A Disney content executive vowed to up the ante on gender politics during an all-hands meeting, promising that at least half of the characters in its productions will be LGBTIA or minorities by the end of the year.
General Entertainment President Karey Burke choked during Monday’s company-wide Zoom call and said the problem arose close to home because of her children.
“I’m actually here as a mother of two queer children, one transgender child and one pansexual child, and also as a leader,” she said.
During the same all-hands meeting, television animation executive producer Latoya Raveneau gushed about Disney’s inclusivity.
“Our leadership over there has been so welcoming of my not-so-secret gay agenda,” she said. “Wherever I could, I added queerness. Nobody wanted to stop me and nobody tried to stop me.’
Videos of the meeting were leaked to conservative journalists Christopher Rufo from the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, which first reported on it on Twitter.
The Mickey Mouse company has been rocked by protests, backlashes and strikes after Florida Gov. Ronald DeSantis signed into law the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
Lawmakers ban children from being taught about sex, gender identity and sexual orientation “in a manner that is not age-appropriate.”
Disney employees walked out of corporate headquarters last week to protest Florida’s slow response to the law.
Parents, on the other hand, slammed the company because they said it was pandering to liberal politics.
Disney has reportedly reintroduced a gay kiss in its upcoming Toy Story spinoff amid criticism. Hawthorne (voiced by Uzo Aduba), a character in the film Lightyear, has a relationship with another female character in the film
Disney President Kary Burke said her own children identify as “pansexual” and “transgender.”
Vivain Ware, Disney’s head of diversity and inclusion, said they’re no longer addressing visitors as “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls” but rather “dreamers of all ages.”
Meanwhile, the animation and live-action film company announced it would be increasing the number of gay characters in its films.
“I’ve heard so much from so many of my colleagues over the past few weeks in open forums, through emails and phone calls,” Burke said. “I feel obligated to speak not only for myself, but also for myself [my kids].’
She defended 20th Century Fox as “home to truly incredible, groundbreaking LGBTQIA stories over the years.”
But she said it wasn’t comprehensive enough.
“One of our executives stood up and said, ‘You know we only have a handful of queer references in our content,'” Burke said. ‘I went, ‘What? This can not be true. And then I realized it was true.’
The company launched a campaign called “Reimagine Tomorrow” with the goal of representing more minority groups.
“By 2022, 50% of the regular and recurring characters in Disney General Entertainment’s scripted content will come from underrepresented groups,” according to Reimagine’s promotional material.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the Don’t Say Gay law into law Monday.
Last Friday, Disney CEO Bob Chapek vowed to work to repeal the law and apologized to the LGBTQIA community for not being “a stronger ally in the fight for equality.”
DeSantis said the company is exceeding its authority.
The animation company also invited Equality Florida co-founder Nadine Smith, who said the Sunshine State has long had a strong anti-gay movement and the ultimate goal is to take children away from their parents.
“If they can wipe you out, if they can criminalize your existence, if they can demonize you, the next step is to criminalize you and take your children,” she said.
SCOOP: Disney Diversity and Inclusion Manager Vivian Ware says the company has eliminated all mentions of “women,” “men,” “boys,” and “girls” in its theme parks to create “that magical moment” for kids who do do not identify with traditional gender roles. pic.twitter.com/OWsGTUoeCA
— Christopher F Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 29, 2022
The company also announced last Friday that it would reprise a kissing scene between two women in Lightyear, an upcoming film that spawned from the popular Toy Story franchise.
Disney said their sensitivity to non-binary people is nothing new, they are working to eliminate gender pronouns in their theme parks.
“Last summer we removed all gender salutations related to our live games,” Vivian Ware said on diversity and inclusion Monday at City Hall.
“We’re not saying ‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,’ anymore,” she said. “We trained all of our cast members so now they know to say ‘Hello everyone or hello friends.’
Disney expressed its support for the demonstration in a Facebook post Tuesday morning
It has been speculated that Scar from The Lion King is an odd character
Also Ursula from “The Little Mermaid” has said that she is not gender specific
When they brought the fireworks show back to the Magic Kingdom theme park in Buena Vista, Fla., they addressed the crowd as “dreamers of all ages.”
“We want to create that magical moment with our guests,” she said. “We don’t want to just assume that someone who, in our interpretation, presents as female doesn’t want to be called a ‘princess’.”
Disney’s sudden sexual awakening might be a bit of a rebrand.
The internet is full of stories about gay characters in their animated films.
It has been speculated that Governor Ratcliffe from Pocahontas, Ursula from The Little Mermaid and Scar from The Lion King are queer or queer-coded.
Le Fou, the awkward sidekick in Beauty and the Beast, is said to be the first openly gay character.
In 2021, Forbes complained in a headline, “How often will Disney introduce its ‘first’ gay character?”