DeSantis scores culture war win over Disney
Washington Examiner
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It happened quietly behind closed doors during an investors’ presentation last week, but Disney CEO Bob Iger waved the white flag in the culture war he instigated against Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) over 18 months ago.
According to sources in the room at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Iger told analysts that Disney would “quiet the nose” around cultural controversies that the company had previously engaged in.
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When the Florida legislature first passed the Parental Rights in Education Act last February, prohibiting age-inappropriate classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, Iger was not with Disney. Disney sent a responsible statement to employees noting that corporate interventions in cultural issues “do very little to change outcomes or minds” and instead are “often weaponized by one side or the other to further divide and inflame.”
Iger pushed back on his former company’s silence, posting, “If passed, this bill will put vulnerable, young LGBTQ people in jeopardy.” Due largely to this pressure, Disney’s leadership rescinded their memo and the company engaged in the divisive and inflammatory behavior they had just condemned.
Disney claimed, without any basis in fact, that Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act would “be used to unfairly target gay, lesbian, nonbinary, and transgender kids and families.” Then, after DeSantis signed the bill into law, the company promised that its “goal as a company” was for “this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in courts.”
DeSantis fought back, noting that Disney’s statement about what was in the law was “fundamentally dishonest” and added, “This state is governed by the interests of the people of Florida. It is not based on the demands of California corporate executives.”
DeSantis followed up with legislation restructuring the special privileges Florida had given Disney back in 1967. “This legislation ends Disney’s self-governing status, makes Disney live under the same laws as everybody else, and ensures Disney pays its debts and fair share of taxes,” DeSantis said when signing the bill.
Disney sued the state in federal court, accusing DeSantis of a “relentless campaign to weaponize government power” against the company. After losing several motions, Disney has been forced to narrow its lawsuit, now only claiming that Florida violated its First Amendment rights. It’s worth noting that the Democratic Party says no corporation has those rights.
Last week’s admission was not the first time that Iger, who returned as Disney’s CEO last November, has hinted that Disney erred in pushing a far-left agenda. This April, after an investor complained that Disney had changed from “a place of magic for children” to an “ideological company” promoting a “woke agenda,” Iger agreed, responding, “Our primary mission needs to be to entertain … and to have a positive impact on the world. … It should not be agenda-driven.”
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Disney has recently produced a string of ideologically-driven movies (including The Little Mermaid, Strange World, Lightyear, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and Elemental), all of which bombed at the box office. The market is pushing the company to get back to the basics.
Corporations are given powers and privileges regular citizens do not have, including eternal life and limited liability. They must serve the public good in return for these special powers. When they don’t, citizens acting through their government have every right to hold them to account.