Bob Iger, you beat Nelson Peltz. Don’t let Disney give into his diversity agenda

Mary McNamara April 3, 2024

Dear Bob Iger:

Congratulations

for on

preventing billionaire Nelson Peltz and his band of activist investors from

physically

joining Disneys board of directors.

Now please dont hand Peltz a cultural victory by embracing his antiquated (read: racist, sexist, homo-/transphobic) notions of what future Disney

/Marvel

products should look like.

He couldn’t have been more open about it: Why do I have to have a Marvel thats all women? Peltz said

of the Disney-owned superhero juggernaut

in a recent,

and

oft-quoted

,

interview

in with

the Financial Times. Not that I have anything against women, but why do I have to do that? Why cant I have Marvels that are both? Why do I need an all-Black cast?

Um How about

, “Because the stories demanded it?

” Or, “

Because for decades, Hollywood has drowned us in all-white and/or all-male movies and it’s beyond time that changed.

? “

In his six-month battle to stake a claim in the House of Mouse, Peltz criticized many

choices made duringaspects of

the companys recent history, which has been, as my colleague Meg James detailed this week, rather more than tumultuous.

The 2019 purchase of Fox,

the that year’s

rather late-in-the-game

2020

launch of Disney+, the COVID-19 shutdown of the Disney parks and all film and television production, your decision to step away in 2021,

falling stock prices, the

struggles of your successor Bob Chapek

then as stock prices fell and your successor Bob Chapek struggled

, your subsequent decision to return in 2022.

Add to that industrywide downturns at the box office, revenue problems in the streaming space and the fallout from last year’s writers’ and actors’ strikes, and it’s safe to say that Disney still faces many very real battles.

Which is why Peltz’s continued insistence that part of the “problem” is Disneys admirable push for more inclusive storytelling remains so alarming.

People go to watch a movie or a show to be entertained, Peltz also said in that

Financial Times

interview. They dont go to get a message.

Many people, including you

Bob Iger

, have

said similar things made similar statements

as Hollywood has struggled to herd people back to the cineplex and navigate the splintered industry once known as television. And its complete and utter bulls.

As you know

well

, every movie (and TV series, play, book, painting, sculpture, piece of music) sends a message. Love conquers all, adversity can be overcome, with great power comes great responsibility, sometimes the bad guy wins, just because we can doesnt mean we should, were all in this together the message

s

differ

s

, and

some may not doesn’t always

align with everyones

particular

worldview, but without messages, storytelling cannot exist.

To suggest otherwise implies that entertainment is, by definition, completely, and intentionally, mindless.

So

When people

like Peltz

say they want to be entertained, not lectured, by film, television and other forms of art, what theyre really saying is that they dont want to be reminded that their experience, including their ingestion of a centurys worth of Hollywood projects, is not predominant or paramount.

They dont want to be forced to think about a world that exists outside their (often incredibly narrow) ken.

Which is, of course, precisely what the best film- and television-making sets out to do.

For years,

the collective message of even the best film and television Hollywood for the most part

insisted that

even potentially world-view expanding

stories should revolve

almost exclusively

around the victories and tribulations of white, straight men

, even stories with the potential to expand one’s worldview

. Yes, there were exceptions there are always exceptions but the numbers

, both as percentages and in absolute terms,and the percentages

do not lie.

Even now, most movie leads remain white and almost all of them are men: In 2023, the percentage of movies with female leads decreased FROM WHEN? from 38% to 22%.

Even now, most movie leads remain white and male: In 2023, for instance, the percentage of movies with female leads or co-leads fell to historic lows, according to an annual USC Annenberg study of top-grossing films that’s been conducted since 2007.

Which means, drum roll please, that most films that flop

also

revolve around white, straight men. But no one looked at, say, the box office disappointments of Morbius, Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania or Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and thought, Clearly the problem is too many white guys; better make some changes!

To use the term message when referring to films that feature women, people of color and/or members of the LGBTQ community only proves the

inherent

sexism, racism and homophobia of the entertainment industry. What is the message exactly? That women, people of color and LGBTQ individuals exist? That they too have stories that deserve to be told?

Or that people like Peltz need to finally acknowledge that their demographic

s

do

es

not comprise, or control, the entire world?

Of all the mistakes Disney has made over the years, giving us a parade of nonwhite princesses;

and the superheroes of

Wakanda Forever,

or

Captain Marvel and (the very underrated) Black Widow;

or

two female characters kissing in Lightyear; and a nonbinary character in Wish are not among them.

The

flops box office disappointment that’s accompanied of

some of the more recent and diverse offerings from Marvel has more to do with superhero fatigue (among both

the

audience

s

and

the

creators) than the

demographics makeup

of the cast.

As for the underwhelming returns of last years The Little Mermaid, even

subtracting if you subtract

the blatant racism that plagued the project from the moment

its

casting was announced,

it must be noted that

the performance of live-action princess films has been spotty at best.

So please, Bob Iger, dont cater to the desires of the man you fought so hard to keep off the Disney board. Dont fall for all the cultural chicanery implicit in the current use of the term woke. Backlash is an inevitable result of progress.

It’s

proof that change is actually happening.

Disney has always been about sending messages that magic is real and should embraced and

be

celebrated by everyone. Not just a bunch of old, straight, white guys who think entertainment means it’s all about them.

As you move forward with your new board, make sure you win the war, not just the battle. You’ve won the battle. Now take your new board and win the war.