GoofGoof
Premium Member
I would argue that none of this probably matters a whole lot in the long run. It’s easy for people to rant and rave on social media that they hate Disney now but few will act on it. They won’t skip Marvel and Star Wars and Pixar movies, they won’t stop watching sports on ESPN or shows on ABC (they still have shows right?) and the ones who went to Disney parks will still go. I will point to the NFL as exhibit A. How many people ranted that they would never watch football again after the players started taking a knee? How many followed through? How are the NFL’s ratings? The buzz often far exceeds the actions.A few years ago, I suspect the majority of Republicans loved Disney. Republicans will once again love Disney if it focuses on business.
After all, it wasn’t that long ago that loving corporate America was the Republican Party’s mantra.
From his public statements, it appears that Iger is not happy that the company got dragged into this. Iger is the one who said he wants to “quiet things down” “to the extent that I can.” It’s possible that quieting things down is one step (one of several) that Iger is considering to get Disney back on good footing.
Iger has a lot of issues to resolve in less than 2 years. Does he want a public fight with DeSantis to be one of them? (DeSantis will continue to make this very public as he already has.) If Iger decides to fight this, it will still be in the courts when Iger is scheduled to leave in less than 2 years.
To me, this only makes sense if Iger believes a DeSantis appointed board intends to stick it to Disney. I don’t see this happening. A strong Walt Disney World is good for Florida business.
Once DeSantis is gone, I suspect Disney will once again have a friendly state legislature to work with.
Again, I predict that if Disney waits out DeSantis, they’ll control the new RCID in 3 to 5 years.
I dunno. Maybe it makes sense for Disney to fight now. After all, Disney is the wronged party.a
But sometimes the best way to win a fight is to not fight at all.
On the topic of whether Disney could have avoided this, I don’t really think so completely. They could have handled it better but ultimately this is the new norm for our society. Companies are being forced to “take a side” more and more and often they are faced with a decision of you are either with us or against us. This happens from both sides. People say they want Disney and other corporations to focus on business and ignore social issues but shouldn’t that go both ways? Why can’t their customers ignore their social positions and focus on whether they entertain them? I don’t agree with some of the political positions Chic-Fil-A has taken, but damn they make a good chicken sandwich. People need to get over it and most actually do when it comes to action even if they claim to be highly offended online. Remember too that at the end of the day Disney had no influence or bearing on whether the original law they opposed passed or was overturned so the “great harm” they caused is highly overstated.