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00:23 [music]
00:30 1939 is finding that the public has new ideas of entertainment.
00:34 Richly has it rewarded Walt Disney, whose snow white shattered traditions and box office records...
00:40 Once upon a time, Disney was once the family network, the family studio.
00:48 If it was a Disney movie, you knew it was going to be safe for children.
00:54 Disneyland is a delight for all youngsters.
00:58 You know, when I was a kid, everybody looked forward to Sunday evenings and Disney.
01:04 Disney was the number one wholesome family values entertainment brand in the world.
01:11 When I was in the seventh grade, a nun asked the class, "Who is the most admired person in the world?"
01:18 I said, "Walt Disney." And I did for the obvious reason. The man made people happy.
01:23 I felt that there should be something built, some kind of an amusement enterprise built,
01:29 where the parents and the children could have fun together.
01:33 So that's how Disneyland started.
01:36 One of the strongest brands ever in the world of entertainment.
01:41 They threw it all away, deliberately.
01:45 [no audio]
01:47 Disney's brand has been changed, it's been altered.
01:51 They've gotten very aggressive in the political space, talking about issues, Florida legislation they've been very vocal about.
01:57 They've talked about presidential politics.
02:00 It seems these days, everyone has an opinion about Disney.
02:05 We're not happy about the fact they're trying to groom our children with things like the gay agenda.
02:10 We don't believe that little children need to know issues like that at their small age.
02:14 You don't usually hear the words Disney and warning in the same sentence, well, until now.
02:20 Do you think that Disney should stay out of politics, or do you think that they should just be making movies in parks that are fun and entertaining?
02:26 Yeah, they should definitely stay out of politics. Just stick to movies, entertainment.
02:30 Well, the happiest place on earth, now becoming the most scrutinized on earth as Disney World pushes progressive politics.
02:37 Disney is no longer a trusted brand, it's squandered that trust.
02:41 Today, it's the anti-family network, it's the anti-family studio.
02:46 I'm Mercedes Schlapp, join me as we enter the gates of today's Disney.
02:52 Where children's TV shows, movies, and characters are served with a side of sexuality and gender ideology.
03:00 A place that puts a political agenda on a pedestal and renders parents powerless.
03:07 So let's take a look at what's become of the largest media conglomerate in the world and explore what's going on in Walt's disenchanted kingdom.
03:19 What's up guys, this is Will Witt. Today I am in Orlando asking people about Disney, what they think about the direction of the company, and whether or not they're offended by their old movies. Let's do it.
03:29 What do you think Disney could do better?
03:34 Go back to the roots? Go back to how they used to be?
03:38 What do you think Walt Disney would think of his company right now?
03:42 I'd say he'd probably be maybe a little bit disappointed with the way it's been going.
03:49 Do you think for children, like your children, that their movies and things should have political ideology in it or should be more focused on fun and values and things?
04:00 Yeah, probably stay away from politics, I would say, in general.
04:03 Yeah.
04:04 Yeah.
04:05 Do you think that Disney should be getting into political fights or putting politics into their movies or at their theme parks, things like that, or like the gender ideology that they're talking about now?
04:18 No, the LGBTQ stuff that they're putting in movies, I don't agree with.
04:27 They're no longer saying boys and girls because that might be considered offensive. You think that's a good thing?
04:36 I think that's ridiculous.
04:38 Ridiculous. Why?
04:39 Because there are boys and girls. That's how God made.
04:43 At Disneyland and Disney World, they took out where you say boys and girls.
04:52 It's a children's place. I mean, that's a place.
04:55 They say like people. Now it's just people. There are no boys and girls. It's just people.
05:01 People.
05:02 Yeah.
05:03 Do you prefer your movies to be fun and entertaining rather than have some sort of ideological message?
05:14 Fun and entertaining.
05:16 Do you want politics in your movies or do you just want to have fun at the movies?
05:23 Just want to have fun at the movies.
05:26 What do you guys think about the direction that Disney has taken recently?
05:32 I believe it's the CEOs of this company that's really making a mess of it all.
05:36 We want freedom from the sexualization that's going on at Disney World.
05:46 There's something disturbing lurking in the Magic Kingdom these days.
06:00 It's turning the place where dreams are made to something of a nightmare.
06:05 The world's leading family entertainment company is now cozying up to the Chinese government.
06:11 While back at home, they're siding against parents and pushing elementary schools to discuss sexual orientation and gender identity with kids as young as kindergarten.
06:24 When Disney joined LGBTQ activists against parents' rights in their children's education, it had many Disney fans asking, why didn't they take a page from Frozen and just let it go?
06:40 I worked for Disney for about 15 years.
06:43 In March, here in Florida, our state legislators started pushing for a parental rights and education bill.
06:49 Initially, the company said, hey, we're not going to get involved.
06:53 But then there's a small group of employees in our company that said, hey, we want you to get involved.
06:58 Outside the iconic Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, today, dozens of Disney employees walked off the job.
07:08 Well, I think what happened with Disney was that the CEO got bullied by his very activist, radical employees.
07:16 Disney CEO Bob Chapek is reversing course today, now speaking out against Florida's parental rights and education legislation, dubbed by opponents as the "Don't Say Gay" bill.
07:26 And they lied about it. They said it was the "Don't Say Gay" bill.
07:31 Nothing to do with "Don't Say Gay" at all. Nothing to do with that. That was a lie.
07:35 The bill is very innocuous. It's family friendly.
07:38 You don't want to be involved in telling little kids about questioning their sexuality and transgenderism in kindergarten, first grade, second grade and third grade.
07:47 What's going on here?
07:48 And that's exactly what the elected representatives of Florida did.
07:53 They began to address the indoctrination in the classroom.
07:56 We're talking about children as young as five being exposed to topics, quite frankly, that many of us didn't hear about until we were teenagers.
08:09 And they're being forced, rather than teaching them their ABCs and how to tie their shoes, we're teaching them how to select their gender.
08:19 This is absurd.
08:21 When schools were closed during the COVID lockdowns and children turned to online learning, many parents were shocked to find out what schools were pushing in the classroom.
08:32 I mean, these are little, little kids. They don't really need to know about, you know, a thousand different genders and gender fluidity and so on.
08:40 So it was a very mild pushback on this encroachment into children's education. And the activists just went nuts.
08:51 We say gay. We say gay. If you say gay, we won't go away.
08:58 They're not willing to just let kids be kids.
09:01 They have a goal. They have an agenda. And they want to put into the heads of kids,
09:05 if you think you're a boy, you may be one, but you may not be one.
09:10 Same thing with the girls. And if you have any doubts, it's good to question it.
09:15 The reason you see gender dysphoria rates now skyrocketing is in part because kids are impressionable.
09:21 They are going to respond to their adults and their cultural leaders and their schools.
09:27 And so it's no surprise that we are creating the very problem that supposedly the companies like Disney were aiming to solve.
09:35 And it's much worse than that, because as we know, in these elementary schools,
09:39 they're taking kindergartners and first graders, teaching them that they're gender fluid,
09:45 encouraging them to be chemically castrated, to have puberty blockers, pre-puberty kids, to alter their lives forever.
09:55 This is an atrocity against children. And Disney has allowed itself to become part of it.
10:02 It's more than Disney being anti-parent. It is Disney being anti the nuclear family.
10:12 And so when a parental rights bill comes forward that says parents have rights, families have rights,
10:22 they don't believe parents have rights. They don't believe in the nuclear family.
10:26 They see the nuclear family as a threat to them. A nuclear family that is structured, that follows, that believes in God.
10:37 That is not just offensive, that's threatening to them.
10:42 The vast majority of the gay community is not behind this crap. This is an activist wing.
10:49 You know, I often think that cultural Marxism is for mediocre people, mediocre minds.
10:57 The world is very simple if you just think in terms of races and genders, and you forget individuals and how complicated they are.
11:07 And we're talking about little kids. They want them to question their sexuality. They just got off the tricycle.
11:14 Listen to actual Disney employees called cast members, and you might begin to see real problems from within the company itself.
11:23 There's a lot of employees, people I work with, who are part of the LGBTQ community.
11:30 And, you know, we have a lot of mutual respect for each other. A lot of them say, hey, I understand what, and actually some of them agree with that teachers should not be talking to kids about this.
11:39 They made a bigger mistake by not listening to all of his employees and, frankly, to most of his customers.
11:45 The people who work at Disney, they don't even want this. We've seen the surveys on this.
11:49 There's actually a lot of surveys that came out after Disney waddled into this political debate in Florida that said that over 60% of Disney's customers said they disagreed with Disney's decision to wade into this political debate.
12:00 And a Washington Post survey found that by more than two to one, registered voters say it is inappropriate for teachers to discuss LGBTQ issues with students in kindergarten through third grade.
12:15 For students in grades four and five, a majority of 56% say it's inappropriate.
12:23 The Florida bill simply stated what most parents took for granted. Sex should not be part of a five, six or seven year old school day.
12:34 But Disney disagrees. They publicly vowed to fight the parental rights bill and overturn it.
12:41 When they take on the governor of their state, a state which has been very beneficial to Disney and the preferences that they have given them, no one hired Disney to shape public policy.
12:56 The state does not own the children. The children belong to the parents. The parents, by any survey, don't want it. OK, so just leave the kids alone.
13:05 For Disney to come out and put a statement and say that the bill should have never passed and that they are going to actively work to repeal it.
13:15 This state is governed by the interests of the people of the state of Florida. It is not based on the demands of California corporate executives.
13:25 Ron DeSantis decided that he was going to revoke the special tax privileges that Disney had in Florida. And so that's cost Disney a lot of money.
13:35 And it's also cost them a great deal in terms of their reputation.
13:39 Florida just upped its war with the Walt Disney Company. Big time lawmakers voted today to strip away special political and financial powers the company has had in Orlando for 55 years.
13:53 I think Disney is turning its back on decades of goodwill, decades of brand building, decades of respect and love and admiration from the culture into a political organization.
14:03 I think it's a terrible move to make. But they seem to be thinking that they have to be an activist organization, that they have to speak out.
14:11 You know, at the end of the day, if Disney doesn't agree with a rule, a law, a new proposal, who cares? That's not what we want from Disney.
14:19 We want entertainment. We want value. We want distractions. We want escapism.
14:23 But escape is seemingly impossible. From kids programming to ESPN sports, so much is steeped in politics.
14:32 Here's Disney owned ESPN commentators Courtney Lyle and Carolyn Peck.
14:37 At three o'clock about eight minutes ago, our LGBTQIA+ teammates at Disney asked for our solidarity and support, including our company's support, in opposition to the parental rights in education bill in the state of Florida and similar legislature across the United States.
14:55 And a threat to any human rights is a threat to all human rights.
15:00 I mean, somebody who wants to watch a sports game does not want to listen to a political debate.
15:05 It's interesting how these different parts of our culture have been weaponized to be more socially aware, to kind of push social justice agendas.
15:15 And you think, well, sports wouldn't be that, right?
15:18 You probably thought ESPN stood for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. Increasingly, it looks like endless, stupid political nagging.
15:27 You shouldn't be for or against. That's up to the people when they leave sports. They want to get involved in politics. Yes. Get involved. Let sports be sports.
15:37 More and more sports fans and Disney fans seemed to be alienated by the company's strong political positions.
15:45 Many of those featured in this film reached out personally to then Disney CEO Bob Chaypek for a simple dialogue.
15:54 Back in April, I wrote a letter to Bob Chaypek. He's the head of Disney.
15:58 I asked him if he would sit down with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and me to talk about where you're going with this.
16:04 I said, you've been speaking to the people in the gay community, the transgender community. What about us? He wouldn't answer us.
16:10 It's a funny phenomenon we have in corporate America right now. In the name of inclusion, capital I inclusion,
16:16 we've actually created a culture of exclusion where certain points of view just aren't welcome.
16:22 In the name of diversity, we have created a culture of conformity where we reject the diversity of thought and diversity of ideas in the name of capital D, diversity itself.
16:32 To get a firsthand account of that rejection, we asked those who know Disney best.
16:38 I work for Disney. I've been with Disney for 30 years. I work for Disney for 11 years. 16 years now. For about 15 years.
16:46 Disney employees described to us a disillusioning and fearful workplace.
16:52 When I started with Walt Disney, we never treated anybody differently, whether it was a guest, a cast member.
16:59 I didn't care your sexual preference, your gender identity. It didn't matter because you were either working or you were a guest.
17:05 And your goal as a cast member is to make the guest experience the best it can possibly be.
17:10 Over the last few years, I started noticing we're having more and more trainings. How do we be inclusive?
17:16 How do we include so and so into the group more? But it's really only targeting one group.
17:23 It's not targeting every ethnicity, every gender, every race. It's targeting just the LGBTQ community.
17:30 For over half a century, Disney has operated under guiding principles that have steered the company to success.
17:37 They call them the four keys. The four keys. Safety, courtesy, show and efficiency have guided us from the very start.
17:49 These four keys have provided a foundation for our culture, contributing to Disney's legacy of customer service and care.
17:57 But in April of 2021, a new key was added. The addition of a fifth key, the key of inclusion.
18:07 It was very clear that the inclusive key is really about the LGBTQ community.
18:14 But I think at the same time, it's not including everybody.
18:20 I don't think it's including Christians or conservative people or in my case, unvaccinated people.
18:27 They're not feeling included at all. I don't feel included.
18:31 When that inclusion key came along, all of a sudden there were rules for inclusion that if you weren't this, you're out.
18:41 We spoke to one ex-Disney employee who is also gay, but the inclusion key didn't work for him either.
18:48 I'm a born again Christian. He described a disturbing environment, especially over religious exemptions for COVID vaccines.
18:56 Absolutely. I was discriminated against because of my religion.
19:00 Disney decided that they wanted to impose a vaccine mandate when they imposed this mandate on employees.
19:08 I put in my accommodation from that for religious purposes.
19:13 And I was now being forced to disclose my religious beliefs to the company from the very beginning.
19:18 That that made me so uncomfortable. That should be my choices to whether or not I want to share that with somebody.
19:24 So the fact that I was now being required to disclose that in order to keep my job, I found I found to be very problematic.
19:33 It's exactly not inclusion. It's compliance.
19:37 And that's the way I felt about it, that for all these years, from all my experiences, it had been inclusionary.
19:44 And there is now, in fact, a group that is persona non grata.
19:49 They really don't want that viewpoint. So it's not inclusive.
19:53 You're only celebrated as a gay man at Disney, clearly, if you have the right thoughts.
20:01 You are not celebrated if you are at all conservative or if you are nonconformist in any other way.
20:07 That's actually in itself a bigoted way of looking at a group of people.
20:12 That then creates a culture where nonconforming employees fear for their jobs, have to fear for putting food on the dinner table,
20:18 may not get that promotion that they were competing for.
20:21 So what's actually Disney doing is they're using their corporate muscle to move the cultural pendulum in a direction that
20:28 actually we ostracize anyone who decides that that is not the direction they want to see Disney go.
20:34 I can tell you that I've received hundreds of emails, phone calls and letters from Disney employees all over.
20:41 People that work at ESPN, people that work here in Orlando, people that work in Disneyland,
20:46 people that work in corporate who have sent me letters saying, thank you for standing up for us.
20:51 We are the silent majority. I wish I had the courage to speak louder.
20:55 A lot of them are afraid of losing their jobs.
20:58 With a culture of fear spreading among the ranks of many employees,
21:02 Disney quickly began altering the characters, stories and park experiences that made them a beloved brand all over the world.
21:12 Feature movies, cartoons, family rides, TV shows, products, books, characters.
21:20 Disney's inclusion warriors left no stone unturned.
21:25 Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.
21:29 Big changes coming to Disneyland. Disney is doing away with gendered greetings throughout the park and resort.
21:36 Gone are ladies and gentlemen or boys and girls.
21:39 Instead, cast members who recorded messages will use hello everyone.
21:44 Disney's fairy godmothers in training will now be gender neutral, allowing male cast members to do the job.
21:50 Disney is allowing cast members to have greater flexibility in displaying tattoos, hairstyles and costume choices.
21:57 From introducing burly, manly fairy godmothers to tattooed purple haired Cinderella's,
22:03 Disney was throwing out dress codes, decorum, standards, boundaries, pronouns and genders.
22:11 In other words, Walt Disney World was fast becoming Walt Disney woke.
22:17 They've dropped the term boys and girls because they're all in to this ideological leftist agenda
22:25 that deconstructs the family, human sexuality and ultimately Western civilization.
22:32 Who is being offended? Are you denying that there's such a thing as a man and woman?
22:36 Your sex is assigned at birth. No, your sex is determined by the father, by the father and the father alone.
22:44 That's not right or wrong. It's nature and it's nature's God.
22:48 They know that there is such a thing as nature.
22:50 And if you talk about nature as Jefferson did, then you talk about nature's God.
22:55 And that's the one thing that sends chills up the spine of the folks at Disney.
22:59 They don't want to recognize nature or nature's God.
23:02 So Disney was battling parents and politicians, politicizing its park experience and excluding many of its employees.
23:11 But what came next was even more disturbing.
23:14 Whistleblowers from inside the Disney organization leaked internal videos of top Disney executives to journalist Christopher Ruffo.
23:24 Our leadership over there has been so welcoming to like my like not at all secret gay agenda.
23:31 And so Latoya Ravenow is a producer and writer of children's cartoons and programming for Disney.
23:37 She has worked on such shows as Puppy Pals, Super Monsters and Rise Up Sing Out.
23:43 I don't have to be afraid to like let's have these two characters kiss.
23:47 Let's in the background. Like I was just wherever I could just basically adding queerness to like if you see anything queer,
23:55 the show around them. But like I just was like no one would stop me and no one would talk.
24:01 Show host Tammy Bruce, who is gay, had this to say as a reaction.
24:05 We fought for years to have Americans know that we are not after their children because we're not.
24:11 And yet here you have this dynamic that sets into motion this idea that children are the focus.
24:18 I know lots of gay people. I know plenty of transgender people.
24:22 No one likes what's going on here. No one in this country, no one on the left or the right.
24:28 This is not normal and it's unacceptable. And everyone should reject it for the sake not only of your children,
24:34 but also for the civil rights gains that gays and lesbians have made in this country.
24:39 It's hard to really oversee everything that your child is going to watch.
24:43 But now Disney Plus is one of those channels where you have to be a little more careful to think about what kind of messages are in that programming.
24:49 It's not as simple as it used to be.
24:51 Instead of portraying the well-loved characters, you know, Aladdin and Little Mermaid and Buzz Lightyear
24:58 and all the people and the stories and the characters that kids for generations had loved,
25:06 they decided that they wanted to do some social engineering.
25:10 And the result was that kids are confused, parents are annoyed.
25:16 I think everybody has equal rights. Nobody has extra rights.
25:20 We don't alter everything just so that we can advocate a particular group.
25:27 What they've been doing is taking some of their productions and just gratuitously inserting gay characters and gay scenes
25:37 when it has nothing to do with the story, just so that they can say, "See, we're being sensitive."
25:45 But who are you being sensitive to? Are you being sensitive to everybody or are you catering to a particular group?
26:09 How on earth do you need to have a transgender character with a very masculine voice in a supermarket asking people for help to find sanitary napkins?
26:21 Why are you doing that other than to confuse children to try and inject your trans agenda into their developing minds?
26:31 That's not really up to Disney to do.
26:34 It's up to parents to teach their children about these issues and according to their own values.
26:40 The new film, Lightyear, tells Buzz Lightyear's history before Toy Story, the movie that first made that character famous.
26:47 But the new film is causing controversy, and that is your big story tonight at 7.
26:51 A day camp was slated to see the movie today, but it was abruptly canceled because of a kiss between two female characters.
26:58 Yeah, you know, that same sex kiss and relationship in the movie got a lot of media play, given all the headlines about Disney in recent months.
27:06 And this happening as well, I think it did steer some people away from it.
27:10 This is Disney, this is Pixar, this is a brand that's been very successful.
27:14 So it was deemed a huge disappointment at the box office.
27:17 It tanked. This is not what parents want.
27:23 I think they believe that, you know, this is a fad with Americans.
27:28 Yeah, they're concerned right now, but they'll get over it. They'll accept our agenda.
27:32 There's a big difference between tolerance and affirmation.
27:35 Tolerance, yes, of gays and transgender people, we have to have tolerance.
27:39 But to affirm something, when you get into the questions of behavior.
27:43 It seems as if this is a company that does not love children and put children at the center of its universe.
27:50 It's about adults sort of finding some sort of identity or expression through manipulating children.
28:00 That was all too clear as president of Disney Entertainment, Carrie Burke, felt the need to discuss her own children as it related to her job in promoting more LGBTQ Disney stars.
28:12 I'm here as a mother of two queer children, actually one transgender child and one pansexual child.
28:23 And and also as a leader, many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories.
28:31 And and and yet we don't have enough leads.
28:36 Walt Disney must be turning over in his grave to think that he sees now the grooming of little kids to question their own sexuality with this gender affirming nonsense,
28:47 which leads to all kinds of problems with the teenagers, puberty blockers, chemical castration.
28:53 Have we all lost our mind?
28:55 In fact, Miss Burke announced that 50 percent, half of all Disney characters in all movies, shows and stories will be LGBTQIA or from underrepresented groups in the future.
29:10 But it's not up to Disney to teach kids about sex or gender identity.
29:15 Isn't that the parents job?
29:17 I think people need to step back and ask the question, is Disney a product of the culture or are they shaping the culture?
29:25 You see, I think Disney is a part of shaping the culture where, you know, from the beginning, when we started with Disney and Steamboat Willie and Mickey Mouse,
29:37 we now stand at where they're promoting Little Demon and a child of Satan.
29:44 And that's where Disney has come.
29:47 Well, once she gets to know you, I'm sure she'll jump at the chance to slit your wrist.
29:51 I don't bleed.
29:53 Little Demon is a cartoon series streaming on Disney Plus centered around the story of Chrissy, a teenage girl who is the Antichrist.
30:03 Chrissy's mother, who is a Wiccan, gives birth after mating with Satan.
30:08 Remember me, mother?
30:10 You know, the human brain is a very, very complex organ system, and it has billions and billions of neurons, hundreds of billions of interconnections.
30:21 It remembers everything you've ever seen and everything you've ever heard.
30:27 These things that we are teaching these young children and that we're exposing them to, they're in there.
30:33 They're going to affect them.
30:35 They're going to affect who they become and how they think.
30:39 The Judeo-Christian concept of man and society and of morality, going back to the Decalogue, to the Ten Commandments,
30:45 that's been at the heart of Western civilization for 2,000 years.
30:49 If you don't have the Judeo-Christian idea of morality as the heart of society, it's going to be replaced by something.
30:58 The current prop of executives and employees have inherited a great cultural tradition and a trove of beautiful children's shows,
31:08 and for them to be so arrogant as to step in and decide that from their great enlightened vantage point
31:15 they know better than all of the people that came before them on whose shoulders they stand is the height of arrogance.
31:22 Disney is a company whose mission is to be the world's premier entertainment company. Simple enough.
31:29 However, Disney has taken on a different social agenda as well, or many different social agendas,
31:34 to say that that's not enough just to provide entertainment to families and their children and to make money doing it.
31:40 That's not enough. That they also need to address other social causes and address other, in their view, social injustices as well.
31:48 What do social and political agendas have to do with making money?
31:53 Disney has always been motivated by the almighty dollar.
31:57 Why are they getting more involved in political and culture wars that have nothing to do with their core business?
32:04 Today, major corporations like Disney are becoming increasingly involved in everything from sexual politics to climate change.
32:15 That pleases huge asset management companies.
32:19 These companies are using your retirement and investment dollars, not based on profits,
32:25 but on a company's environmental, social, and governance score.
32:30 It's something called ESG, and it's big business.
32:34 The top shareholders of Disney are three firms, are Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street.
32:41 These happen to be three of the largest, I think the three largest passive asset managers in the world,
32:47 that together manage over $20 trillion.
32:50 That's about the scale of the U.S. GDP in the hands of three firms that are all leaders in the ESG movement.
32:57 Larry Fink is the CEO of BlackRock, which is one of the largest shareholders of the Disney Corporation.
33:04 Fink is also a big believer in ESG and says the goal of companies is not about providing the best products to make the most money.
33:13 It's about creating social change.
33:16 The purpose of a company, and as we are now raising questions, what is the true purpose of a company?
33:23 You raise the purpose that is profitability for your shareholders.
33:27 I think that is evolving and changing.
33:30 It absolutely has nothing to do with advancing the interests of stockholders and everything to do with advancing the interests of the ESG proponents who rule like monarchs on top of Disney.
33:41 But there is mounting evidence that ESG-based investing is terribly flawed.
33:46 Despite a strong rating on the ESG scale, Disney's war with legislators in Florida and miserable box office returns were taking their toll.
33:56 Disney was among the worst performers in the Dow Jones industrial average in 2022.
34:02 Breaking news tonight, a massive shakeup at Disney.
34:05 The stunning development in the business world overnight. Bob Iger is back at the top of Disney just two years after retiring from a legendary run.
34:13 He replaces his own successor, Bob Chapik, after the company suffered a disappointing earnings last quarter. And that's not it.
34:19 As Disney shares were in a nosedive, the Disney board suddenly replaced the company's CEO.
34:25 At an employee town hall meeting, new CEO Bob Iger seemed to choose his words carefully when it came to what some referred to as the company's get woke, go broke agenda.
34:37 When you tell stories, it's a delicate balance. You're talking to an audience, but it's also important to listen to an audience.
34:44 It's important to have respect for the people that you're serving, that you're trying to reach and not have disdain for it.
34:50 That said, we're not going to make everybody happy all the time and we're not going to try to.
34:56 Disney's new CEO seemed to admit the happiest place on Earth was no longer willing to make everybody, well, happy.
35:06 They stopped going to these big franchise movies and stopped buying the toys and they stopped going to Disney World.
35:14 And so you see it's the old adage of get woke, go broke.
35:19 Walt Disney once said, I believe that the spiritual and intellectual freedom which we Americans enjoy is our greatest cultural blessing.
35:29 Therefore, it seems to me that the first duty of culture is to defend freedom and resist all tyranny.
35:38 That celebration of freedom, which embodied so much of Disney's work, stands in jeopardy.
35:44 Today's Disney is taking some dangerous and destructive political positions around the world.
35:56 Red China is one of the most oppressive nations on Earth.
36:03 It is also, by the way, an enemy of the United States of America.
36:08 But if you're Hollywood and you want to make a lot of money and you want to go to that market, all you have to do is genuflect before them.
36:20 And ask them what's the censorship they would like. And then Disney self-censors itself.
36:27 Then it will turn around in the United States and talk about how it is committed to free expression.
36:33 The hypocrisy is stunning.
36:37 They desperately want to crack the Chinese marketplace.
36:40 It's a booming market. There are lots and lots of theaters, more opening all the time.
36:44 And if an American film goes to China, opens and opens big, you're talking millions and millions of dollars.
36:51 So in order to appease that market, you cut out scenes that are existing in the American films to make sure that the censors aren't angry about them.
36:59 Why is it that Disney can put this gay agenda, shoving it down our throats in the United States of America, when they send their movies over to China, they cut those scenes?
37:10 When they send their movies to the Middle East, they cut those scenes?
37:13 One of the frustrations I have as an entertainment reporter and film critic is that sometimes actors, celebrities, even studios will be very aggressive in them.
37:22 They want to use their voice in their clout to send a message to maybe change some things.
37:26 Yet when the product goes overseas and the overseas countries are committing human rights abuses or conducting cultural experiments, that activism just goes away.
37:37 There is drama at Disney over its latest release of Mulan.
37:40 In the credits of the film, Disney thanks controversial government agencies in China's Xinjiang province.
37:46 That's where reportedly more than one million Muslims are being held in concentration camps.
37:52 The Uyghur region is where they enslave labor camps, where they are exterminating people and they're Muslims.
37:59 You see the hypocrisy and Disney goes along with it because it's money.
38:04 There's a billion and a half Chinese.
38:07 What does that actually do when Disney repeatedly critiques alleged injustice here in the United States without saying a peep about actual human rights atrocities brought to the contrary, actually lying prostrate in front of their Chinese overlords?
38:20 From Hong Kong to South Korea, people were shocked to see an American company so closely aligned with the Chinese government.
38:28 They called for boycotts among cries for freedom and democracy.
38:33 And it is one of the most despicable aspects of the new Disney.
38:37 And it is this kowtowing to communist China, to totalitarian regimes, jettisoning, you know, American values and basically aiding and abetting the worst kind of genocide that was going on against the Uyghurs.
38:54 So Xi Jinping in China has built a great wall, a great Chinese wall that says that you can't enter the Chinese market if you criticize the CCP.
39:04 But here's the dirty little secret. If you critique the United States, we'll roll out the red carpet to you.
39:09 As Disney draws attention to past injustices in the United States, they were accused of racially doctoring their own marketing material overseas.
39:19 Non-white actors in Chinese posters for Star Wars, The Force Awakens, were eliminated or diminished.
39:27 Lead black actor John Boyega was vastly reduced on the poster for China.
39:32 Fans of the Star Wars series are complaining that the Chinese poster for the latest film is racist.
39:38 So let's take a look at why.
39:39 Well, it's certainly disturbing that Disney would take a black character off of a poster because it was going to China.
39:47 And they felt that it was inappropriate for reasons that escaped me, quite frankly.
39:56 When you think about the poster incident with John Boyega kind of being shrunk or kind of diminished, it should be part of the conversation.
40:04 And I think if you're Disney and you care about human rights and you care about, you know, progress and social justice and you talk about it in certain arenas,
40:12 in certain states with certain legislation, then you ignore bigger issues.
40:17 It just shows that there's an inauthenticity that's behind the scenes.
40:21 At the same time, Disney has thrown their beloved films under the bus, pulling classic films like Dumbo, Peter Pan,
40:29 the Aristocats and Swiss Family Robinson so that children could not view them from their accounts and labeling them as offensive.
40:39 Tinkerbell and Captain Hook, even the Muppets, were called potentially problematic by Disney as they slapped warning labels on scores of classic films and TV shows.
40:51 Well, another cultural icon taking fire this time, it's the one and only Muppet show.
40:57 The Disney Plus streaming service has begun offering the series and is including a disclaimer warning of, quote, offensive content.
41:05 It's what they're promoting lately that is offensive to people. Since when did the Muppets ever become controversial except with the elites who work at Disney?
41:13 It's just part of this really nauseating trend where the platforms don't trust the audiences to make their own decisions and that we're so fragile that if we see a cultural moment
41:23 that doesn't exactly represent where we are today, we'll be afraid, we'll shrink away, we'll do something violent. It's silly.
41:29 It's almost hilarious if it wasn't so sad that they are putting stamps on their own great products and saying that this could have some offensive content in it, this could be racist.
41:42 You know, if you spend all your time with a microscope trying to find something that will offend somebody, you never have any time to actually spend on creating inspirational material.
41:55 Lady and the Tramp contains stereotypes of Asians.
41:59 Do you see that thing swimming round and round?
42:03 When Lady and the Tramp came out, that movie was so extraordinary that generations later, children are watching it.
42:17 My grandchildren are watching it. But wait a minute. It's a racist movie because of the Siamese cats.
42:27 It's the left. That was offensive, so out they go.
42:33 And that's what a lot of this wokeness does. And it creates conflict where no conflict actually existed. It creates offense where no offense actually existed.
42:43 Why should you give someone else the power to tell you what you're supposed to be offended by?
42:48 A horrible big circus. That's what movie director Tim Burton called working with Disney after his recent remake of Dumbo.
42:58 The director, who has made many hits for the studio over the decades, said, My days with Disney are done.
43:05 I realized that I was Dumbo, that I was working in this horrible big circus and I needed to escape.
43:13 Burton went on to label Disney homogenized and consolidated with less room for different types of things.
43:22 A far cry from Walt's vision as a place dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that created America.
43:32 You know, you have to really kind of go into the Disney inner brain trust to know what they're thinking these days.
43:36 But it certainly doesn't seem like the Disney of old. The Disney of old was family friendly.
43:41 They cared about storytelling. They cared about, you know, making it a pleasant experience with good old school lessons and values.
43:49 I don't see that is exactly the same today.
43:52 There seems to be a more modern agenda, and I think it's really detached from the brand itself.
43:57 I would hope and pray that they would come to their senses and ask themselves, is what we're doing now creating more harmony?
44:11 Is it creating a better social climate? Is it strengthening families? Is it strengthening communities?
44:19 And if the answer to those things is no. Maybe you need to rethink it.
44:24 And the vlogosphere seems to agree. The Disney train is becoming derailed.
44:30 Their not so secret gay agenda got exposed. They're about to lose the Mickey Mouse trademark this year.
44:37 All of their sexual predator employees are being exposed. They're kind of digging their own grave.
44:43 I watched everything up to date so far, and I hope the show can change my mind. And if it does, I'll change my score.
44:50 But right now, the show is a dud.
44:52 Disney launched new LGBTQ's pride collection clothing line for kids.
44:56 Disney said in a statement, "We stand in solidarity with our LGBTQIA+ community everywhere."
45:01 Curious, are you going to be making this clothing line available in China?
45:06 I mean you say everywhere, but...
45:11 Polls show Disney's negative perception in the American public has exploded.
45:16 Disney's approval rating has fallen from 77% last year to just 51% today.
45:23 NBC released a poll that found only 33% had a positive opinion of Disney.
45:30 Vast numbers of people who Disney once enchanted are now disenchanted by the House of Mouse.
45:37 For now, our ride through Walt's disenchanted kingdom has come to an end.
45:44 As Disney sows seeds of division by injecting sex, race, and politics into just about everything,
45:52 will more people turn their back on the once happiest place on earth?
45:57 There's evidence they already are.
46:00 [wind howling]
46:02 [upbeat music]
46:14 People have gotten offended by a lot of old Disney movies.
46:26 Have you heard about that at all?
46:27 Old Disney movies? Yeah, I've heard that.
46:29 Do you think that people should be offended by those things,
46:32 or do you think people are overreacting a bit?
46:34 Um, probably overreacting a little bit, I would say.
46:38 This is the message at the beginning of the movie.
46:41 It says, "This program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures.
46:47 Is this mean to other cultures? Would this hurt people's feelings because of their culture?"
46:53 No.
46:54 No?
46:55 What about this?
46:58 Aladdin.
47:00 No.
47:01 No?
47:02 It's almost like some people are looking to get offended.
47:06 Right, they're trying to find a reason to get offended.
47:08 Yeah.
47:09 Do you think that for kids who, you know, want to watch movies and stuff like that for entertainment or fun,
47:14 do you think it's good to put a political message in there at all?
47:17 I think that kids should be little, and they don't really need to focus on political stuff right now.
47:22 Maybe whenever they're older, but not right now. I think they should enjoy their time.
47:26 Yeah. Me, personally, I wouldn't put anything like that,
47:30 because kids are little, and they will understand what's going on in there.
47:34 Like this. This is from Peter Pan.
47:37 You think that's offensive?
47:39 I'm actually Native American. I don't really think it's offensive as long as you don't mean it in an offensive way.
47:44 Right. How about this? Does this hurt Native Americans' feelings?
47:50 No.
47:52 Why does this not offend you, as a Native American?
47:55 It's getting our culture out there. People are learning about us. They know we're here now.
47:59 A lot of people, they see a Native American, they're like, "Whoa, that's so cool."
48:03 So I think it's a great way to just kind of tell people we're still here.
48:08 Do you think that people get offended too easily at things?
48:11 Yes.
48:12 Why do you say that?
48:14 Because some things, they just overreact to.
48:16 Like the King Louis one in the Jungle Book.
48:20 People have said that this is stereotypical black guy, and that it's hurtful to black people.
48:26 Do you find that offensive to people?
48:29 I don't. I don't, personally.
48:33 Blacks, we were kind of the architects of a lot of soul music and jazz music and blues and whatnot.
48:41 In a way, it's almost a celebration, kind of.
48:44 Yeah. I mean, so using that music or that type of archetype, it's just the way it is.
48:52 You know what I mean? Cultures and races, they can be celebrated. You know what I mean?
48:56 What do you think Disney could do better?
48:58 When we were kids growing up, it was just a different environment.
49:01 It was just a fun place. There was no politics involved, no ideologies involved.
49:06 It was just fun. Going to Disney growing up was so much fun.
49:11 And watching Disney movies was the highlight of my childhood.
49:14 And now I actually think twice about letting my kids watch certain things.
49:18 Is this mean to women?
49:22 Yes.
49:23 Yes? Why is it mean to women?
49:25 Because they want to be a mermaid, but nobody can be a mermaid in real life.
49:33 That's true. It's mermaid-phobic.
49:35 [music]
49:38 [silence]
49:42 [silence]