On March 8th, the Florida Senate passed the Parental Rights in Education bill, also dubbed as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The legislation states that “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through [third grade]” or “in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards” in other grades. This essentially erases LGBTQ+ conversations and history in classrooms.
The “Don’t Say Gay” bill has been a topic of controversy for the past few weeks and Disney’s involvement in it may be a bit of a surprise to some. Disney was caught under fire because of its financial ties with the Government of Florida. It has been found that Disney entities had donated thousands of dollars towards the Florida legislatures who have supported and passed this bill. As a response to the public backlash, Disney CEO Bob Chapek had released a staff memo on March 7. Chapek infamously stated in the memo, “As we have seen time and again, corporate statements do very little to change outcomes or minds. Instead, they are often weaponized by one side or the other to further divide and inflame.” As you would expect, this only fueled the fire of public outrage. It was not only hypocritical, but painting this narrative that they do not want to pick a side is incredibly dangerous when they have been financially backing those in support of the legislature.
On March 9th, Variety had released a statement on behalf of “the LGBTQIA+ employees of Pixar and their allies”. The letter states, “We at Pixar have personally witnessed beautiful stories, full of diverse characters, come back from Disney corporate reviews shaved down to crumbs of what they once were. Even if creating LGBTQIA+ content was the answer to fixing the discriminatory legislation in the world, we are being barred from creating it.” This along with the controversy surrounding the “Don’t Say Gay” bill was not a great look for Disney.
A few days after the initial statement from Chapek, he had made another statement directly opposing Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. According to the LA Times, Chapek announced that Disney shareholders would pledge to donate 5 million dollars to LGBTQ+ rights organizations. On March 18th, Marvel Studios, a property of Disney, had released a statement on Twitter denouncing “ALL legislation that infringes on the basic human rights of the LGBTQIA+ community.”
I, amongst other people, would say that this was too little too late. I think what people forget is that Disney is still a corporation that is dependent on the free market and the money people pour into the product. They are not an ally. As proven by their silent erasure of queer representation exposed by employees at Pixar, they know that releasing openly queer content for kids is too much of a financial gamble. They do not care, as much as they try to paint this narrative that they do. All the queer representation that they do have is the absolute minimal amount they’re forced to give. Most of the time, it’s the actors and the writers who push this narrative that their characters are queer despite having little to no evidence shown on screen. Take Tessa Thompson’s character Valkyrie from Thor: Ragnarok. She has confirmed her character as bisexual in numerous interviews yet the movie only showed a glimpse to prove this.
I’m not a Disney hater. I love most of the content they release. If you ask any of my closest friends, they would tell you that I’m a self-proclaimed Marvel fangirl. But Disney is not our ally, and we can’t keep expecting real representation when Joe Russo spent the entire press tour praising his gay role in Avengers: Endgame as if it was peak representation. We deserve better than that and it’s okay to seek it from somewhere else.