way too flighty and silly with what they are choosing to animate.
For some reason, they aren’t giving us stories about human or animal characters, anymore. Instead, they’re trying to make characters out of ‘fire’, and ‘water’, and a ‘wishing stars’, and other nonsense that isn’t ‘inventive’ so much as it’s goofy.
That is in addition to the woke B.S. that they’ve been forcing into every storyline and even choosing to make the entire focus of many of their new movies and tv shows.
Folks, ‘wish’ took in just 3.4 million dollars on its opening day...and less than 20-million dollars over the entire-extended- thanksgiving weekend. That’s a pathetic new low for Disney.
It was projected by the industry experts to at least hit about 50 million, domestically, and it struggled to make half of that.
Folks...Encanto and Frozen were both big Disney hits over past thanksgiving weekends-with frozen taking in 125-million dollars. It was a huge smash.
And what was it about? Princesses in a fairy tale setting with cute talking animals and creatures. Classic Disney fare.
That was in 2019...which gives you a sense of how fast and how far Disney has fallen.
And why?
The left-wing news outlets and media members don’t want to admit it-but it all goes back to one significant event: Disney executives and top creative artists getting into a political ‘woke’ war with Florida governor Ron DeSantis...
And deciding that-as a company-they were going to make it their mission to join other leftist educators and use their business to ‘indoctrinate’ America’s children into wokeisms and leftism.
It's been all downhill from there.
How did Disney of all companies go from a company that prided itself in protecting the innocence and wonder of childhood to trying to indoctrinate kids into transgenderism and every sort of social dysfunction?
The answer is: the people atop the company have changed over the years....and were way too willing to join the radical left’s call for ‘corporate social justice’....and all the rest.
Johnathan Turley had an interesting piece on Sunday that noted this: in its third quarter financial statement-Disney execs acknowledged that their ‘product’ wasn’t matching up with audience expectations- and that’s why their profits were down so significantly.
Okay. So-they know what the problem is. Why won’t they fix it?
Folks, we’ve known for several years now, what it is that ‘broke’ Disney. And so, are it’s execs and creative leaders going to admit the mistake and change course?
Or is using their platform to brainwash and indoctrinate kids more important to them-then making profits for their stockholders?
That’s the only question facing Disney now. Because everyone knows ‘what broke it’. And so far? Over two years, and despite some initially tough talk from Bob Iger- little has changed.
Disney has been ignoring the consumer backlash...to their detriment...and now we know- they know it.
Turley says Disney has lost a billion dollars on just their four most recent ‘woke’ flops. Movies that pushed political agendas and left-wing story lines.
There’s no better example-than academia- when it comes to people advancing their own careers and getting loads of leftist accolades...as their actions harm the institutions they’re working for.
It's a great point by Turley. I’ll just connect the dots and say-when journalists, professors, and Disney’s content creators are more worried about impressing the people in their own political bubbles and advancing their own, selfish little, personal agendas, what the rest of us get is a terrible product. Whether it’s a new Disney movie, or a new college degree, or ‘alleged’ journalism.
But aside from bud light- i don’t know if I’ve ever seen a massive, multi-billion-dollar juggernaut like Disney destroy itself so quickly.
And even in the case of ‘bud light’ -that’s just one product out of many that In-Bev and Anheuser Bush produce...which has allowed them to isolate the damage and limit it...to the larger company.
With Disney-this has been ‘companywide’.
It’s not just the moviemakers who are forcing this new brand of wokeism and leftism. It’s the theme parks that are featuring men in beards as ‘trans-princesses’....and it’s the streaming service that is suddenly only offering left-wing themed fare and tv shows.
Forget about Zack and Cody. Here’s a series about a gay teen who just wants to dance!!!
Well, there are some older gay children out there who are feeling alone and lost-and so- it’s not awful for an entertainment company to have that offering...but gee. It shouldn’t be their only category of new show.
And their shows certainly shouldn’t be featuring all sorts of anti-family, anti-social, and even ‘anti-American’ themes....as they are.
The proud family is a cartoon about a black family that a lot of kids enjoy-and that predates Disney’s fight with Ron DeSantis.
Okay. Fine.
But suddenly- it’s a cartoon that’s sliding in ‘black activism’ and a lot of the new nonsense and false history that’s being pushed by Ibrahim Kendi and the 1619 project- and that sort of nonsense.
This cartoon featured a song that insisted Abraham Lincoln didn’t want to free the slaves. That’s absolute crap, and from an early age, Lincoln saw the wrongness and the inhumanity of it.
It's a cartoon about a black family that used to be more racially neutral in its content-none the less- and now includes sly little anti-white sentiments that are slid in...and insists on the need for reparations.
This is a -kids-cartoon!
And Disney claims parents are being overly sensitive or ‘finding’ wokeness and indoctrination where none is intended?
Really?
Then explain ‘transgender princess’...the dude with the beard who’s in charge of the ‘princess experience’ in Orlando?
He didn’t seem to be around before the DeSantis flap.
Explain the drag shows on Disney plus. Did those just pop up organically?
Disney is now losing millions of dollars on their streaming service and billions of dollars on their movies and theme parks....and finally...we get an admission....in a financial statement...that their product isn’t meeting their customer’s expectations.
so-will the people sitting atop Disney fix it?
In Jonathan Turley’s piece- he makes the point that this is the free market-working as it should.
Yes. It is.
Again, at an event with employees in September, Bob Iger, the Disney CEO, promised to cut down on the company’s activism and quote.... listen to its audience’.
Then it rolled out two more woke movies since.
Iger and his SEC filing admitted: we lose money when people hate our products and the ideas we’re pushing.
Okay. Then fix it.
But boy-they were the most beloved company in America- in their own leftist bubbles-weren’t they? And aren’t they, still?
The turn that their creative teams have made toward social justice-sure have endeared them to the elite political left-
And so-if Iger is going to get Disney to change course-he’s either going to have to fire a lot of them- or find some other way to get back to princesses and frogs...and good story lines.
photo credit: Getty Images