Disney produces its most LGBTQ+-inclusive Star Wars series to date

It’s no secret that Disney isn’t doing well lately. They just laid off nearly 15% of the workforce at Pixar, their movie studio that used to produce guaranteed hits. But Pixar’s recent films “Elemental” and “Lightyear” were bombs, and the division hasn’t turned a profit in more than two years. People just didn’t go for the strained interracial/immigrant metaphor in “Elemental” or the same-sex kiss in “Lightyear,” or the rehashed, stale vibe of both projects.

Additionally, Disney’s much-touted “fully immersive” hotel called “Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser,” shut down late last year, after operating for less than two years. Disney had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the project, apparently on the theory that people cared so much about the “Star Wars” brand that they’d be willing to spend thousands of dollars for the privilege of staying two nights in a windowless concrete building posing as a spaceship. That didn’t pan out. Apparently people weren’t excited to stay in a hotel where the experience is seemingly designed to be as aggressively unpleasant as possible.

That same quarter, Disney’s streaming service, Disney+, reported a loss of more than a million subscribers. And that’s not even getting into Disney’s decision to get involved in Florida politics, on the side of activist teachers who want to talk to kindergartners about “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.”

Faced with this brand collapse, Disney had two options. One option was to retool their content to focus on entertainment and family values instead of activism, which is what Disney used to do, when it was a universally beloved and much more financially successful company. They could get back to their roots. Not in the sense of churning out more remakes, but in the sense of being a company that makes wholesome family films that capture a sense of wonder and imagination.

The other option was to keep doing exactly what they’ve been doing, and continue to shove the same agenda — the equity/representation/LGBTQ approach — that they’ve been pushing for years now.

Eight months ago, Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, publicly pledged to pursue the first option. He declared that Disney would refocus its efforts on entertainment, not political messaging. That was the plan, or at least the plan that was shared with the public. But that’s not what happened.

Disney, over the past eight months, has apparently decided to double down on agenda-driven content, to the point that they’re openly attacking their own fans. It’s a remarkable turn of events, and it’s one that’s worth discussing because this development isn’t unique to Disney. And it suggests that “wokeness” may not be the best way to describe what we’re seeing at Disney and other major corporations like it. That’s certainly part of what we’re seeing, but there’s something else going on here. It looks a lot like corporate mediocrity run amok — the private-sector version of what we see across the public-sector bureaucracy. Unimpressive people with impressive-sounding credentials, who check the right demographic boxes, are taking the helm of businesses and products that they don’t understand. They’ve insinuated themselves into these companies like a cancer that’s evidently impossible to remove. And even when the company CEO publicly tells them one thing, they’re free to do another.

To get a better idea of what I mean, take a look at this interview from the other day, featuring Leslye Headland, the creator of the new Disney “Star Wars” show, “The Acolyte.” I don’t want to prejudice you in any way, so watch this clip with that introduction. This is the showrunner talking about her show. Watch:

Don’t worry about the story, or the plot, or the characters. Who has time for that? Instead, just listen to these two women call old “Star Wars” characters gay, and then giggle like schoolgirls. They are excited that this new “Star Wars” show will be the gayest “Star Wars” show yet. Which is, in every way, the exact opposite of what the audience actually wants.

The only thing you learn from that interview is that Leslye Headland is gay and has no respect whatsoever for her audience or her own show. This is how Disney is promoting the latest entry in a franchise they spent $4 billion to buy a decade ago. And that has a lot of fans wondering how exactly she was chosen for the role of showrunner. If her role is to push some subversive woke ideology, she’s not being very subversive about it. She’s just angering as many fans as she possibly can. That’s all this is.

And she’s not the only one doing it. The CEO of Lucasfilm — a woman named Kathleen Kennedy — just came out in defense of her showrunner. Kennedy declared that if you’re not a fan of how Leslye Headland is handling herself, then you probably hate women.

I think Leslye has struggled a little bit with it. I think a lot of the women who step into Star Wars struggle with this a bit more. Because of the fan base being so male-dominated, they sometimes get attacked in ways that can be quite personal. … My belief is that storytelling does need to be representative of all people. That’s an easy decision for me.

Yes, she really said that. “Storytelling does need to be representative of all people,” says the CEO of Lucasfilm, as she mocks her own fanbase. These people are so dumb that they don’t even understand the words coming out of their own mouths. “Representative of all people,” really? Are they going to have eight billion characters in this show, one for each person on Earth? How exactly is this going to work? Is storytelling supposed to be “representative of all people” — whatever that means — or is it supposed to be representative of the creative vision of the storyteller?

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I was going to show some more clips of these women, but it’s honestly too painful to subject you to. These are people who can’t even communicate without descending into valley girl nonsense, and they’re putting together shows that they expect millions of people to watch. Kathleen Kennedy was lucky enough to work with Steven Spielberg, and Leslye Headland worked on rom-coms with titles like “Sleeping With Other People.” Those are their credentials, and they’re considered impressive in the industry. So they get to continue butchering “Star Wars.”

By the way, “The Acolyte” was released this week and — as has become a new tradition for “Star Wars” films and shows — it has a very high critics score on Rotten Tomatoes but a failing grade of 45% from the audience.

Joel Berry, who apparently subjected himself to at least some of the show, offered this review:

The Acolyte is a queer, Marxist vandalization of the myth of Star Wars. In The Acolyte, the Force is a metaphor for cultural hegemonic power. The Jedi are a metaphor for cisgender white oppressors who hoard the power for themselves. Yes, it really is that obnoxious and stupid.

The account Wall Street Silver offered this viewer warning:

The Acolyte, Star Wars new series streaming, very woke. 1) main character has two mothers 2) main Jedi characters are all Black and Asian, no white men 3) only speaking role for white men in first episode is prisoners on prison ship.

So Disney has decided to right the ship by ramming it directly into another iceberg. That’s not to pick on “The Acolyte” too much, although it obviously deserves it. Because of the fact that Disney is now pumping out “Star Wars” shows on an assembly line, there’s another one I can mock as well called “Tales of the Empire.” This one is apparently geared towards kids, and I guess it features a nonbinary Jedi, based on how all of the characters use “they/them” pronouns to refer to his corpse. Watch this, if you can get through it:

This is the result of Disney’s big plan to focus on “entertainment” and not “messaging.” We have nonbinary Jedi and girl bosses making sure we get the gayest “Star Wars” ever.” And that’s not all.

As Bloomberg recently reported, Disney is now banking on the upcoming film “Inside Out 2” as the, “key to restoring the magic.” They think this film — a sequel to a movie from 2015 — is going to be a smash hit, to the point that they’re going to give it a 100-day run in theaters. As Bloomberg reports:

If families show up for Inside Out 2 in the kinds of numbers Pixar used to see, it will reaffirm the studio’s standing. But if the movie fails, it will fuel concerns about the company’s relevance.

So what’s “Inside Out 2” going to be about? It’s hard to say, because it’s not out yet. But after some Googling, I came across this headline from an outlet called Pride.com. Here’s their assessment, based on the trailer:

The long-awaited sequel to Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out isn’t hitting theaters until this summer, but the official trailer dropped this week…and it’s looking a little gay. … Fans think Inside Out 2 is going to be gay AF.

How brave is that? Are they also going to gay-ify “Inside Out” — which was kind of a middling Pixar entry in the first place? Who knows? But based on the fact that they can’t make anything that isn’t gay — we can assume the answer is yes.

This is all very woke, yes. It’s also incredibly lame and stale and unimaginative. That would also be an apt descriptor for what Disney is doing with its theme parks. As the writer Peachy Keenan documented on X/Twitter yesterday, Disney is currently re-theming their famous “Splash Mountain” ride because apparently it is racist. And they’re creating a politically correct replacement.

Keenan watched all of Disney’s promotional materials, and she put together a comparison of the old ride with the new one. Basically, the new ride won’t have Princess Tiana in a nice dress with a handsome prince, or even a storyline of any kind:

Instead, you get a lot of dead space, repeated boring animatronic who look like zombies compared to the Pirates animatronics, and Tiana—incredibly—in ugly baggy pants, no makeup, no nonsense hair, zero glamour. … It’s Girl Boss Tiana and she’s dressed like a Jungle Cruise.

Sounds thrilling. I was trying to figure out why all of this is happening at Disney — why they’re sabotaging their own brand, despite what the CEO said they’d do. And it’s clear that, whatever’s going on here, it’s not unique to Disney.

Consider what just happened at Cracker Barrel. Their CEO is a woman named Julie Felss Masino. She took the job last year. Previously, she worked at Taco Bell, Mattel, Sprinkles Cupcakes, Starbucks, and Macy’s. Of course, the clientele of every single one of these companies is very different from the typical Cracker Barrel, which skews older. But in general, her old jobs were mostly in the food industry, just like ”The Acolyte” showrunner’s jobs were mostly in the entertainment industry. And that’s good enough, so Julie Masino got the job.

Unfortunately, it’s not working out too well. Masino just announced on a call with investors that the company is, “just not as relevant as we once were.” To “ignite growth,” she said, it’s necessary to “revitalize” the brand. She then outlined a bunch of generic initiatives, like rewards programs that every other restaurant offers. Her announcement sent the stock down 11% immediately, putting it down nearly 50% in the past year. And why wouldn’t the stock drop? The new CEO clearly views Cracker Barrel as completely indistinguishable from every other place she’s ever worked. If anything, she probably hates the brand. And we can assume she hates the brand’s primarily blue collar, Christian clientele.

We saw something similar with that Bud Light VP, Alissa Heinerscheid, when she dismissed her own customers as “fratty” and said Bud Light needed a rebrand. They brought on Dylan Mulvaney, and we all know how that turned out. Alissa Heinerscheid, like Julie Masino, had great credentials. She went to Harvard and Wharton, and had worked at big companies like Listerine and General Mills. But she didn’t understand Bud Light or care about the customers, so she destroyed the brand.

That’s now unfolding at Cracker Barrel as well. And it’s a very preventable, slow-motion collapse. On social media, someone using the handle “Pine Barron” summed up the problem better than anyone I’ve seen. Here’s what he wrote, describing an alternative to Cracker Barrel’s current CEO:

Imagine a CEO who actually loved Midwestern and Southern culture. What about pop up concerts and endorsements by Zach Bryan and Morgan Wallen? Why not lean into its heritage as an ‘after church’ spot and create programs for church groups including discounts and shuttle bus services. Grassroots evangelical support has made huge hits of movies like the Sound of Freedom and restaurant chains like Chik-Fil-A. … Imagine a public company with leadership that didn’t hate the blue collar evangelical population. There are so many obvious partnership opportunities with brands like NASCAR or country music stars. I don’t think this is wokeness or girlbossery per se, but rather typical corporate mediocrity. … They hired a generic MBA type who built a career on the massive brand equity of Yum Brands and Starbucks. … Just a cog in the corporate machine. I hope we will see titans of industry again but this is not how we’ll get them.

That does a fairly good job of putting into perspective everything we’ve been seeing over the past few years at Disney, Bud Light, and so many other major corporations. And I think it’s a more apt explanation than simply chalking all of this decline up to “wokeness.”

This trend of hiring interchangeable CEOs with resumes and trendy demographics has been an unmitigated disaster because it overlooks what the leader of every company should have, at a bare minimum — which is an understanding of their product and a genuine respect for their customers. Without that, you get shows like “The Acolyte.” You get Dylan Mulvaney and angry customers, and your stock collapses along with your brand.

All the combined efforts of feminism and diversity and equity and wokeness have brought us to this point. But it’s bureaucracy and inertia that’s keeping it alive, long after everyone’s tired of it. That inertia is the reason why — whether you’re going to a restaurant or a movie theater — you’re now guaranteed a product that’s as mediocre as the people who created it.

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