MickeyLuv'r
Well-Known Member
You're assuming I have no association or experience with Disney from a guest or maybe perhaps even a business perspective. You're also assuming I haven't been privy to high level decision making at maybe perhaps Disney or any other similarly large corporation.
Are there some companies that make decisions out of moral ideas and righteous intentions? Yes.
Is Disney one of those companies? No.
And that's not meant to disparage Disney or some of the really good people that work there. It's just being pragmatic about the nature of a large corporation. A billion dollar public corporation has to be careful and calculated. It doesn't mean there aren't people that don't want it to be. It doesn't mean there aren't people in high levels that want to make these decisions because of some moral agenda. However, a company on Disney's level has many many many people that have to weigh in on the decision and at the end of the day, decisions are made solely on the merits of revenue, publicity, or marketing.
Some times those moral agendas can fit in those categories and they can "kill two birds with one stone" but the conversation isn't started because someone wants to do the right thing. There is no such thing as "moral meetings" ... there are marketing meetings, sales meetings, and finance meetings.
As an example, I am a part of two "minority" groups. Whenever Disney does something like provide special merchandise catering to those communities- my first thought isn't, "oh wow, they are being inclusive and they care about me!" No ... my first thought is "someone in marketing knows what I want" And they are right because I buy it all up.
Maybe I am cynical or maybe I am an old lady that has spent too many meetings in board rooms discussing these types of issues.
My point is, if you want to celebrate the decision to change Splash Mountain because you've boycotted the ride for all these years, go right ahead and celebrate the change. But I would strongly offer this advice - I would hesitate to celebrate the "decision makers" in Disney as if they were operating purely from altruistic places. Because in all likelihood this decision was motivated out of a place of marketing (PatF merch is easier to sell then SotS merch) and knee jerk publicity (BLM movement and the parks in DL not reopening).
I mostly agree with your post.
Except, Disney has NOT marketed Tiana very much. About two years ago, I was standing in a Disney Store, and they had a BIG display of their 11" dolls. They had pretty much all the male and female fairytale dolls from: Mulan, Moana, Snow White, Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Pocahontas, , Beauty +Beast, Merida, Frozen, Aladdin....but one Disney princess/prince pair was missing.
I wasn't paying much attention to the display until a young lady walked by and somewhat loudly pointed this out. Sure enough, there were no Tiana or Naveen dolls. That was sad on so many levels.
Currently on Disney website out of I think 286 total girl shirts design options: 7 have Tiana/PatF, 18 have Jasmine/Aladdin, and 15 have Belle/ B+B.
For women's shirts: 5 feature Tiana/PatF, 9 feature Jasmine/Aladdin, 10 feature belle/B+B.
(I just picked Tiana nd two other random princesses to count. No special reason why I picked these two. )