Disney shareholders reject anti-DEI proposal
Disney shareholders reject anti-DEI proposal
They ... rejected ... anti-DEI ... making them ... pro-DEI ... and anti-Trump? Am I getting that right? Sorry, there are just getting to be a lot of double-negatives these days it's hard to keep track.
The most accurate takeaway is that the shareholders wish for Disney to continue participating in Diversity Equity and Inclusion measures.
The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.
Shareholders in a company whose entire business is around being well liked globally thinks it would be a bad business move to cancel a program that is part of a good public image in favor of placating a relatively small chunk of Americans that would both be paying attention and against DEI.
They could still be pro-Trump, and not really caring about DEI, but they know the value of optics in the context of a company like Disney.
Call of what if is and it becomes more clear.
DEI is diversity equity and inclusion. You know, inclusion of racial minorities, disabled people, and women in historically male dominated roles.
Disneys board rejected enacting a Trump inspired policy of racism, sexism, and general bigotry.
Disney wants as many customers as possible and doesn’t care about temporary optics based on hard right politics. Don’t mistake them for the good guys. Megacorps that buy up everything in sight and use their ridiculous piles of money to exert influence over politics are the core of the problem.
Guess why copyright laws in the US kept adding decades and decades to copyright protection from the death of the creator. HINT: Megacorp money controlling laws may have been involved.
Like all corporations, Disney is a mercenary. Their allegiance lies with whoever puts the bigger number on their cheque.
If MAGA is going to get in the way of Disney trying to make money, I'm more than happy to let Disney fight that battle and waste some cycles
While most of that is true, they actually did let the Mickey Mouse copyright expire, and Mickey as portrayed in Steamboat Willie is now public domain.
But instead they're using trademark. There's a reason they've started using Steamboat Willie in an animated logo.
I've got a love/hate thing with Disney. Like...enemy-of-my-enemy-enemy kind of thing.
I do love when they stick it to DeSantis.
But I still ain't going to FL anytime soon. We did Disney in 2022 and I think that's probably near the end of when FL was tolerable (in small doses) for sane people.
DISNEY resumed thier donations to florida after the desantis/florida spat.
Especially Disney with their past...
Conservatives have been worshipping on the altar of Shareholder Value since the 80's.
Guess what? These shareholders just told us all what they value. Think Conservatives will accept it?
Conservative "values" are just cover stories for greed, selfishness and prejudice. They grew up with a set of prejudices and they refuse ever to reexamine them. So they adjust the "values" to suit. Conservatives are incurious, stubborn people who refuse to grow.
I mean they value money...
and apparently they are smart enough to realize that Diversity helps with money, Which makes sense... they are a machine designed to extract money from people...
rich white billionares do not fill up theatres or make a substantial percentage of disney+ and Hulu subscriptions... a group of people that know how to target different demographics will obviously outperform one that targets the hell out of maga fans but doesn't know how to talk to the other 70% of the country.
remember the actors that went all anti-lgbtq+ tried to make thier "anti-woke circle jerking movies" like gina carano,and some others.
worshipping on the altar of Shareholder Value since the 80’s.
Thanks, Milton Friedman...
🙄 🙄 🖕 🖕
Just 1% of shareholders voted to approve the proposal
1% of shareholders, or the holders of 1% of shares?
Fuck this shit, now I gotta be pro Disney too? I'd gotten so used to hating them. They grew on me a little back when they stood up against DeSantis in Florida too.
I miss the days when we could just love/hate corporations based on their business practices instead of culture war bullshit.
It's always more complicated than the binary. Disney might be getting DEI but still forces creators to censor out any LGBT references in their shows, or cancel them if they do them anyway. They still are anti union and work people to the bone.
If you want it simple, no corporation is your friend, ever. They are there simply to take your money, without regard for scruples, and any form of morality they seem to be acting on is either because it will make them more money or it is illegal and not cost effective to break the law.
It's still a good sign the shareholders have some sense in this specific case, but make no mistake, Disney doesn't care about anything other than money.
I mean, Disney is still evil. They probably saw how much Target fucked up and don’t want to make the same mistake.
There’s more money in appealing to everyone instead of just white evangelicals Americans.
They have met their fundamental duty as an organization led by human beings who can and should be held to moral standards.
I despise their behavior with copyright but here they've earned the right to not get the "caved to fascists" boycott
Nah, its just more proof that this think tank is shit at making money. Disney doesn't have morals, but it does have a very profitable "princess" marketing strategy. This think tank didn't really read the room very well.
Their brand of diversity is some bs anyways so you don't have to be pro Disney.
Remember, they gladly took help from a Chinese concentration camp to make their girl boss Mulan remake.
They also fired all their park workers during covid and gave themselves 10 million bonuses while their workers were surviving on food stamps. Some workers had even signed non compete clauses so they literally could not use their talents elsewhere to feed themselves.
Further more, Disneys current version of DEI is divisive, soulless and insincere.
It isn't a black or white situation. You can hate Disney AND MAGA. To me, they are all two sides of the same rotten coin. Ruthless, selfish and greedy people who use others to get ahead and pull the ladder up after themselves.
They also fired all their park workers during covid and gave themselves 10 million bonuses while their workers were surviving on food stamps. Some workers had even signed non compete clauses so they literally could not use their talents elsewhere to feed themselves.
There are plenty of things to hate Disney for, especially as they approach super-monopoly status, ruin nearly every franchise they touch, and have trouble telling what's good or not. As a company, Disney's morals and decisions grow more concerning every month. Disney is basically a disaster in progress.
However, this specific complaint seems bad: it's the wrong scale. Many companies were in the wrong during COVID, but it's hard to look at these numbers and say the layoffs here were bad decisions based on $10M in bonuses. The scales are just too different.
Disney laid off 32,000 park workers At a measly 40 hours per week at their "minimum wage" (formerly $15/hr, now $24/hr): that's $83.2 million PER MONTH: $998M a year. A $10M "bonus" is 1% of that, and even smaller compared to the $6.4B of park revenue they had loss.
The former CEO "gave up" their salary ($3M) and "bonus" ($45M in 2019), had 20-30% pay cuts to the executive staff, and a few other items. The CEO did get "$10M" in stock awards, but stock awards don't get you off food stamps. Those stocks become nothing if the company posts bad financials, which would hurt more than just the execs.
The $1.5B dividend payout in April 2020 looks much worse. Abigail Disney ranted about it on Twitter (now X). His rant is at the appropriate scale: Disney paid out billions before they chose to save millions. The execs got quite a bit of that dividend payout. That's the greed.
It's almost like there were nuances to almost everything instead of the world being neatly divisible into good and bad.
Oh, you get out of here! this is not how the internet works!
This is like rooting for the villain. Ok, whatever ... Disney is cool again.
I miss boycotting Disney because some prude thought she saw sex hidden in dust in the Lion King.
The kooky, fun kind of crazy we can all share a laugh at
While the Rescuers 2 had an actual naked woman in it.
They're still a massive company that's way bigger than it should be and could be considered a monopoly.
It's a shame that it's only the companies with more money than God that feel comfortable standing up for their values. The Felon will attack anyone who disagrees with them, and while everyone gets mad about nobody standing up to him - that's not exactly a zero risk scenario for most. But for these hundred billion and trillion dollar companies, they know they can defend themselves just fine.
Any decent company should be pro-DEI. Bare minimum if you ask me.
They will role ever sooner or later. Fuck them, never stop hating.
They saw what happened to Target stocks after the boycott and said fuck that.
Boycotts do work, keep it up
Probably because they realise that all the companies that ditched DEI have been doing significantly worse. Almost like it's something people want.
Source/examples?
I've been watching the stock market since the inauguration and companies like Target have been dropping significantly faster than companies like Costco that didn't roll it back. It's all going down, but the anti-dei ones are going faster.
Edit: just looked and Costco is down 8% in the last 3 months while Target is down 20%.
It does not even make sense for Disney to be anti-DEI if their target audience is the entire world!
Unfortunately the Trump admin want them to behave a certain way, and anything different is seen as them being mean, apparently.
Looking forward to that "Failing Disney and nasty, perverted Mickey Mouse, going around in shorts" post on Truth Social. If there's one corporation that might even take Donnie down it's Disney. Kinda like Kong vs Dumbzilla
How does that follow? Do you think most of the world is pro-DEI?
anti-DEI is pretty much code for "only white straight cisgendered males welcome". Whatever criticisms may make sense against select DEI initiatives, the anti-DEI move by the government basically involved erasing all acknowledgement of any minority or woman ever being honored for accomplishments, no matter how obviously well earned the honor was.
On a global perspective, the American flavor of "anti-DEI" panders to a relatively small group of folks at the expense of offending the vast majority of the world's population.
Disney princesses are DEI. Why should they distance themselves from their most recognizable/successful marketing tactics?
DEI= Diversity, equity, inclusion you might be surprised to discover all three of those are of varying import to various societies.
No suprise there. A large portion of Disney's viewers are girls and minorities. You know, those dreaded DEI folk.
Well yeah they learned that more than just little white girls like their movies. Look at the animated Disney/Pixar feature films, so much more than it was in the pre- renaissance era.
Even during the Renaissance ...we had Pocahontas and Mulan and Jasmine...but these people were more like phoned-in representatives of their cultures compared to now.
Look at Encanto, or Moana/Viana. Or Coco. Or even Soul.
Hell, Strange World features a mixed race family with a queer son and a three-legged dog.
And the movies are better for it. They are more relatable because they aren't all some xeroxed copy of the same plain princess with a slightly different tint. And more importantly, they are showing their young and impressionable viewers a cast that reflects reality. That not every family is a carbon-copy "traditional" family. That different cultures exist and yeah, live a bit differently than suburban white folk (who live a shockingly similar life to the Sultan of Agrabah).
youtube videos of disney cinema is infested with these "anti-woke comments" its really not for conservatives anyways. like how the recent snow white movie is being spammed all over youtube with anti-woke twist. they trying very hard to get people to hate disney and using the actor as thier anchor.
and disney also have "virtue signalling" for LGBTQ+ for a couple decades already. harder to divorce from that. ALso children is thier money maker too.
This is not about "DEI" it’s about marketing and demographic, in short economic interest, personally i wouldn’t throw them flowers.
You are right, but also, I think it’s okay to take the small victories where they are. They shouldn’t have to be applauded for doing the bare minimum, but when this bare minimum is a big middle finger to the administration I’ll look the other way
It's also about how much power Trump has though.
I mean they do lobby for republican lawmakers and recently donated more than $80k worth to individuals who actively supported the "Don't Say Gay" bill…
They made a deal with DeSantis, meaning this move would not happen without consulting him first. From my understanding, due to the backlash against American companies, especially Tesla, Disney can get in hot water financially. They export American soft power all over the world, so it is important not to tarnish their appearance especially in a context where there is trump in power, imagine if tomorrow they decided to stop DEI for good; the Disney Parks around the world and Disney World would get hit financially as well as their movie industry, thus also hitting Florida's economy centered around fun parks and tourism. It’s some kind of abusive co-dependency.
As someone who actually works on real stuff, it's insane to me that for some people, they go to work and have high-level conversations revolving around things such as this.
Maybe that's because "DEI" has become code for "anything done by minorities" and "woke" now means "minorities." With minorites here meaning "not white heterosexual men." Also cis but these snowflakes can't even accept that cisgender is a technical term.
Efficiency means monopoly
Yeah, because it's maximally efficient at funneling all the money up to the 1%.
"I guess you forgot whose really in charge," said Mickey.
Lots of media worried about upsetting the King of America with their reporting
I am SO confused.
Oh how benevolent of them 🙄
Nah, fuck disney. Won't forget their "say no gay" policy. Also, a lot of their "woke" coded content is awful. It feels written by inexperienced writers. It's not genuine and comes across as pandering.
Like damn bro. Timon and Pumba were gay, social outcasts and raised a child together. That shit felt real. Not the stereotype gay l, but just normal... well "normal" characters.
The new stuff doesn't seem to have that. To the point that it feels as though they wanted their work to flop on it.
Kinda has that vibe Sandy from Spongebob had. At first, she was just a normal whacky character. Then Nickelodeon wanted more girl representation and Sandy became pretty much flawless. She wasn't the butt of the joke anymore, while the other characters stayed that way. It made her seem less part of the gang. Unequal to the rest. She became unfun.
So many of the female characters seem flawless and yet unlikable. From star wars series, to the new disney movies. Where is our Katara from Avatar? Where is our Valerie from Danny Phantom? Where are the characters with character?
Disney is still a fraud and a fake. The Disney magic.
