By Kyle Smith
Friday, April 15, 2022
Remember that magma-hot cultural controversy from, oh,
two weeks ago? The media are trying to keep it going (see the WaPo story from
a couple of days ago that features hilarious Dr. Evil-like Democrats warning
that Republicans are losing because Disney is “the third rail of Florida
politics”), but Disney has obviously thought better of taking on Ron DeSantis
in Florida. Its current strategy is the forget-we-said-anything move.
Disney must have blanched and shrieked two weeks ago when
DeSantis, rather than rolling over for being falsely dubbed homophobic and a
hatemonger, began openly discussing cutting off Disney’s sweetheart tax break,
via the Reedy Creek Development District, that allows Disney to essentially be
its own government in the Orlando area. At the same time, Fox News was riling
up parents and potentially turning Disney’s own customers against it, parents
were fighting back with op-ed pieces and television appearances, public-opinion
polls were showing support for the parental-notification law, and the Manhattan
Institute’s Chris Rufo published the infamous tape of a Disney executive
boasting of “my not-so-secret gay agenda.”
Disney, with the full weight of the showbiz culture
behind it, thought it was playing with house money. What could go wrong by
proclaiming yourself to be opposed to homophobia? Plenty, it turned out.
American consumers are irritated with companies that take partisan political
positions on controversial topics. It now appears obvious that Disney never
should have injected itself into the debate in the first place. So its new tack
is to avail itself of the opportunity of choosing tactful silence and hoping
the whole thing blows over. The WSJ today:
“Disney . . . declined to comment on criticism from lawmakers. Inside the
company, some executives have expressed disappointment that Disney has become
politicized, said people familiar with their thinking.”
As the kids say: LOL. A Florida lawmaker says in the
piece that he believes Disney’s decision to denounce the parental-notification
bill was made in California, which of course has a very different culture from
Florida, but no matter how left-wing the state a Disney executive may be
sitting in, he should understand that his customers come from a wide range of
political convictions, and he should decline to wade into political
controversies.
A further note on dogs that didn’t bark: Not only is
Disney backing down, note that the bill really had nothing to do with Disney in
the first place. Disney is simply a large corporation that, like many other
large corporations, does business in Florida. Did any other large corporations
speak up about this bill? Not that I have heard of. Coming on the heels of the
boycott-Georgia debacle that happened just a year ago, the lack of organized
corporate opposition to the Florida law may be an indicator that American firms
have changed their minds about the wisdom of taking overtly progressive
positions on divisive issues.
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