Urgent warning: Disney is indoctrinating your kids into thinking other children should be treated with respect and dignity, no matter who they are! Good God, how will Western civilization survive this one? Remember when same-sex marriage was supposed to usher in a hellscape of immorality—and then a handful of gay people started ordering cakes from Christian bakers? Have we learned nothing? Christian bakers use way too much buttercream! Sheesh.
Now Disney is questioning the wisdom of Florida’s new “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which will definitely prevent children in the state from ever learning what homosexuality is. Or maybe it’s designed to forestall that awkward moment when your Republican child asks why some kids have two mommies—a conversation that inevitably devolves into a lengthy TED Talk on sexual techniques, positions, and specialty lubricants, because that’s what always happens when kids see cisgender heterosexual couples holding hands in Hobby Lobby.
Of course, the law was actually designed to foster innumerable dishonest Fox News segments meant to turn the network’s global audience into a sprawling herd of frightened Tennessee fainting goats. You know, segments like this one:
Transcript!
STEVE DOOCY: “You know, once upon a time, people would take their kids to a Disney movie or a Disney theme park and it would be for entertainment. But now you’ve got to wonder, ‘okay, am I being entertained or is there an agenda in this that I’ve got to figure out?’”
KAROL MARKOWICZ, NEW YORK POST COLUMNIST: “Yeah, Disney’s making a huge mistake. They’re opposing parents who are their core consumers with their opposition to this Florida law. And it’s ironic that the law is pejoratively called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ when the reality of our current moment is ‘don’t say girl.’ The video of their internal meetings were so creepy. They showed people committed to remaking our society in a leftist image. This isn’t difficult. Leave the kids alone. They shouldn’t be indoctrinated by Mickey Mouse. Let them be kids. Disney used to understand that.”
Of course, this segment is far from unique. This appears to be one of Fox News’ patented all-hands-on-deck propaganda campaigns. According to Media Matters for America, Fox has mentioned the Disney controversy at least 250 times since Wednesday morning. In an interesting bit of strategy, the network also just named Caitlyn Jenner, a transgender reality television star, Olympian, and failed California Republican gubernatorial candidate as a contributor on Thursday.
Fox News and other right-wing media have also adopted the DeSantis administration’s dishonest characterization of the law as an “anti-grooming” measure.
For the record, here’s one of the “creepy” internal videos Markowicz and Doocy appear to be responding to. It features Vivian Ware, the diversity and inclusion manager for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, and was first shared (with dishonest “context”) by none other than Christopher Rufo, the right-wing fanatic fueling the misguided “anti-critical race theory” wars.
Transcript, with actual context!
WARE: “Last summer we removed all of the gendered greetings in relationship to our live spiels, so we no longer say ‘ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.’ We’ve trained—we provided training for all of our cast members in relationship to that. So now they know it’s ‘hello, everyone’ or ‘hello, friends.’ We’re in the process of changing over those recorded messages and so many of you are probably familiar, when we brought the fireworks back to the Magic Kingdom, we no longer say ‘ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.’ We say ‘dreamers of all ages.’ So I love the fact that it’s opened up the creativity, the opportunity for our cast members to look at that.
We have our cast members working with merchandise, working with food and beverage, working with all of our guest-facing areas, where perhaps we want to create that magical moment with our cast members, with our guests. And we don’t want to just assume because someone might be, in our interpretation, may be presenting as female, that they may not want to be called ‘princess.’ So let’s think differently about how do we really engage with our guests in a meaningful and inclusive way that makes it magical and memorable for everyone?”
Wait just a gosh darn minute. If they don’t specifically mention “gentlemen,” how am I supposed to know what gender I am? This new inclusive world is way too confusing for me. I miss the days when Mr. Potato Head had quotidian missionary sex with the hot M&M. I’m sure Tucker Carlson agrees with me.
Of course, conservatives had a collective freakout when Disney recently released a statement in opposition to Florida’s dangerous and ridiculous bill.
The Hollywood Reporter:
“Florida’s HB 1557, also known as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, should never have passed and should never have been signed into law,” a Disney spokesperson said. “Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that. We are dedicated to standing up for the rights and safety of LGBTQ+ members of the Disney family, as well as the LGBTQ+ community in Florida and across the country.”
Officially titled the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, it limits open discussion of sexuality and gender identity in schools, with provisions allowing parents to sue if they allege schools or instructors have been in violation. The vague nature of the bill also opened the door to concerns that it could have a chilling effect beyond schools.
Nice statement, but it probably doesn’t have the same visceral impact as, “Mickey Mouse is indoctrinating your kids!” Because, you know, Fox News viewers don’t tend to value things like compassion and nuance when there’s an opportunity to get unreasonably angry about stuff that doesn’t personally affect them.
After all, like we said at the top: Fox News is all about turning its viewers into the human (and easily manipulated) equivalent of those famously fainting goats.
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