Disney, too engaged? Once considered the fourth most-loved brand in the United States, the entertainment firm has fallen in the hearts of Americans in recent years, falling to 77th out of 100, according to a ranking by Axios-Harris. This tumble could be explained by the position taken by the Californian firm, caught between a right which accuses it of wokism and a left which condemns its lack of radicalism, according to Le Monde .
The firm has notably distinguished itself in the public debate when it took a stand against the conservative governor of Florida, RonDeSantis. The candidate for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election saw Disney oppose when he proposed to ban school speech around homosexuality (the law is nicknamed “Don’t Say Gay” , “Don’t Say Gay”). So much so that going to a Disney theme park is now considered a militant left-wing gesture.
The increased commitment of the firm would date from the arrival at its head of Bob Iger in 2015, estimates Le Monde. A self-proclaimed Democrat, this new king of Hollywood intends to defend his values and “bring [people] to better accept the multiple differences, cultures and races and all the other facets of our lives and our people” in particular through storytelling, theorizes- he in front of his shareholders in 2017. An evolution which results in the presence of black and homosexual superheroes on the screen (in Black Panther, The Little Mermaid and The Eternals in particular), until now little or not cast to embody the characters imagined by the firm.
These political positions were criticized internally, in particular by the short-lived successor of Bob Iger, Robert Chapek, who arrived at the head of the company during the Covid pandemic. “Whatever Bob’s political beliefs, he is not an activist and does not bring any partisan agenda to the business,” his spokesman Geoff Morrell told The Hollywood Reporter in 2022.
If Robert Chapek refuses for a time to take a stand against the “Don’t Say Gay” law, he has his arm twisted by his most indispensable employees, the creators, who enjoin him to condemn the law. He finally admits “mistakes”, before being sacked and then replaced by Bob Iger himself, recalled to save the company. These wanderings earned the studios this comment from the New York Times, which alone sums up the firm’s unpopularity today: “in trying not to offend anyone, Disney has apparently lost everyone”.
