Disney Suicide – Who will fill the void left by the fallen fairytale kingdom?

The invasion of cultural barbarians – vandals who destroy the achievements of their predecessors in order to use their works to impose their counter-culture on society – is not a phenomenon that can be ignored. Yes, company employees and shareholders lose in Disney's downfall, but we, the audience, lose immeasurably more.

This is not the article I planned to write. I was thinking of reviewing The Wish, Disney's newest animated film, but we ended up not going to the theater. It's a long time ago when we would dare take our kids to see a Disney movie without hesitation, without checking it out first. Although I have often gone to see such a film myself just to write a review, this time I decided it no longer made sense. For what purpose? Should I write that it's the same poison again, just a little stronger? That you can watch it, but the quality level keeps dropping? Who wants to read it? Disney is gradually ceasing to exist for us. But there was a void left behind.

Here, again, something of the boycott will come to many readers' minds; They don't watch Disney because he's gay or something and they think someone cares, but the audience is knocking on doors and windows anyway. It cannot be denied – very often Catholics criticize this or that contemporary Creator, and the world laughs, because in the end we know that they will see it anyway; That kids are going to end up in this sphere of influence anyway, and parents – except for a bunch of lunatics – are going to end up paying cash to indoctrinate their kids anyway. To paraphrase a cynical American proverb: Liberals don't have to have their own kids, because they'll raise you anyway.

Except no. That time has passed.

This isn't Disney anymore, nor is this income…

Last year was one of the worst years for the brand, ironically as it was its 100th anniversary. Today, Disney not only has its own productions, but subsidiaries such as Lucasfilm, Marvel Comics, 20th Century Fox, and Pixar. This means that in 2023 alone he was responsible for films like Indiana Jones and the Artifact of Destiny, Marvels, The Little Mermaid, The Elements Among Us, and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantomania “, and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantomania.” Finally, “Desire”… There is no point in analyzing the financial statements of these films in detail; Some generated income, but significantly less than expected. Others barely managed to recover their budgets, and others – especially Indiana Jones – suffered catastrophic losses. “Desire” mentioned at the beginning – a film that celebrates the centenary of the Disney studio and whose plot refers to the song When you wish on a star, which had become an icon of the studio since 1940, was met with shocking indifference from audiences around the world. Ultimately, analysts estimate the loss to theaters may reach $1 billion.

But that's not all: Disney has released several products, including several series in the Star Wars universe, on its streaming platform Disney+. It couldn't have been better here. Although it's difficult to get real viewership data from platforms like Disney+, there's certainly nothing to brag about – series like “Ahsoka”, “The Mandalorian” (Season 3), “The Bad Batch” (Season 2) or ” Willow” did not capture the hearts of the audience. The limited information leaked from the company indicates that the trend is downward from year to year. Subsequent productions are met with greater indifference and hesitation, even if a particular series turns out to be qualitatively successful.

Among the greatest failures, “Willow” is especially worth noting. Based on an almost forgotten movie imaginary Since the 1980s, this series has had a somewhat uncertain future from the beginning. However, it seems that in the era of the peak popularity of fantasy, a successful production from a serious studio should be a success. Unfortunately, the effect was worse than bad – it was tragic. Stupid, talky dialogue, unsympathetic characters and “progressive” threads pushed at every opportunity – all of this meant that although the series had a few ardent supporters, the vast majority of the audience abandoned it after the first episode. Ultimately, just four months after the final episode premiered, it was decided that the series was doing so poorly that there was no point in continuing it or even making it more available. The entire amount is removed from the distribution so we can write off tax losses.

But 2023 was not an industrial accident. Somewhere over the past decade, Disney managed to ruin its reputation. Not only has he diminished the quality of his work, but – above all – he has alienated parents of children's products and fans of his more mature brands through his obsessive promotion of anti-leftist values.

Who trusts Disney today?

In the wake of Desire, stories began to emerge among media analysts that potential viewers, particularly in the United States, asked movie theater ticket sellers, “Is it safe to take kids to see this movie?” Not: “Is this movie good?”, but: “Can it be shown to children?”

The fact is that for more than ten years at Disney, productions intended for little ones included – at first subtle, then less and less – various “not for children” content. Of course, one of the most common items are homeopathic threads. It is worth noting that even in countries where sodomy is widely tolerated or even treated as something “normal,” parents do not believe that a movie studio should introduce their children to such sensitive topics.

Another gender-related theme has become even more surprising, which is the incredibly intrusive feminism in its paradoxical modern version, where female characters are designed as flawed and superior to men in every possible way, while the men themselves are portrayed as either incompetent or evil and literally in charge. . For all the sins of the world. Especially if they were white – because the other toxic element was the painfully understood 'diversity', where heroes are 'colored', while evil is of course 'white'.

These elements, pushed with increasing insistence, were no mere accident at work. Documents and recordings of Disney employees published in recent years show beyond doubt that an ideological agenda became their target. An indispensable condition, if not for management, then at least for ordinary employees of the company – and that at least these employees are willing to sacrifice even the income from their work just so as not to give up. It could hardly be otherwise: since they believe that it is their duty to fight all kinds of “shame”, they cannot accept any concessions.

The reasons for Disney's decline include many of the other plagues more common in contemporary Hollywood — such as blatant creative timidity, which means the studio clings pathologically to old brands and is afraid of new things. In fact, it's no surprise that something as minor as the live-action version of “The Little Mermaid” doesn't get as much applause as the original. Likewise, it is not surprising that subsequent, highly repetitive Star Wars productions do not interest viewers as much as they did when the films were released every few years. Finally, it is not surprising that the studio, which introduces new proposals such as the Factory Bus, would have to lower the quality to ensure a constant flow of new products for Disney +. And by the way: The craze for streaming platforms today translates into a much broader financial crisis in Hollywood, because, as it turned out, the revenues from subscriptions cannot be compared at all to the revenues from DVD sales, which subscriptions have effectively killed.

However, in the case of Disney, especially its productions aimed at children's audiences, the ideological factor is most important. It is no surprise to anyone that conservative parents have children; And when Disney's “not-so-secret agenda” (an almost verbatim quote from a high-ranking studio employee) became — well, very public — parents began to abandon the company.

Will there be an alternative?

At this point one might say with gloomy relief – Wouldn't it be nice if the world punished evil? That a children's fairy tale production company, which had long been considered a “nanny” that was always safe for children, began losing viewers once it was revealed that it was feeding them poison? However, as long as Disney continues to wallow in ideological madness, we can only wish the studio the worst possible outcomes. And it will have to decline, because “progress” has become a permanent element of the company culture – people with more conservative views either left or were fired. This has not helped quality at all – because new young creators, whose main advantage is not their skills or experience, but their gender and skin color, also turn out to be simply less competent. So, unless shareholders revolt, Disney will continue to decline. But if shareholders force a change in direction, it is difficult to see the company rebounding. How can they force “liberal” managers to hire ideologically “backward” employees? Why does the latter want to work in such a toxic atmosphere?

So, yes, there is some satisfaction to be derived from Disney's demise. But over the course of a hundred years, studio productions have become an incredibly important element of culture, especially children's culture. You may be upset that fairy tales in Disney's polished, sugary form are nothing like Grimm's or Andersen's fairy tales, but still – in the age of cinema and audio-visual culture, Disney was an introduction to the world of fairy tales for many children. It was the countless heroes of his films, but also films of Disney, Lucasfilm and Marvel for several years, that particularly inspired boys, showing them good examples of masculinity (femininity had been a problem for a long time). Therefore, the invasion of cultural barbarians, vandals who destroy the achievements of their ancestors in order to use their works to impose their counter-culture on society, is not a phenomenon that can be ignored. Yes, company employees and shareholders lose in Disney's downfall, but we, the audience, lose immeasurably more.

Who will fill the void left by Disney? Will there be a brand on the scene capable of fighting for this status – and at the same time decent enough to deserve support? Although it makes sense that feeding the media traditional values ​​is obvious, given that conservative parents have larger families, it is unfortunately difficult to be overly optimistic here. In an era where raising money on the stock market – even in Poland, let alone the US – is increasingly dependent on meeting “progressive” ESG standards, every major studio will be pushed in the same direction as Disney. For new small businesses, the struggle for a place in the market will be like the biblical duel between David and Goliath. But let's remember – it was David who won in the end…

Jacob Majowski