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The most accurate takeaway is that the shareholders wish for Disney to continue participating in Diversity Equity and Inclusion measures.

The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.

Shareholders in a company whose entire business is around being well liked globally thinks it would be a bad business move to cancel a program that is part of a good public image in favor of placating a relatively small chunk of Americans that would both be paying attention and against DEI.

They could still be pro-Trump, and not really caring about DEI, but they know the value of optics in the context of a company like Disney.

Like all corporations, Disney is a mercenary. Their allegiance lies with whoever puts the bigger number on their cheque.

If MAGA is going to get in the way of Disney trying to make money, I'm more than happy to let Disney fight that battle and waste some cycles

While most of that is true, they actually did let the Mickey Mouse copyright expire, and Mickey as portrayed in Steamboat Willie is now public domain.

But instead they're using trademark. There's a reason they've started using Steamboat Willie in an animated logo.

I've got a love/hate thing with Disney. Like...enemy-of-my-enemy-enemy kind of thing.

I do love when they stick it to DeSantis.

But I still ain't going to FL anytime soon. We did Disney in 2022 and I think that's probably near the end of when FL was tolerable (in small doses) for sane people.

Conservative "values" are just cover stories for greed, selfishness and prejudice. They grew up with a set of prejudices and they refuse ever to reexamine them. So they adjust the "values" to suit. Conservatives are incurious, stubborn people who refuse to grow.

I mean they value money...

and apparently they are smart enough to realize that Diversity helps with money, Which makes sense... they are a machine designed to extract money from people...

rich white billionares do not fill up theatres or make a substantial percentage of disney+ and Hulu subscriptions... a group of people that know how to target different demographics will obviously outperform one that targets the hell out of maga fans but doesn't know how to talk to the other 70% of the country.

worshipping on the altar of Shareholder Value since the 80’s.

Thanks, Milton Friedman...

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This is a great fuckin question and one that's probably more important than we realize

It's always more complicated than the binary. Disney might be getting DEI but still forces creators to censor out any LGBT references in their shows, or cancel them if they do them anyway. They still are anti union and work people to the bone.

If you want it simple, no corporation is your friend, ever. They are there simply to take your money, without regard for scruples, and any form of morality they seem to be acting on is either because it will make them more money or it is illegal and not cost effective to break the law.

It's still a good sign the shareholders have some sense in this specific case, but make no mistake, Disney doesn't care about anything other than money.

I mean, Disney is still evil. They probably saw how much Target fucked up and don’t want to make the same mistake.

There’s more money in appealing to everyone instead of just white evangelicals Americans.

They have met their fundamental duty as an organization led by human beings who can and should be held to moral standards.

I despise their behavior with copyright but here they've earned the right to not get the "caved to fascists" boycott

Nah, its just more proof that this think tank is shit at making money. Disney doesn't have morals, but it does have a very profitable "princess" marketing strategy. This think tank didn't really read the room very well.

Their brand of diversity is some bs anyways so you don't have to be pro Disney.

Remember, they gladly took help from a Chinese concentration camp to make their girl boss Mulan remake.

They also fired all their park workers during covid and gave themselves 10 million bonuses while their workers were surviving on food stamps. Some workers had even signed non compete clauses so they literally could not use their talents elsewhere to feed themselves.

Further more, Disneys current version of DEI is divisive, soulless and insincere.

It isn't a black or white situation. You can hate Disney AND MAGA. To me, they are all two sides of the same rotten coin. Ruthless, selfish and greedy people who use others to get ahead and pull the ladder up after themselves.

It's almost like there were nuances to almost everything instead of the world being neatly divisible into good and bad.

Unfortunately the Trump admin want them to behave a certain way, and anything different is seen as them being mean, apparently.

Well yeah they learned that more than just little white girls like their movies. Look at the animated Disney/Pixar feature films, so much more than it was in the pre- renaissance era.

Even during the Renaissance ...we had Pocahontas and Mulan and Jasmine...but these people were more like phoned-in representatives of their cultures compared to now.

Look at Encanto, or Moana/Viana. Or Coco. Or even Soul.

Hell, Strange World features a mixed race family with a queer son and a three-legged dog.

And the movies are better for it. They are more relatable because they aren't all some xeroxed copy of the same plain princess with a slightly different tint. And more importantly, they are showing their young and impressionable viewers a cast that reflects reality. That not every family is a carbon-copy "traditional" family. That different cultures exist and yeah, live a bit differently than suburban white folk (who live a shockingly similar life to the Sultan of Agrabah).