"The important thing is the family. If you keep the family together – and that’s the backbone of our whole business."
— Walt Disney
Poisoning the minds of our children usually ends up being a poor business model, for a multitude of reasons.
Such an agenda (because that's what it really is) constitutes a devious plan, one ultimately destined for failure.
Our children are our future.
An obvious statment, yet one which should be endlessly repeated.
Children deserve to grow up in a world cherishing religion, family values, truth, integrity, and kindness.
Why then, does the writer feel, this message now falls only on deaf ears, those especially belonging to unabashedly left-leaning political and ideological adherents?
Disney's recent agreement to end litigation with Florida involving a special tourism district, backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., marks a significant shift in the company's strategy towards promoting contentious political issues.
This is a snapshot of a great awakening for corporate America.
More than likely, concurrnetly, the American people must be thinking, if not declaring out loud, "Poisoning the minds of our children is a bad!"
"It's a non-starter!"
As the saying goes, "The Emptier the Can, the More Noise it Makes."
Disney's leadership made a big mistake when it embraced and promoted a Woke agenda.
An agenda comprised of so-called family-friendly movies and theme parks, pushing what amounts to garbage down our children’s throats.
The philosophy of Woke noisemakers.
The result?
One huge multi-pronged mistake.
As the "invisible" majority of Americans actually punished them in a much louder way (not with noise) but with wallets.
They kept their children away from Disney and ceased allowing Disney into their homes.
Disney's decision to settle could be viewed as strategic, not just for Florida but for the company in general as a comeback to rebrand itself and uphold its original business model.
Disney is hopeful this will stop it's own financial bleeding.
Will it work?
The People Spoke
What Went Wrong with Disney? How Did They Lose Focus?
Walt Disney, the visionary behind the company, believed in the importance of family values and catering to families as the backbone of the business.
He understood that by keeping families together and creating family-friendly content, Disney could achieve success. Through its films, theme parks, and merchandise, Disney offered a sense of escapism and empowerment, especially to young girls who aspired to be princesses and young boys who looked up to the heroic characters in Disney films feeling empowered as hero’s themselves.
The resultant "emotional connection" with its audience was a driving force behind Disney’s success and growth.
However, in recent years, Disney has veered away from this ethos and has focused more on profit and market trends rather than the core values that Walt Disney himself established.
The company's leadership has shifted its focus towards pandering to different demographics and pursuing controversial themes in their content.
This departure from their original family-oriented approach has led to criticism and backlash from fans and the public at large.
Thus, Disney was able to focus on its business model and captivate the hearts and minds of children and adults.
It was able to tap into the universal longing for empowerment and fulfillment of dreams.
No one can deny that every young girl's dream is of being a princess, and that every boy has heroic aspiraitons.
Disney was able to make these dreams feel tangible and achievable.
In doing so, it created a loyal and dedicated fan base.
However, in recent years, Disney's leadership, who apparently were clueless of where its success came from, shifted its focus towards a more wokeism.
The result? The outright alienation of many Disney fans.
The company's push for more politically correct and socially progressive themes in its films and parks was eventually, and rightfully, met with criticism.
A significant decline in audience engagement and attendance at its theme parks occurred in comparatively short order.
The problem with Disney’s recent agenda is that it goes against the grain of non-alternative lifestyle and non-progressive-left segments of society.
By telling young girls that aspiring to be a princess is wrong and outdated, Disney is essentially dismantling the very foundation on which its brand was built.
Disney's adopted left narrative is forced and contrived.
Furthermore, Disney’s cultural turn reflected significant missteps in its content and marketing. The disastrous financially-oriented byproducts of attempting to cater to a more progressive audience (or at least mistakingly perceiving audiences as being more left-leaning than they truly are) canot but help adversely impact a company's bottom line.
Thus, Disney's reputation for producing wholesome, family-freindly fare has been tarnished, and it now faces challenges in maintaining its loyal fan base.
Is the Disney Tale a Cautionary One?
Woke ideology is proving to be detrimental to their business and hurting all chances of future copmpany success. This can conly inevitably bruise shareholder value.
As of now, the struggles involving its board, are nothing to take lightly, in terms of how this will affect Disney, and it has won its recent battle with certain activist investors.
As other companies and industries grapple with similar politically correct oriented challenges, will they too face choosing Woke idelogies over equities markets performance?
This is not the 1960s. Everything is not beautiful.
Honing in on customer/viewers/attendees tastes mandates that business recognize consumer's current situations: their fears, hopes, and aspiraitons — for themselves and future generations.
Only by following Walt Disney's famous business model can the company find its way back to success.
As Gov. DeSantis continues his push-back against social media companies and corporations promoting progressive ideologies, damaging childrens' mental health, the American people to are starting to punish companies by boycotting them.
This comprises a bona fide victory for family values.
Let’s hope other states will take action as well to protect the minds and well-being of children who are sadly being used for political gain.
Thank you Gov DeSantis for standing up for people’s freedom of religion and preserving our right to educate our children with the values we, as parents, choose.
Duvi Honig is founder and chief executive officer of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber Of Commerce. The Orthodox Jewish Chamber Of Commerce is a global umbrella of businesses of all sizes, bridging the highest echelons of the business and governmental worlds together stimulating economic opportunity and positively affecting public policy of governments. His work has been recognized by both Presidents Obama and Trump. Read more of his reports — Here.
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