Tag Archive for: Disney Studios

Disney’s Obsession with ‘Woke Sexuality’ has Cost it Quarter of a Billion Dollars at the Box Office

Does Disney really believe that families enjoy LGBTQ+-affirmative lecturing in films?


Growing up, there was nothing more magical to me than the opening credits of a Disney movie — even if I’d seen the film a dozen times.

These days, however, Disney’s feature-length content is feeling less like a childhood dream and more like a noisy soap-box preacher.

It is not just cultural commentators pointing this out but Disney’s audiences, who have been voting against the company’s woke sermonising with their feet.

Between the Toy Story spinoff Lightyear and Disney’s latest offering Strange World, both released in 2022, and both promoting an LGBT agenda, the animation behemoth has lost almost a quarter of a billion dollars, according to entertainment news outlet Deadline Hollywood.

In fact, Strange World earned itself the title of the biggest box office flop of 2022, with production and marketing costs of US$320 million and total earnings of only $120 million, for a loss of around $200 million. Lightyear lost over $100 million and took out second place in the flop stakes.

Strange World tells the story of a family of explorers venturing through an uncharted land searching for a certain plant needed to save their society. Apparently necessary to this plot is one of the lead roles, 16-year-old Ethan, discussing his gay crush on a boy at school.

Lightyear depicts a real-life portrayal of the astronaut named Buzz who inspired the toy of Toy Story fame. Likewise, it was a story Disney was unable to tell without a lesbian kiss between two lead characters, in a scene that almost hit the cutting room floor until the state of Florida passed the Parental Rights in Education Bill and needed a woke lecture.

Sydney Morning Herald writer Garry Maddox found Strange World’s box office performance something of a head-scratcher. “For a certified bomb, the initial reviews for Strange World were not too bad,” he mused, seemingly unaware that movie reviewers inhabit the same woke echo chamber as the film producers they critique

Maddox even suggested that Strange World featuring “the first out gay teenager in a Disney animated film” might be a family drawcard. Only in passing does the SMH journalist acknowledge Disney’s gay wokery as a potential put-off — and then, only for “red-state audiences”.

I know this is complex, Garry, but what if parents of all political stripes want to enjoy a day out with their kids without having to discuss birds, bees and Queer Theory with their preschoolers?

Certainly, there was more to Strange World’s failures than its preachiness. Quoting Deadline Hollywood, Maddox noted that “critics found the fantasy pic to be clunky and incomprehensible, and the animation retro and stale”. Lacklustre marketing was also identified as contributing to the film’s performance.

But these factors don’t explain Disney’s comparable letdown with Lightyear. The common denominator between the two is the injection of themes that movie-going families have little interest in.

It’s not as though animated movies are going out of fashion. Universal Pictures took in $940 million at the worldwide box office last year for Minions: Rise of Gru, and close to $700 million in just the opening weeks of The Super Mario Bros Movie.

Both films, incidentally, are notably woke-free, a fact that has critics wringing their hands.

“Go woke, go broke” may not hold true in every situation. But when it comes to children’s films at the box office, those four words appear to be a fixed law of the universe.

And a law Disney ignores at its own peril.

AUTHOR

Kurt Mahlburg

Kurt Mahlburg is a writer and author, and an emerging Australian voice on culture and the Christian faith. He has a passion for both the philosophical and the personal, drawing on his background as a graduate… More by Kurt Mahlburg.

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EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Muslims Enraged As Muslim Ms. Marvel Turns Out To Be Un-Islamic

This is the kind of thing that happens when you’re so eager to pander that you don’t do adequate homework about the object of your pandering. Marvel has stepped into a minefield, and is likely to explode a few more mines before it gets out.

Muslim Ms. Marvel Fans Express Serious Concerns About Kamala’s Power Source

by Brad Lang, CBR, June 23, 2022 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

This article contains spoilers for Ms. Marvel Episode 3, “Destined.”

Some Muslim fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s latest series Ms. Marvel are expressing their displeasure with the recent revelation regarding the source of Kamala Khan’s powers.

As revealed in Ms. Marvel Episode 3, “Destined” the titular hero’s newfound abilities are apparently due to her heritage as a Djinn. As explained by Kamran’s mother Najma, Kamala’s ancestors are otherworldly beings from the Noor dimensions that were banished from their reality sometime before 1942. These people are quickly explained to be the Djinn, creatures from Islamic mythology which can be both good and evil. A number of fans have expressed frustration with the reveal, specifying that the Quran condemns the practice of worshipping Djinn.

Viewers have interpreted Kamala’s Djinn-based powers as an act of “shirk,” the sin of idolatry, which is problematic as practicing Muslims are forbidden from worshiping anything other than Allah. However, despite Ms. Marvel‘s latest plot twist, other fans are convinced the Djinn angle is merely a red-herring designed to obscure the real identity of Kamala’s ancestors. Some MCU enthusiasts suggested that the hero will be revealed to be related to the alien race known as the Kree due to the appearance of an unknown, dead character with blue skin in Episode 3….

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

CORPORATE PEDOPHILIA: Massive Protests Outside Disney After Meeting Leaked Of ‘Gay Agenda’ To Indoctrinate Children

Disney is a pedophile company.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Disney+ Will Now Ask You To Confirm No Parents Are In The Room Before Viewing Content

U.S.—Disney+ has announced some new parental features coming to the popular streaming platform. Now to ensure that parents do not get in the way of their children’s viewing experience, Disney+ will ask to confirm that no parents are in the room before viewing any content.

“We have to stick to our core values. And that’s to influence and fill young minds with content that we want them to see without Mommy and Daddy’s knowledge,” said Disney CEO Bob Chapek. “We believe children learn the most from a free environment, that’s not stifled by adult supervision.”

Now before viewing any content intended for children, users will have to confirm that no parents are in the room, only young susceptible children. They will be prompted to answer as follows: You must be 18 or younger, preferably in Kindergarten to 3rd Grade. Please confirm that no parents are in the room before continuing.

“We realized that parents have enough controls as it is,” explained Bob Chapek. “So we are giving children special tools so they can have a special educational time on Disney+. Now kids can learn without the oppressive, disapproving judgment of parents who think they know what’s best for their own kids”

At publishing time, Disney confirmed that any parents found violating the rules by staying and watching in the room are subject to legal fees and having their children taken away by Child Protective Services.


This clever husband has found a way to avoid all his responsibilities: he just deflects blame onto Vladimir Putin. Smart!

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EDITORS NOTE: This political satire column by The Babylon Bee is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Disney Continues to Prioritize Left-Wing Culture, Anti-Free Speech Legislation

Lifelong family-oriented supporters of the Walt Disney Company will be sad to learn that Disney is no ally to traditional social values.  2ndVote currently scores the Walt Disney Company at a measly 1.67 — and we’re not optimistic about that score improving in light of the company’s brainwashing of little children with an episode of their famed Muppet Babies television show promoting gender confusion.

There are several problems with Disney’s decision. First, biologically, there are just two sexes. Second, Disney should focus on wholesome entertainment, not overtly political social activism. Third, Disney has actively engaged on the issue of gender identity in a way which attempted to restrict the rights of millions of Americans.

We’ve been tracking Disney’s actions against traditional American values for years. In 2016, the company stood against North Carolina bill HB2, claiming that allowing business owners to choose their own bathroom policies was bigotry. Disney canceled events, costing local business owners a lot of money. More recently, Disney endorsed the Equality Act – a bill that has nothing to do with equality, and everything to do with pushing a very specific cultural agenda. Religious organizations would be under threat because of the Equality Act – a clear violation of Basic Freedoms found in the First Amendment.

When Disney puts its financial resources behind movements that seek to compel anti-American values, Americans suffer.  These movements are potentially harmful to everything from freedom of speech to religious liberty.  The next time you’re looking to enjoy some family-style entertainment, consider an alternative to Disney which won’t play against your traditional values.

The trick to the entertainment industry is that Hollywood Studios (owned by Disney), Universal Pictures (1.00), Netflix (2.29), and other top entities also rank poorly on the 2ndVote scale. They simply don’t support America’s constitutional and human freedoms of religion, speech, firearms, etc. Therefore, we encourage you to support regional theme parks like Kentucky Kingdom (3.00) and Six Flags (3.00) instead. As for digital entertainment, organizations like PureFlix (3.73) have the kind of wholesome, fun entertainment that Disney used to prioritize. We urge you to spend your hard-earned money with those organizations, and contact Disney and urge them to return to entertainment, not left-wing politics.

EDITORS NOTE: This 2nd Vote column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Mandalorian Bounty Hunter Criticized As Anti-Science For Removing Mask

MORAK—A Mandalorian bounty hunter has taken some flak online after footage revealed he took off his mask while on the jungle planet Morak this past week.

The surfaced footage showed the bounty hunter taking off his mask while in close proximity to Imperial officers and his colleagues, in a poorly ventilated, indoor dining area. He took off his mask while walking to his table, too, clearly showing his anti-science stance. Had he taken it off only while seated and eating, no one would have taken issue with it.

“We must cancel the Mando, as he’s clearly anti-science,” said an Imperial officer reviewing the footage. “The science shows we must all wear masks all the time. Take Stormtroopers for instance. The helmets obviously don’t provide any protection from blaster rifles, but we’d rather be safe than sorry. It’s just a very simple way to love your neighbor.”

“SCIENCE!”

The far-right religious Mandalorian sect also criticized the bounty hunter, but apparently for religious reasons rather than medical ones, saying, “This is NOT the way” and “Masks are part of our religion.”

EDITORS NOTE: This political satire column by The Babylon Bee is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Mulan Rouge: Disney Film Betrays a Shade of Red China

Coinciding with its long-anticipated release, Disney’s live-action remake of Mulan has become the source of mounting international controversy. Fans of Disney’s 1998 animated tale of a young Chinese woman who disguised herself as a man to fight the Huns in her ailing father’s place may find themselves disappointed in the way Disney created the film.

Parts of the movie were filmed in Xinjiang, the northwest region of China where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has launched an unparalleled campaign of suppression against Uyghur Muslims. Tucked away toward the end of the credits, Disney thanks eight Chinese government entities from Xinjiang. The region is now famous for its “re-education” camps where Uyghurs are detained without cause to be taught Party propaganda. Witnesses from the camps detail instances of torture, forced sterilization, and unsanitary living conditions.

Among the entities Disney is thankful for is a local branch of the regional Xinjiang public security bureau, which is directly involved in operating the camps. The entity is so clearly involved in human rights violations that the U.S. government issued Global Magnitsky sanctions against it, the hardest hitting sanctions that target human rights abusers. Disney also thanked local propaganda departments in Xinjiang.

The rise of China’s “re-education” camps from 2017-2018 occurred within the likely timeline Mulan would have been filmed. The world was waking up to the stark reality that internment camps were operating in the 21st century. Disney, as a company that often prides itself on being progressive, should have shown concern over filming in the vicinity of an international human rights crisis. China researcher Adrian Zenz called Disney “an international corporation profiteering in the shadow of concentration camps.”

But this isn’t the film’s first controversy. Hong Kong pro-democracy protestors first called for a boycott of the movie last year when lead actress Liu Yifei shared a social media post from a Chinese government-run newspaper that read: “I also support Hong Kong police. You can beat me up now.” At the time, hundreds of thousands of young pro-democracy protestors were taking to the streets and enduring brutal and violent crackdowns from the police.

Liu lives in the United States as a naturalized citizen and benefits immensely from its freedoms. Thus, protestors were justifiably angered when she showed no concern for the Hong Kongers desperate to maintain their freedoms in the face of the encroaching Chinese government, which fails to respect rule of law, freedom of speech, or religious freedom, among other basic rights.

But Hong Kong activists have their own recommendation for the “real Mulan.” They look to the soft-spoken 23-year-old Agnes Chow, a student leader of the pro-democracy movement. Chow was arrested for her activism earlier this summer under Hong Kong’s new national security law when she was accused of “colluding with foreign forces.”

A devoted Catholic, she points to her faith as a significant factor that motivates her advocacy, and that of other pro-democracy activists: “I do think that the religious belief and what we learn from our religion and the Bible gives us our belief and courage to fight for freedom and rights for Hong Kong people.” Chow is the perfect example of standing firm with grace and courage in an impossible situation. When looking for a real-life hero, Hong Kongers are right to celebrate Chow.

The very way Disney chose to go about making this movie is a betrayal of the story’s spirit. Mulan was defending China’s people against invaders. But through the creation of the movie, the creators of the film acquiesced to the Communist Party, which threatens the freedoms of others.

To many, the story of Mulan represents courage and sacrifice in defense of one’s family and country. It’s disappointing that in the process of telling this story, Disney chose to collaborate with one of the world’s worst violators of human rights — the Chinese Communist Party and the entities it controls. As long as Disney continues to choose profits over people, it will not bring honor to itself.

COLUMN BY

Arielle Del Turco

Assistant Director of the Center for Religious Liberty

Arielle Del Turco serves as Assistant Director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council, where she is responsible for international religious freedom policy and advocacy efforts. Through research and analysis of international religious freedom matters, she helps craft effective policy solutions along with coordinating FRC’s advocacy on this issue. Arielle’s work has appeared in the USA TodayNational ReviewJerusalem PostWashington ExaminerCBN NewsThe FederalistThe National InterestChristian PostThe American ConservativeDaily Signal, and Townhall. She has conducted a number of media interviews on international religious freedom, and has herself interviewed key advocates and victims of persecution. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Politics and History from Regent University, and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in International Relations.

EDITORS NOTE: This FRC-Action column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.