Let the Park Lead
Culture wars are bad for business. Is it time for Disney to ‘quiet the noise’ the mouse has made as its CEO Bob Iger has suggested?
Disney’s 100th year anniversary graphic
This year has been defined, in part, by the visibility of corporate actors in the crosshairs of the culture wars. Bud Light and Target have been two of the most visible casualties, but no battle has been more front and center than that between Presidential Candidate Governor Ron DeSantis and The Walt Disney Company.
Disney has been the object of boycotts for decades, but the stakes are higher now that Disney has become owner of franchises such as Star Wars, National Geographic and the Marvel Universe. Conservative influencers such as Ben Shapiro’s Bentkey have defined their media efforts as alternatives to Disney’s agenda-driven content. The box office surprise Sound of Freedom positioned itself as having been a victim of Disney’s efforts to shelve the project. Whether these efforts have been the cause of Disney’s massive drop in revenue is debatable, but the fact is that conservative opinion leaders have claimed victory. Disney is losing money.
Except for its parks.
After a family trip in 2019, our principal, Mark Rodgers, wrote about the model that Main Street Magic Kingdom was for the country. With all the focus on Disney World since then, the Clapham Group decided to undertake an object lesson, and experience for ourselves how “woke” the park had become rather than rely on the observations of conservative critics and influencers, some of whom have invested motives to take down the Mouse.
With one-day passes in hand, we spread out over the park to treasure hunt for five reflections of wokeness, patriotism, Judeo-Christian values and the meaning of Christmas. Over dinner in Crystal Palace, we discussed the treasures we collected, and began to draw our own conclusions.
Since then, each staff member has taken the Pew Typology Test, and we’ve tried to correlate our observations with our ideological orientations. Even though we range from “Outsider Left” to “Committed Conservative,” we agreed overwhelmingly that:
There was very little presence of “wokeness.” Other than a few items in the gift shops (mostly via rainbows), there were subtle changes in some of the rides (no more women were being chased by pillaging pirates, but instead were chasing them with rolling pins and brooms). These changes were warranted. We celebrate Disney's effort to promote young girls' self-confidence and worth. As some parents of boys on the trip noted, the depictions of men were less aspirational. We're seeing the loss of male role models for young boys play out all over American society, something that social observers on the right and left, such as Richard Reeves, have been noticing for some time. On other issues, we felt that the racial and cultural diversity was thoughtfully calibrated and not overplayed. We were actually surprised that name tags identified states and countries, but not pronouns. On a scale of 1-10, we rated our wokeness experience at 1.5/10.
The park, especially through the “Hall of Presidents” was surprisingly patriotic. There was no ambiguity in the messaging around the Liberty Bell. American flags were flown throughout Mainstreet, where veterans marched with them in hand. The Carousel of Progress celebrated American innovation and industry. Disney, in and of itself, is an American icon and we felt that it understood its place as such rather than as a corporate global citizen, even though it is “A Small World, after all.” On a scale of 1-10, we rated patriotism at 8/10.
The values that were communicated were largely consistent with America’s traditional Judeo-Christian foundation. Family, notably the nuclear family, was central and celebrated. Entrepreneurship and work were both exhibited and embodied, as was excellence of craft, a celebration of vocation. We were put off by the Carousel of Progress’ failed effort to humor pornography, which in our cultural context is no laughing matter. On a scale of 1-10, we rated the affirmation of Judeo-Christian values at 7/10.
Christmas was largely presented as a secular and commercial affair, but there were hints of the season’s religious underpinning. We were not surprised that the “happy holiday” greeting was the convention, but “Christmas” was not expunged from signage and gifts. There were mostly trees and bulbs to remind us of, but there were also displays of and traditional Christian Christmas carols were piped (albeit without lyrics). On a scale of 1-10, we rated Secular Christmas at 8/10 and Religious Christmas at 1/10.
Could it be that the parks have succeeded because they seem to be largely quiet with regard to the culture wars, while other divisions within Disney have been failing because they have been too loud?
“Our primary mission needs to be to entertain. And then through our entertainment continue to have a positive impact on the world,” Iger said at Disney’s 2023 Shareholder’s meeting in April. “It should not be agenda driven. It should be entertainment driven. That should be the goal in all of our stories.”
We agree, to a point. The challenge for Disney is not whether there is an agenda. Walt Disney loved America and had an agenda to promote the American Experiment through his content. But which agenda Disney believes has a positive impact is the question at hand. Some within the organization would argue (and most likely have) that to have a positive impact on the world Disney’s storytelling needs to incorporate identity politics. With our society divided and on edge, is it a “positive impact” for Disney to inflame what separates us rather than elevate what unites us?
We believe that Iger should let the Park lead the rest of Disney by example.
Granted, we visited Disney during its 100th anniversary and Christmas season, not Pride Month or Halloween. This was a year for Disney to look back at its legacy and celebrate its contribution to American Culture. Some have said Disney’s Marvel offerings have been failing due to the intrusion of woke messaging, but others say it’s “too much content with too little distinction” that has caused Marvel fatigue. So our experience was simply what it was, a snapshot, but with enough of a picture that we can recommend that Disney let its Park lead by example.
Disney content, across the board, can and should promote what unites rather than divides us. Even the most conservative of our cohort felt welcomed at the Magic Kingdom. This is not the case for some of them with other Disney offerings.
As corporations move away from the DEI frame to fashion work environments in which employees feel they “belong” despite cultural and ideological differences, not just racial and gender orientations, Disney’s parks may be an example as well. Corporations have bowed to pressure from activists on the right and the left, but in the emerging “Belonging” frame, there may be a way to affirm what unites us rather than divide us.
Ironically, the challenges to Disney aren’t just coming from the right, but from shareholders as Disney loses revenue and market value. Activist investor Nelson Peltz has recruited former Disney Park executive Jay Rasulo in an effort to gain a seat at the board table. This may be just the pincer move that allows the park to lead Disney Corporate along the way to profitability and out of the crosshairs of the culture war. Without wading into the wars publicly, Peltz and Rasulo most likely see the connection between the two.
Magic Kingdom was not out of step with the times, but at the same time felt old-fashioned in the values it was communicating to guests. It certainly was not insensitive to concerns of the day, but chose to highlight what unites us rather than divides us. And even for those on the Clapham team, in light of the stress and strain of daily life and our growing culture conflicts, we welcomed it.