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--Let's go Brandon!
Its no secret that Disney isnt doing well lately. They just laid off nearly
15% of the workforce at Pixar, their movie studio that used to produce guaranteed hits. But Pixars recent films Elemental and Lightyear were
bombs, and the division hasnt turned a profit in more than two years. People
just didnt go for the strained interracial/immigrant metaphor in Elemental
or the same-sex kiss in Lightyear, or the rehashed, stale vibe of both projects.
Additionally, Disneys much-touted fully immersive hotel called Star Wars:
Galactic Starcruiser, shut down late last year, after operating for less than two years. Disney had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the project, apparently on the theory that people cared so much about the Star Wars brand that theyd be willing to spend thousands of dollars for the privilege of staying two nights in a windowless concrete building posing as a spaceship. That didnt pan out. Apparently people werent excited to stay in
a hotel where the experience is seemingly designed to be as aggressively unpleasant as possible.
That same quarter, Disneys streaming service, Disney+, reported a loss of more than a million subscribers. And thats not even getting into Disneys decision to get involved in Florida politics, on the side of activist teachers who want to talk to kindergartners about gender identity and sexual orientation.
Faced with this brand collapse, Disney had two options. One option was to retool their content to focus on entertainment and family values instead of activism, which is what Disney used to do, when it was a universally beloved and much more financially successful company. They could get back to their roots. Not in the sense of churning out more remakes, but in the sense of being a company that makes wholesome family films that capture a sense of wonder and imagination.
The other option was to keep doing exactly what theyve been doing, and continue to shove the same agenda the equity/representation/LGBTQ approach that theyve been pushing for years now.
Eight months ago, Disneys CEO, Bob Iger, publicly pledged to pursue the first option. He declared that Disney would refocus its efforts on entertainment, not political messaging. That was the plan, or at least the plan that was shared with the public. But thats not what happened.
Disney, over the past eight months, has apparently decided to double down on agenda-driven content, to the point that theyre openly attacking their own fans. Its a remarkable turn of events, and its one thats worth discussing
because this development isnt unique to Disney. And it suggests that wokeness may not be the best way to describe what were seeing at Disney and other major corporations like it. Thats certainly part of what were seeing, but theres something else going on here. It looks a lot like corporate mediocrity run amok the private-sector version of what we see across the public-sector bureaucracy. Unimpressive people with impressive- sounding credentials, who check the right demographic boxes, are taking the helm of businesses and products that they dont understand. Theyve insinuated themselves into these companies like a cancer thats evidently impossible to remove. And even when the company CEO publicly tells them one thing, theyre free to do another.
To get a better idea of what I mean, take a look at this interview from the other day, featuring Leslye Headland, the creator of the new Disney Star Wars show, The Acolyte. I dont want to prejudice you in any way, so watch
this clip with that introduction. This is the showrunner talking about her show. Watch:
https://youtu.be/OTRtQ_l8sPo
Dont worry about the story, or the plot, or the characters. Who has time for
that? Instead, just listen to these two women call old Star Wars characters
gay, and then giggle like schoolgirls. They are excited that this new Star Wars show will be the gayest Star Wars show yet. Which is, in every way,
the exact opposite of what the audience actually wants.
The only thing you learn from that interview is that Leslye Headland is gay and has no respect whatsoever for her audience or her own show. This is how Disney is promoting the latest entry in a franchise they spent $4 billion to buy a decade ago. And that has a lot of fans wondering how exactly she was chosen for the role of showrunner. If her role is to push some subversive woke ideology, shes not being very subversive about it. Shes just angering
as many fans as she possibly can. Thats all this is.
And shes not the only one doing it. The CEO of Lucasfilm a woman named Kathleen Kennedy just came out in defense of her showrunner. Kennedy declared that if youre not a fan of how Leslye Headland is handling herself,
then you probably hate women.
I think Leslye has struggled a little bit with it. I think a lot of
the women who step into Star Wars struggle with this a bit more.
Because of the fan base being so male-dominated, they sometimes get
attacked in ways that can be quite personal. My belief is that
storytelling does need to be representative of all people. Thats an
easy decision for me.
Yes, she really said that. Storytelling does need to be representative of all people, says the CEO of Lucasfilm, as she mocks her own fanbase. These people are so dumb that they dont even understand the words coming out of their own mouths. Representative of all people, really? Are they going to have eight billion characters in this show, one for each person on Earth? How exactly is this going to work? Is storytelling supposed to be representative
of all people whatever that means or is it supposed to be representative
of the creative vision of the storyteller?
I was going to show some more clips of these women, but its honestly too painful to subject you to. These are people who cant even communicate without descending into valley girl nonsense, and theyre putting together shows that they expect millions of people to watch. Kathleen Kennedy was lucky enough to work with Steven Spielberg, and Leslye Headland worked on rom-coms with titles like Sleeping With Other People. Those are their credentials, and theyre considered impressive in the industry. So they get to continue butchering Star Wars.
By the way, The Acolyte was released this week and as has become a new tradition for Star Wars films and shows it has a very high critics score
on Rotten Tomatoes but a failing grade of 45% from the audience.
Joel Berry, who apparently subjected himself to at least some of the show, offered this review:
The Acolyte is a queer, Marxist vandalization of the myth of Star
Wars. In The Acolyte, the Force is a metaphor for cultural hegemonic
power. The Jedi are a metaphor for cisgender white oppressors who
hoard the power for themselves. Yes, it really is that obnoxious and
stupid.
The account Wall Street Silver offered this viewer warning:
The Acolyte, Star Wars new series streaming, very woke. 1) main
character has two mothers 2) main Jedi characters are all Black
and Asian, no white men 3) only speaking role for white men in
first episode is prisoners on prison ship.
So Disney has decided to right the ship by ramming it directly into another iceberg. Thats not to pick on The Acolyte too much, although it obviously
deserves it. Because of the fact that Disney is now pumping out Star Wars shows on an assembly line, theres another one I can mock as well called Tales of the Empire. This one is apparently geared towards kids, and I guess it features a nonbinary Jedi, based on how all of the characters use they/them pronouns to refer to his corpse. Watch this, if you can get through it:
https://youtu.be/XVGR4oFc2Z0
This is the result of Disneys big plan to focus on entertainment and not
messaging. We have nonbinary Jedi and girl bosses making sure we get the gayest Star Wars ever. And thats not all.
As Bloomberg recently reported, Disney is now banking on the upcoming film Inside Out 2 as the, key to restoring the magic. They think this film a
sequel to a movie from 2015 is going to be a smash hit, to the point that theyre going to give it a 100-day run in theaters. As Bloomberg reports:
If families show up for Inside Out 2 in the kinds of numbers Pixar
used to see, it will reaffirm the studios standing. But if the movie
fails, it will fuel concerns about the companys relevance.
So whats Inside Out 2 going to be about? Its hard to say, because its
not out yet. But after some Googling, I came across this headline from an outlet called Pride.com. Heres their assessment, based on the trailer:
The long-awaited sequel to Disney and Pixars Inside Out isnt
hitting theaters until this summer, but the official trailer dropped
this week and its looking a little gay. Fans think Inside Out 2
is going to be gay AF.
How brave is that? Are they also going to gay-ify Inside Out which was kind of a middling Pixar entry in the first place? Who knows? But based on the fact that they cant make anything that isnt gay we can assume the answer is yes.
This is all very woke, yes. Its also incredibly lame and stale and unimaginative. That would also be an apt descriptor for what Disney is doing with its theme parks. As the writer Peachy Keenan documented on X/Twitter yesterday, Disney is currently re-theming their famous Splash Mountain ride
because apparently it is racist. And theyre creating a politically correct replacement.
Keenan watched all of Disneys promotional materials, and she put together a comparison of the old ride with the new one. Basically, the new ride wont have Princess Tiana in a nice dress with a handsome prince, or even a storyline of any kind:
Instead, you get a lot of dead space, repeated boring animatronic
who look like zombies compared to the Pirates animatronics, and
Tianaincrediblyin ugly baggy pants, no makeup, no nonsense hair,
zero glamour. Its Girl Boss Tiana and shes dressed like a Jungle
Cruise.
Sounds thrilling. I was trying to figure out why all of this is happening at Disney why theyre sabotaging their own brand, despite what the CEO said theyd do. And its clear that, whatevers going on here, its not unique to
Disney.
Consider what just happened at Cracker Barrel. Their CEO is a woman named Julie Felss Masino. She took the job last year. Previously, she worked at Taco Bell, Mattel, Sprinkles Cupcakes, Starbucks, and Macys. Of course, the clientele of every single one of these companies is very different from the typical Cracker Barrel, which skews older. But in general, her old jobs were mostly in the food industry, just like The Acolyte showrunners jobs were
mostly in the entertainment industry. And thats good enough, so Julie Masino
got the job.
Unfortunately, its not working out too well. Masino just announced on a call
with investors that the company is, just not as relevant as we once were. To ignite growth, she said, its necessary to revitalize the brand. She
then outlined a bunch of generic initiatives, like rewards programs that every other restaurant offers. Her announcement sent the stock down 11% immediately, putting it down nearly 50% in the past year. And why wouldnt the stock drop? The new CEO clearly views Cracker Barrel as completely indistinguishable from every other place shes ever worked. If anything, she probably hates the brand. And we can assume she hates the brands primarily blue collar, Christian clientele.
We saw something similar with that Bud Light VP, Alissa Heinerscheid, when she dismissed her own customers as fratty and said Bud Light needed a rebrand. They brought on Dylan Mulvaney, and we all know how that turned out. Alissa Heinerscheid, like Julie Masino, had great credentials. She went to Harvard and Wharton, and had worked at big companies like Listerine and General Mills. But she didnt understand Bud Light or care about the customers, so she destroyed the brand.
Thats now unfolding at Cracker Barrel as well. And its a very preventable,
slow-motion collapse. On social media, someone using the handle Pine Barron
summed up the problem better than anyone Ive seen. Heres what he wrote, describing an alternative to Cracker Barrels current CEO:
Imagine a CEO who actually loved Midwestern and Southern culture.
What about pop up concerts and endorsements by Zach Bryan and Morgan
Wallen? Why not lean into its heritage as an after church spot and
create programs for church groups including discounts and shuttle bus
services. Grassroots evangelical support has made huge hits of movies
like the Sound of Freedom and restaurant chains like Chik-Fil-A.
Imagine a public company with leadership that didnt hate the blue
collar evangelical population. There are so many obvious partnership
opportunities with brands like NASCAR or country music stars. I dont
think this is wokeness or girlbossery per se, but rather typical
corporate mediocrity. They hired a generic MBA type who built a
career on the massive brand equity of Yum Brands and Starbucks.
Just a cog in the corporate machine. I hope we will see titans of
industry again but this is not how well get them.
That does a fairly good job of putting into perspective everything weve been
seeing over the past few years at Disney, Bud Light, and so many other major corporations. And I think its a more apt explanation than simply chalking all of this decline up to wokeness.
This trend of hiring interchangeable CEOs with resumes and trendy demographics has been an unmitigated disaster because it overlooks what the leader of every company should have, at a bare minimum which is an understanding of their product and a genuine respect for their customers. Without that, you get shows like The Acolyte. You get Dylan Mulvaney and angry customers, and your stock collapses along with your brand.
All the combined efforts of feminism and diversity and equity and wokeness have brought us to this point. But its bureaucracy and inertia thats keeping it alive, long after everyones tired of it. That inertia is the reason why whether youre going to a restaurant or a movie theater youre
now guaranteed a product thats as mediocre as the people who created it.
--Let's go Brandon!
So how come you didn't put the show title in the subject line?