Read more In his war against LGBTQIA+, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has made what he doesn't hesitate to call "Woke Disney" one of his enemies of choice. While it's true that the studio has recently added inclusion to its core principles and is working to adapt to changes in society, its older productions are not immune to certain forms of cancel culture.
At the end of September 2020, Disney parks employees, meeting worldwide, decided to add inclusion to the four main principles that have governed the reception of the public since the creation of Disneyland: safety, courtesy, spectacle and efficiency.
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Eighteen months later, the violent controversy with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over the law banning the discussion of sexual identity and orientation in schools – renamed “Don't Say Gay” by his opponents – helped to harden positions. In his battle against a giant he caricatures as “Woke Disney”, Ron DeSantis won his status as a tough conservative, a slayer of activism stemming from #MeToo and Black Lives Matter. The Company lost the administrative and tax privileges of Disney World as well as a short-lived CEO, Bob Chapek, replaced in November 2022 by his predecessor Bob Iger, after less than two years in office.
Propelled to the forefront of the culture war between Republicans and Democrats, the Walt Disney Company has found itself at the Hollywood spearhead of LGBTQIA+ struggles and identity claims, at the risk of the consensual image on which its prosperity is based.
An inclusive brand
Inclusion, as Disney understands it, is above all the opposite of discrimination. It is in line with the ideal expressed in the famous Pinocchio song that has served as the brand's anthem since the 50s: "When you wish upon a star, it doesn't matter who you are." A promoter of family values, Disney gradually and not without difficulty opened up to homosexuality during the 90s. The gay and trans community imposed its annual gatherings in the parks, and pressure from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) helped make it more visible on ABC, which it bought in 1996.
At the turn of the millennium, the Lilo & Stitch franchise featured queer identity in the person of Pleakley, an alien scientist specializing in our planet, who has a habit of dressing as a woman and performing domestic tasks. In the 2003 animated series, he even pretends to marry his sidekick Jumba in a wedding dress to escape the fiancée his mother has found for him.
Diversity is not forgotten: in 2009, The Princess and the Frog gave the spotlight to a black heroine for the first time.
A balanced activism
It was not until 2016, with the animal fable Zootopia, that an animated feature film adopted an activist stance. The rabbit Judy Hopps wants to believe in the utopia of a world where everyone can be who they want. When she joins the police force, she is unfortunately forced to realize that prejudices die hard. She needs all her malice and strength of character to assert herself in the investigation into the mysterious disappearances that are causing turmoil in the city.
The film is a humorous attack on the logic of domination. But its moral is not one-sided. Manichaeism takes a hit when we learn that it was a sheep, an assistant to the mayor, who fomented the criminal project of kidnapping predators to return them to their primitive instincts in order to turn the prey against them and rule through fear. His diabolical plan points the finger at the political instrumentalization of inequalities and denounces a form of activism that prefers to reverse the balance of power rather than abolish it. In the fight for values, Disney is keen to defend a balanced position, uncompromising on the objective but irreproachable on the means of achieving it.
From inclusiveness to wokeness
As for sexuality, the firm is spurred on by Internet users. When Frozen came out in 2013, Elsa of Arendelle, the first princess without a Prince Charming, was quickly elevated to the rank of gay icon. In 2016, the hashtags #GiveElsaAGirlfriend and #GiveCaptainAmericaABoyFriend flourished.
Disney finally took the plunge on February 23, 2017, with a dual television and film event. That day, two men kissed for the first time in the animated series Star vs. the Forces of Evil, and LeFou declared his love for Gaston in a singing remake of Beauty and the Beast. Inclusivity is gaining ground in children's productions.
She turned woke with The New Mutants in August 2020. Aimed at a teenage audience, Josh Boone rewrote the comics to contrast a romantic lesbian idyll with a deadly or abusive heterosexuality, depicted with all the resources of a horror film. The difference with inclusivity is the condemnation of male desire. But it turns out that this X-Men spin-off, produced by 20th Century Studios, was fully filmed when Fox was bought by Disney, which simply finalized it, without agreeing to integrate it into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Double speech
It's not for want of making eyes at the most committed fringe of the public. Black Widow (2021) and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) are characteristic of this evolution. One denounces the subjugation of women by an abject white male and ridicules an aging superhero; the other gives free rein to a queer imagination inspired by prides. In both cases, however, the explicit message is undermined from the inside.
In Black Widow, the scientist behind the program that controls the behavior of Widows claims that deconstructing the human brain is like stealing the key to free will. So is deconstruction, the theoretical foundation of wokism, equated with mental manipulation? The response goes unnoticed, but it is nonetheless a stern warning.
To free captive children from the Shadow Realm, Jane Foster suggests in Thor: Love and Thunder to invoke the rainbow, a clear reference to the banner of the LGBTQIA+ community. Thor is immediately dubious about what he takes to be a slogan. As for the person concerned, after trying her luck, she admits to having gotten carried away a little too quickly. The scene seems metafictional: youth will not be saved by gays.
Gender on trial
These dissonances are not simple inconsistencies. They are symptomatic of internal tensions within the company over its woke strategy. We find discreet ones even in the most cutting-edge productions.
This is the case with the animated series The Owl House. When, in July 2021, episode 7 of season 2 introduced Disney's first non-binary character, Raine Whispers, her identity, which conforms to the complexity defended by Judith Butler in Gender Trouble (1990), cannot naturally be distinguished by any graphic trait. It is expressed through a grammatical convention that requires it to be referred to in the 3rd person by the pronouns they or them. But as soon as the rule is established, it is transgressed in episode 8 by a completely binary him that the Disney+ subtitles confirm, despite the fans' displeasure.
In the second half of American Horror Story: Double Feature (2021), the depiction of pregnant gay men might also seem perfectly queer orthodoxy. But the message is muddied by the extraterrestrial origins of their pregnancy, the carnage it ends with, and the connection the episodes make to conspiracy theories. Nothing is as simple as it seems. Nothing is binary.
Evolve without denying yourself
Jennifer Walters, aka She-Hulk, has a copy of Bad Feminist at home, Roxane Gay's bestseller, a breviary of intersectionality, published in 2014. In the series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, season 1, episode 4, the wink is significant. Of Haitian origin, Gay defends a plural feminism, which does not prevent her from loving pink, nor from believing in happy endings and looking for Prince Charming: a commitment compatible with the Disney tradition.
The whole problem with the Disney brand, which is celebrating its centenary this year, is that it must adapt to its times without denying a heritage that makes it rich. It can use trigger warnings on Disney+ and degender the ads in its parks, but cancel culture in particular, this armed wing of wokeism, is its worst enemy.
Bob Chapek's initial silence on the "Don't Say Gay" bill led to a militant bidding war in several subsidiaries, which he soon joined. But the commercial failure of Strange World at the end of 2022, the first animated feature film with a gay hero, will inevitably be discussed. How can you be woke without ceasing to be mainstream? That is the question. Disney's ambivalences reveal the contradictions of an ideology that, under the pretext of appeasing society, tends to atomize it into minority groups. Share: copy the link on Twitter on Facebook on Linkedin by Mail
In his war against LGBTQIA+, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has made what he doesn't hesitate to call "Woke Disney" one of his enemies of choice. While it's true that the studio has recently added inclusion to its core principles and is working to adapt to changes in society, its older productions are not immune to certain forms of cancel culture.
At the end of September 2020, Disney parks employees, meeting worldwide, decided to add inclusion to the four main principles that have governed the reception of the public since the creation of Disneyland: safety, courtesy, spectacle and efficiency.
Eighteen months later, the violent controversy with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over the law banning the discussion of sexual identity and orientation in schools – renamed “Don't Say Gay” by his opponents – helped to harden positions. In his battle against a giant he caricatures as “Woke Disney”, Ron DeSantis won his status as a tough conservative, a slayer of activism stemming from #MeToo and Black Lives Matter. The Company lost the administrative and tax privileges of Disney World as well as a short-lived CEO, Bob Chapek, replaced in November 2022 by his predecessor Bob Iger, after less than two years in office.
Propelled to the forefront of the culture war between Republicans and Democrats, the Walt Disney Company has found itself at the Hollywood spearhead of LGBTQIA+ struggles and identity claims, at the risk of the consensual image on which its prosperity is based.
An inclusive brand
Inclusion, as Disney understands it, is above all the opposite of discrimination. It is in line with the ideal formulated in the famous song by Pinocchio which has served as the brand's anthem since the 50s: "When you wish upon a star, it doesn't matter who you are." A promoter of family values, Disney gradually and not without difficulty opened up to homosexuality during the 90s. The gay and trans community imposed its annual gatherings in the parks, and pressure from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) helped make it more visible on ABC, which it bought in 1996.
At the turn of the millennium, the franchise Lilo & Stitch features queer identity in the person of Pleakley, an alien scientist specializing in our planet, who has a habit of dressing as a woman and performing domestic tasks. In the 2003 animated series, he even pretends to marry his sidekick Jumba in a wedding dress to escape the fiancée his mother has found for him.
Diversity is not forgotten: in 2009 The Princess and the Frog gives the spotlight to a black heroine for the first time.
A balanced activism
It was only in 2016, with the animal fable Z, that an animated feature film adopts an activist stance. The rabbit Judy Hopps wants to believe in the utopia of a world where everyone can be what they want. When she joins the police, she is unfortunately forced to note that prejudices die hard. She needs all her malice and strength of character to assert herself in the investigation into the mysterious disappearances that are causing turmoil in the city.
The film is a humorous attack on the logic of domination. But its moral is not one-sided. Manichaeism takes a hit when we learn that it was a sheep, an assistant to the mayor, who fomented the criminal project of kidnapping predators to return them to their primitive instincts in order to turn the prey against them and rule through fear. His diabolical plan points the finger at the political instrumentalization of inequalities and denounces a form of activism that prefers to reverse the balance of power rather than abolish it. In the fight for values, Disney is keen to defend a balanced position, uncompromising on the objective but irreproachable on the means of achieving it.
From inclusiveness to wokeness
As for sexuality, the firm is being goaded by Internet users. At the release of Frozen In 2013, Elsa of Arendelle, the first princess without a Prince Charming, was quickly elevated to the status of gay icon. In 2016, the hashtags #GiveElsaAGirlfriend and #GiveCaptainAmericaABoyFriend flourished.
Disney finally took the plunge on February 23, 2017 with a double television and cinematic event. That day, two men kissed for the first time in the animated series Star vs. the Forces of Evil, and LeFou sings and declares his love for Gaston in the remake of Beauty and the BeastInclusivity is gaining ground in children's productions.
She turns to wokeness with The New Mutants in August 2020. Aimed at a teenage audience, Josh Boone rewrites the comics to contrast a romantic lesbian idyll with a deadly or abusive heterosexuality, depicted with all the resources of a horror film. The difference with inclusivity is the condemnation of male desire. But it turns out that this spin-off of the X-Men, produced by 20th Century Studios, was fully filmed when Fox was bought by Disney, who simply finished it, without agreeing to integrate it into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Double speech
It is not for want of the fact that he is making eyes at the most committed section of the public. Black Widow (2021) et Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) are characteristic of this evolution. One denounces the subjugation of women by an abject white male and ridicules an aging superhero; the other gives free rein to a queer imagination inspired by prides. In both cases, however, the explicit message is undermined from within.
At the bend of Black Widow, the scientist behind the program that controls the Widows' behavior, claims that deconstructing the human brain is tantamount to stealing the key to free will. So is deconstruction, the theoretical foundation of wokeism, equated with mind control? The response goes unnoticed, but it is nonetheless a stern warning.
To free captive children from the Shadow Realm, Jane Foster suggests in Thor: Love and Thunder to invoke the rainbow, a clear reference to the banner of the LGBTQIA+ community. Thor immediately shows doubts about what he takes for a slogan. As for the person concerned, after trying her luck, she admits to having gotten carried away a little too quickly. The scene seems metafictional: youth will not be saved by gays.
Gender on trial
These dissonances are not simple inconsistencies. They are symptomatic of internal tensions within the company over its woke strategy. We find discreet ones even in the most cutting-edge productions.
So from the animated series The Owl House. When, in July 2021, episode 7 of season 2 introduced Disney's first non-binary character, Raine Whispers, her identity conformed to the complexity defended by Judith Butler in gender problem (1990) cannot naturally be distinguished by any graphic feature. It is expressed through a grammatical convention which requires designating it in the 3rd person by the pronouns they ou Them. But as soon as the rule is established, it is broken in episode 8 by a Him completely binary that the Disney+ subtitles confirm, despite the fans' displeasure.
In the second part ofAmerican Horror Story: Double Feature (2021), the depiction of pregnant gay men might also seem perfectly queer orthodox. But the message is blurred by the extraterrestrial origin of their pregnancy, the carnage it ends with, and the connection the episodes make to conspiracy theories. Nothing is as simple as it seems. Nothing is binary.
Evolve without denying yourself
Jennifer Walters, alias She-Hulk has a copy of Bad Feminist, the bestseller by Roxane Gay, a breviary of intersectionality, published in 2014. In the series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, season 1, episode 4, the wink is significant. Of Haitian origin, Gay defends a plural feminism, which does not prevent one from loving pink, nor from believing in happy endings and from looking for Prince Charming: a commitment compatible with the Disney tradition.
The whole problem with the Disney brand, which celebrates its centenary this year, is that it must adapt to its times without denying a heritage that makes it rich. It can practice the trigger warning on Disney+ and degender the announcements in its parks, but cancel culture in particular, this armed wing of wokeism, is its worst enemy.
Bob Chapek's initial silence on the "Don't Say Gay" bill led to a bidding war of activists in several subsidiaries, which he soon joined. But the commercial failure of Strange World end of 2022, the first animated feature film whose hero is gay, will inevitably be thought about. How to be woke without ceasing to be mainstream? That is the question. Disney's ambivalences reveal the contradictions of an ideology which, under the pretext of appeasing society, tends to atomize it into minority groups.
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