Disney Hit With More Layoffs As Latest Woke Projects Bomb Hard
It would seem that Disney still hasn't learned its lesson when it comes to DEI in entertainment. The company which just initiated a series of layoffs of hundreds of employees at the beginning in June is now getting rid of at least 2% of staffers in its product and technology division.
The staff cuts are only part of an ongoing trend over the past few years as Disney's profits at the box office tumble into the abyss. Only ten years ago the company dominated theaters and television, but it is now reeling from an endless string of embarrassing failures.
The company's latest entertainment bungles include the Pixar film Elio, about a Mexican-Domincan boy obsessed with space travel who is accidentally taken by aliens to the "Communiverse", an intergalactic socialist Utopia where all the species of the universe get together and work out their problems.
Continuing with their messaging that minority characters are infallible no matter what they do, Pixar writes Elio as a spoiled thief who seems to get whatever he wants. His background as an orphan living with his aunt is meant to invoke sympathy from the audience, but the effort falls flat.
"It was important for our art team to kind of design the world of space, to design the 'communiverse' to be this colorful, welcoming, diverse place, this aspirational place where aliens of all shapes and sizes and colors can come and live together," said director Domee Shi. "And when Elio first lands, he just feels like this is home and he wants to stay."
The creators and voice actors on the movie hyped up the minority representation of Elio as if they are still living in 2018.
Zoe Saldaña, the voice of Aunt Olga, shared a personal message at the premiere of Elio in reference to the Mexican representation in the film as well as the ongoing immigration raids in Los Angeles:
"I do believe that the future of America are Latinos, and people of color...I just think that as long as we keep being who we are and coming from a place of love and dignity and hard work we will win."
Critics also mention the movie's noticeable lack of animation quality, further cementing allegations that Disney has fired most of its seasoned animators and replaced them with cheaper and less knowledgeable artists. Elio imploded at theaters. With a budget of over $300 million the animated flick is expected to lose around $150 million and is the worst performing film ever released by Pixar.
On the streaming front, Disney+ has released their long delayed Marvel series Ironheart, a superhero story featuring woke representation including multiple insufferable trans actors and a black, female ghetto version of Iron Man who is somehow smarter than Tony Stark. She gets a free ride through college but complains constantly about her circumstances, helps fellow university students cheat on their exams in exchange for cash and steals regularly in order to get what she thinks she's entitled to.
A typical DEI character with no moral compass and zero likability. Disney keeps its streaming stats a closely guarded secret and Nielson stats don't come out for a month, but Ironheart is currently being pummeled in audience reviews and third-party ratings companies show audience numbers in the gutter.
In the film industry projects are often released many years after initial production is launched. This is why it's a big mistake to inject the political messaging of the current day into movies and television, as movements can fail, disappear or change direction before the content is available to audiences. Ironheart is so dated by its politics that it feels like a time portal back to the early days of the Biden era; an era almost everyone hates. The smart move would have been to shelve the product and never release it.
The sheer size of Disney's operations allow it to financially weather a number of failed projects, but it's a bad sign that the company is currently relying more on its theme park revenues and less on its film and streaming divisions. After sinking every franchise it owns with woke messaging, including Star Wars, Marvel, Dr. Who, etc., it's unlikely that Disney will recover anytime soon from its endless box office defeats.
