Earlier this month, Disney’s head honcho declared the family-based entertainment brand has no intention of sexualizing kids. One leading media watchdog, however, is saying that’s “patently false.”
During an interview with CNBC in mid-July, Disney CEO Bob Iger said it is “preposterous and inaccurate” to believe the brand “is in any way sexualizing children,” a reaction to Republican presidential hopeful and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who has been heavy handed in his response to The Walt Disney Company’s condemnation of the Sunshine State’s parental rights law barring public-school educators from teaching students in pre-K through third grade about sexual orientation and gender identity.
Melissa Henson, vice president of the Parents Television and Media Council, recently spoke to CBN’s “Quick Start,” where she called out Iger for — in her view — misleading viewers.
“It’s false on the face of it,” Henson said of Iger’s suggestion Disney content is not sexualizing children. “There are plenty of examples. Even going back a decade or more, I’ve had parents complaining to me about the way the Disney series is always about romantic relationships, even with 10-, 11-, 12-year-old kids. That should not be the primary occupation or obsession of a 10-, 11-, or 12-year-old child.”
“It’s just absolutely ridiculous for Bob Iger to say, ‘We don’t sexualize kids,'” she added. “They do, and that’s a huge part of the reason families are leaving Disney in droves.”
Listen to the latest episode of CBN’s Quick Start podcast 👇
The PTMC executive specifically called out Disney for its “problematic content decisions,” even referring to the brand green-lighting a new German series for Disney+ called “Pauline,” chronicling a teenager’s one-night tryst with the devil, which results in her becoming pregnant. Disney has not yet announced when the show will debut and it is not clear whether it will air in the United States.
“How sick is that?” Henson asked. “And this is being developed for the Disney+ streaming platform. I think Walt Disney must be spinning in his grave.”
In fact, Walt Disney has credited his own children as the inspiration for the theme parks that have become synonymous with the Disney brand. He wanted to create an imaginative world safe for children and oriented toward teaching family values and principles.
“It’s pretty obvious … Disney is trying to fit into the same box as Netflix, or HBO Max, or Amazon Prime and they apparently seem to feel they need to deliver the same kind of content in order to compete in the streaming sphere,” Henson said. “[T]hey’re really misreading the marketplace. They are misreading what audiences want.”
That certainly seems to be the case based on box-office totals. Despite a spate of theatrical releases — including four movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — one Hollywood analysis recently showed Disney has suffered nearly $900 million in revenue losses, financial hits that have followed several films geared toward children depicting same-sex relationships or romantic interactions.
You can read more about that here.
***As the number of voices facing big-tech censorship continues to grow, please sign up for Faithwire’s daily newsletter and download the CBN News app, developed by our parent company, to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.***