By Movieguide® Contributor
Disney shareholders emphatically shot down a proposal that would have allowed the company to move away from its radical gender ideology, keeping the company trapped in its commitments to including harmful messaging in its content.
The proposal was submitted to the company by the conservative think tank National Center for Public Policy Research, through its Free Enterprise Project (FEP), suggesting the company decommit itself from LGBTQ+ teachings and promotion.
“When corporations take extreme positions, they destroy shareholder value by alienating large portions of their customers and investors, the proposal said, per Variety. “This proposal provides Disney with an opportunity to move back to neutral.”
The proposal also noted that since 2007, Disney has received a perfect score on Corporate Equality Index (CEI), which is “the national benchmarking tool on corporate policies, practices, and benefits pertinent to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer employees,” per the CEI’s website.
While now is the perfect time for Disney to begin to back away from its radical teachings, the company remained committed to its LGBTQ+ content, with over 99% of shareholders voting against the FEP’s proposal.
From a pure business perspective, this continued commitment makes zero sense, as Disney has suffered great losses to promote its teachings about gender. Many of its movies that heavily promote LGBTQ+ teachings flop, and its real-life advocacy has only hurt the company as well. For example, in 2022 when Disney challenged Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill which tackled LGBTQ+ teachings in the classroom, Disney’s stock price tumbled, eventually reaching its lowest price since 2014.
Despite the vote from the shareholders, Disney has begun to move away from its most extreme point, following most other large companies who have overhauled their policies since President Trump took office. In February, Disney cut its “Reimagine Tomorrow” initiative which committed the company to including an LGBTQ+ storyline in every single piece of content and in March, the company cut a queer storyline from an upcoming show, while introducing an openly Christian character.
Clearly Disney understands that radical gender teachings have no place in children’s content, unfortunately their shareholders do not feel the same way, and the company will continue to suffer for that fact. Hopefully, they will continue to make moves behind the scenes and slowly push their content back towards a focus on quality storytelling over indoctrination.
Movieguide® previously reported:
Disney just added an openly Christian character to the show WIN OR LOSE which the company previously removed an LGBTQ+ storyline from, showing that the entertainment giant is starting to rethink forcing liberal ideologies into every piece of content.
WIN OR LOSE is Pixar’s first long format animated show and tells the story of a co-ed softball team preparing for their championship. The eight episode season follows a new character every episode as they face a variety of emotions while preparing for the game. Originally, one of these characters was slated to be transgender, however, in December, Disney announced it scrapped that component of that character. Even more amazing, one of the characters is now openly Christian, the first person in a piece of Disney content to be so since 2007.
Despite including LGBTQ+ ideology in many of its stories, in December, the company explained it decided to remove that storyline because it did not find it appropriate for the young audience WIN OR LOSE is targeting.
“When it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children in their own terms and timeline,” Disney toldThe Hollywood Reporter.
As for the Christian character, Laurie has a cutout of an angel in her bedroom and is shown talking about her “Heavenly Father” when she is first introduced.
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