The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger Claims: “The Notion That Disney Is Any Way Sexualizing Our Children Quite Frankly Is Preposterous And Inaccurate”
John F. Trent
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The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger recently did a sit down interview with CNBC’s David Faber while attending the Sun Valley Conference in Idaho, where he denied that the company is sexualizing children.
Bradley Cooper and Bob Iger attend the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Premiere at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood CA on Thursday, April 27, 2023.
(Photo: Alex J. Berliner/ABImages)
At one point during the interview Faber asked Iger, “What about [Florida Governor Ron] DeSantis who is going to be on the husting so to be speak for the next year, and he’s made this part of his campaign, attacking Disney, saying it’s a woke corporation?”
Faber then quoted DeSantis, “‘We’ve put the company on a pedestal, but they’ve really embraced the idea of getting the sexualized content in the program line that I’m not willing to cross.’ I mean that’s what he said. I quoted DeSantis there. How do you respond to that?”
Iger answered, “So far what we’ve said publicly is that we are concerned that he has decided to retaliate against the company for the position the company took on pending legislation in that state. And frankly, the company was within its right — even though I’m not sure it was handled very well — it was within its right to speak up on an issue, constitutionally protected right of free speech. And to retaliate against the company in a way that would be harmful to the business was not something that we could sit back and tolerate.
“So we have filed a lawsuit to protect our first amendment rights there and to protect our business, frankly.”
Josh Gad and Bob Iger attend the Ant-Man and The Wasp Quantumania World Premiere at the Regency Village Theatre on Monday, February 6, 2023 in Westwood, CA.
(Photo:Alex J. Berliner/ABImages)
“The other issues that you reference, look, the last thing that I want for the company is for the company to be drawn into any culture wars,” Iger said.
“You know, we’ve operated for almost 100 years as a company making product that we are actually proud of it in terms of its impact on the world. You know, I joke every once in a while that we’re there to manufacture fun,” he added. “We’re there to tell great stories…”
Kevin Feige, Alan Bergman and Bob Iger attend the Ant-Man and The Wasp Quantumania World Premiere at the Regency Village Theatre on Monday, February 6, 2023 in Westwood, CA.
(Photo:Alex J. Berliner/ABImages)
Faber then interjected and asserted that Nazis were standing outside of one of Disney’s parks, “You can’t be happy when there’s literally Nazis standing outside the front gates of the park.”
Iger reacted, “That was horrifying, quite frankly. And it is concerning to me that anyone would encourage a level of intolerance or even hate that, frankly, could even become dangerous action that could be turned into some dangerous act of some sort. So it’s concerning to me. But I don’t want to really engage in the specifics except to say that it’s not our goal to be involved in a culture war. Our goal is to continue to tell wonderful stories and have a positive impact on the world. You know, we are a preeminent entertainer in the world, and we are proud of our track record there.”
“The notion that Disney is any way sexualizing our children, quite frankly, is preposterous and inaccurate,” Iger added.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – DECEMBER 07: (L-R) Director Steven Spielberg and Walt Disney Company Executive Chairman Bob Iger attend the Los Angeles premiere of West Side Story, held at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on December 07, 2021. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for 20th Century Studios)
When asked if he was going to escalate his engagement, Iger replied, “We are going to keep doing what we do best and be proud of what we are doing, and be mindful of the environment, of course. I’ve said this publicly, we are sensitive to the interests and the needs of the great audiences we are seeking to attract globally and we will continue to do that.”
Bob Iger via 2023 Annual Meeting of Shareholders Webcast
There’s a lot to unpack here. First off, Bob Iger is clearly doing damage control and the company is indeed attempting to indoctrinate children into heinous and evil ideologies such as “transgenderism” as well as attempting to sexualize them with programming focused on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The company’s position was made abundantly clear when they came out against the pending legislation, Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill that has now become law. That bill specifically stated, “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 23: (L-R) Christine McCarthy, CFO of The Walt Disney Company, Bob Chapek, Chief Executive Officer of Disney, Kareem Daniel, Chairman of Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution and Louis D’Esposito attend the Thor: Love and Thunder World Premiere at the El Capitan Theatre in [Hollywood], California on June 23, 2022. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Disney)
He stated, “Because this struggle is much bigger than any one bill in any one state, I believe the best way for our company to bring about lasting change is through the inspiring content we produce, the welcoming culture we create, and the diverse community organizations we support.”
“There’s a reason content is at the top of this list,” Chapek explained. “For nearly a century, our company’s stories have opened minds, inspired dreams, shown the world both as it is and how we wish it could be, and now more than ever before, represent the incredible diversity of our society.”
“We are telling important stories, raising voices, and I believe, changing hearts and minds,” he added.
Buzz (Chris Evans) looks on as Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba) and her wife, Kiko, attend their son’s college graduation in Lightyear, Pixar Animation Studios (2022) via Blu-ray
Less than a week after publicly claiming the company would not get involved in the legislation, Chapek changed course and put the company fully behind opposition to the bill. In another email, he said, “It is clear that this is not just an issue about a bill in Florida, but instead yet another challenge to basic human rights. You needed me to be a stronger ally in the fight for equal rights and I let you down. I am sorry.”
He went on to reveal, “Starting immediately, we are increasing our support for advocacy groups to combat similar legislation in other states. We are hard at work creating a new framework for our political giving that will ensure our advocacy better reflects our values. And today, we are pausing all political donations in the state of Florida pending this review.”
At the end of this email he declared, “I missed the mark in this case but am an ally you can count on—and I will be an outspoken champion for the protections, visibility, and opportunity you deserve.”
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Following these emails The Walt Disney Company would host a Reimagine Tomorrow conference for its employees where numerous executives revealed just how they were sexualizing children.
During this conference President of Disney General Entertainment Content Karey Burke detailed how important it was for her to have “many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories” because she’s the mother of transgender and pansexual children.
Burke said, “I’m here as a mother of two queer children, actually. One transgender child and one pansexual child. And also as a leader. And that was the thing that really got me, because I have heard so much from so many of my colleagues over the course of the last couple weeks in open forums and through emails and phone conversations. I feel a responsibility to speak, not just for myself but for them.”
She would later say, “That is up to all of us. We had an open forum last week at 20th where, again, the home of really incredible groundbreaking LGBTQIA stories over the years, where one of our execs stood up and said, ‘You know, we only had a handful of queer leads in our content.’ And I went, ‘What? That can’t be true!’ And I realized, ‘Oh. It actually is true.’”
Karey Burke via Freeform YouTube
“We have many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories and yet, we don’t have enough leads and narratives in which gay characters just get to be characters and not have to be about gay stories.” Burke said.
“That’s been very eye-opening for me,” she said. “I can tell you it’s something that I feel that perhaps had this moment not happened, I as a leader and me as my colleagues would not have focused on. Going forward, I certainly will be more so.”
“I know that we will be and I hope this is a moment where — shoot, the 50 percent of the tears, sorry, are coming — we just don’t allow each other to go backwards,” the clip concludes.
SCOOP: Disney corporate president Karey Burke says, “as the mother [of] one transgender child and one pansexual child,” she supports having “many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories” and wants a minimum of 50 percent of characters to be LGBTQIA and racial minorities. pic.twitter.com/oFRUiuu9JG
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 29, 2022
Disney production coordinator Allen March went on to reveal that the company created a tracker in order to determine whether or not the company was creating enough LGBTQ+ characters.
March said, “I’ve had the privilege of working with the Moon Girl team for the last two years. They’ve been really open to exploring queer stories. I’m on the production side, part of the work that I feel like I can put in is making sure that — we take place in modern-day New York so making sure that that’s an accurate reflection of New York.”
“So I put together a tracker of our background characters to make sure that we have the full breadth of expression. We got into a very similar conversation, Karey, of like, ‘Oh. All our gender nonconforming characters are in the background.’”
MARVEL’S MOON GIRL AND DEVIL DINOSAUR – “The Borough Bully” (Marvel) MOON GIRL, DEVIL DINOSAUR
“So it’s not just a numbers game of how many LGBTQ+ characters you have,” he stated. “The more centered a story is on a character the more nuanced you get to get into their story.”
“Especially with trans characters, you can’t see if someone is trans. There’s not one way to look trans. So kind of the only way to have these canonical trans characters, canonical asexual characters, canonical bisexual characters is to give them stories where they can be their whole selves,” March concludes.
SCOOP: Disney production coordinator Allen March says his team is committed to “exploring queer stories” and has created a “tracker” to make sure they are creating enough “gender nonconforming characters,” “canonical trans characters,” and “canonical bisexual characters.” pic.twitter.com/ddSzw4aqQv
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 29, 2022
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The company’s Diversity & Inclusion Manager at Walt Disney Parks & Resorts Vivian Ware also revealed they were removing gendered greetings from their parks, “Last summer we removed all of the gendered greetings in relationship to our live spiels.”
She explained, “So we no longer say, ‘Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls.’ We provided training for all of our cast members in relationship to that. So now they know it’s, ‘Hello, everyone’ or ‘Hello, friends.’”
The wonderful Main Street Electrical Parade at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World. Photo Credit: HarshLight from San Jose, CA, USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Ware continued saying, “We’re in the process of changing over those recorded messages, and so many of you are probably familiar when we brought the fireworks back to the Magic Kingdom, we no longer say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,’ We say, ‘Dreamers of all ages.’”
“So I love the fact that it’s opened up the creativity, the opportunity for our cast members to look at that. We have our cast members working with merchandise, working with food and beverage, working with all of our guest-facing areas, where perhaps we want to create that magical moment with our cast members, with our guests,” she said.
Ware then added, “And we don’t want to just assume because someone might be, in our interpretation, may be presenting as female, that they may not want to be called ‘princess.’ So, let’s think differently about how do we really engage with our guests in a meaningful and inclusive way that makes it magical and memorable for everyone.”
SCOOP: Disney diversity and inclusion manager Vivian Ware says the company has eliminated all mentions of “ladies,” “gentlemen,” “boys,” and “girls” in its theme parks in order to create “that magical moment” for children who do not identify with traditional gender roles. pic.twitter.com/OWsGTUoeCA
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 29, 2022
Latoya Raveneau, who has since been promoted at the company, but was originally an Executive Producer for Disney Television Animation revealed she was putting in a “not-at-all secret gay agenda” into the children’s programs she worked on.
She said, “I love Disney’s content. I grew up watching all of the classics. They have been a huge informative part of my life. But at the same time, like, I worked at small studios most of my career and I’d heard, you know, you hear whispers.”
“I’d heard things like, ‘They won’t let you show this in a Disney show,’ and I’m like, ‘Okay.’ So I was a little like sus when I started, but then my experience was baffingly the opposite of what I had head,” she continued.
Penny (Kayla Pratt), Zoey (Soleil Moon Frye), Michael (EJ Johnson), Dijonay (Karen Malina White), and Maya (Keke Palmer) take issue with the United States government in The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder Season 2 Episode 3 “Curved” (2023), Disney
“In my little pocket of Proud Family Disney TVA, the showrunners were super welcoming . Meredith Roberts and our leadership over there has been so welcoming to my not-at-all-secret gay agenda,” she declared.
“Maybe it was that way in the past, but I guess something must have happened in the last, they are turning it around, they’re going hard, and then like all that momentum that I felt, that sense of ‘I don’t have to be afraid to have these two characters kiss in the background.’ I was just, wherever I could, just basically adding queerness. If you see anything queer in the show — no one would stop me, and no one was trying to stop me.”
SCOOP: I’ve obtained video from inside Disney’s all-hands meeting about the Florida parental rights bill, in which executive producer Latoya Raveneau says her team has implemented a “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” and is regularly “adding queerness” to children’s programming. pic.twitter.com/eJnZMpKIXT
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 29, 2022
Clearly, The Walt Disney Company is indeed sexualizing children and they are not being secretive about it. Ironically, Bob Iger also noted he had no intention of changing the company’s position on these matters.
After returning to the company as CEO, Bob Iger hosted a town hall for Disney employees where he said, “I think there’s a misperception here about what politics is. I think that some of the subjects that have proven to be ‘controversial’ as it relates to Disney have been branded political, and I don’t necessarily believe they are.”
“I don’t think that when you are telling stories and attempting to be a good citizen of the world, that that’s political,” he affirmed. “It’s just not how I view it.”
EXCLUSIVE: I have obtained video from returning Disney CEO Bob Iger’s first town hall with employees, in which he signals that he will work to “quiet things down” politically and move toward neutrality in the culture war.https://t.co/ZBGdHhxFVS pic.twitter.com/ZbMCZN4MlG
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) November 29, 2022
“Do I like the company being embroiled in controversy?” he then asked rhetorically of the crowd. “Of course not, it can be distracting, and it can have a negative impact on the company.”
“And to the extent that I can work to quiet things down, I’m going to do that,” added Iger. “But I think it’s important to put in perspective what some of these subjects are and not just simply brand them as political.”
Bob Iger via 2023 Annual Meeting of Shareholders Webcast
When specifically asked about the Florida legislation, Iger said, “Well, first of all, our LGBTQ employees are very important to us and we care deeply about them. That is a given.”
“Secondly, this company has been telling stories for a hundred years, and those stories have had a meaningful, positive impact on the world. And one of the reasons that they’ve had a meaningful, positive impact is one of our core values is inclusion, acceptance, and tolerance. And we can’t lose that. We just can’t lose that,” he declared.
In response to the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” legislation, Iger said Disney would still promote “inclusion,” but suggested that the company must strike a “delicate balance” and “listen to [its] audience” and “have respect for the people that [it’s] serving.” This is a retreat. pic.twitter.com/bZBnQdm616
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) November 29, 2022
As for the company being retaliated against by Governor Ron DeSantis for opposing a bill that prevents “sexual orientation or gender identity” in kindergarten through third grade, and Iger claiming their first amendment has been violated, legal analyst Andrew Esquire believes this lawsuit will be dismissed.
He appeared on the WDW Pro channel and explained, “The reason cited, one of the main reasons which I have said from the beginning on this which is Disney does not truly have standing. They do not meet the elements for standing. Standing means the ability to bring a claim to court.”
He elaborated, “This is exactly the reason that the citizens who actually sued the state of Florida for these legislative changes way back earlier this year, they were thrown out for standing. Disney also can be thrown out for much similar grounds.”
“So they’re very likely to be tossed out if not entirely almost all of the counts,” he shared. “So perhaps four of the counts might get tossed. You might have one remaining count there in federal court.”
Bob Iger | 2019 Disney Legends Awards Ceremony | D23 EXPO 2019 by Nagi Usano via Wikimedia Commons
Bob Iger is attempting to spin a narrative, but the facts simply do not add up. The company is indeed sexualizing children and is doing it purposefully under Bob Iger’s leadership. And it’s not limited to certain segments of the company it is company-wide. You see it at Lucasfilm, Marvel Studios, Disney General Entertainment, ESPN, ABC, Freeform, and their parks.
What do you make of Bob Iger’s comments?
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