Things are going quite differently during President Trump’s second term at the Walt Disney Company. With the troubling effects the DEI ending executive order has had on companies at large including Target, Walmart, PBS and more, the hold out at Disney didn’t last long. At least compared to Bob Iger’s seeming stance against MAGA pressure during the President’s last term, or even more notably during the back and forth with DeSantis over the land in Florida Walt Disney World sits on, that is.
Earlier this week it was reported that Disney has begun the process of disbanding and altering various diversity initiatives, which the company once prided itself on and that has left staffers concerned. According to Deadline, employees received a memo this week from Disney HR chief Sonia Coleman, stating the move was intended to align with “business goals and company values,” rather than any specific adherence to Trump’s sweeping range of executive orders since assuming office last month. To many it signals a bending of the knee, which has reportedly been received as unexpected internally compared to how Disney stood firmly by its morals in the past.
Such pre-emptive motions to appease conservative rhetoric before seeing results is a safe play for Disney, who are just one of many major companies who have signalled subservience to Trumpian policy in the past few weeks by shuttering or significantly diminishing any work relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion, but it doesn’t particularly make everyone feel safe or protected. “What’s next? Where do we go from here? What do we stand for now, keeping MAGA happy?” an insider told Deadline about the general morale at Disney in the wake of the purported memo. “This is not what I expected from Bob [Iger]— I thought he had our back.”
The move to adjust its inclusionary programs, including a previously reported alteration of content warnings available on certain material streaming on Disney+, comes at a time where Disney has been under fire for multiple instances of pulling storylines from upcoming animated series that focused on transgender characters–another group that Trump has repeatedly focused on through executive action in recent weeks. There was also the cultural backlash over response to the Star Wars streaming series The Acolyte last year, which was cancelled after an open-ended debut season (and in spite of the fact it was the second most-watched series on Disney+ last year), drawing criticism from cast members that both Lucasfilm and parent company Disney alike had failed to defend the show or its creative talent from bad-faith criticism and harassment–and perhaps just one of several indicators, even prior to Trump’s re-election in November last year, that Disney was moving towards appeasement towards right-leaning talking points.
“[They] have got to stop doing this thing where they don’t say anything when people are getting fucking dog-piled on the internet with racism and bullshit,” Acolyte star Jodie Turner-Smith told Glamor Magazine at the time. “It would just be nice if the people that have all the money were showing their support and putting their feet down.”
Instead, it seems that Disney’s agenda across the next four years will be less about putting feet down, and more like rolling over.
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