Showing posts with label Walt Disney Company. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Walt Disney Company. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 08, 2020

I Got the News: Sorry, but Uncle Walt's not going to save you, either.



I'm shocked ... SHOCKED ... to learn that "Disney is not only underreporting its COVID cases but clearing COVID-positive employees to return to work."

Four sources familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast that Disney has kept the total number of positive cases at the district under wraps, alerting unions only to the positive test results of their members—often days after the fact, risking further exposure—and leaving workers to guess for themselves why colleagues disappeared for days at a time, or why 11 people from the 12-person Horticulture Irrigation team didn’t show up to work for a full week.

All sorts of folks in positions of authority here and throughout the country, most often Democrats locally but in truth it's a bi-partisan thing, absolutely worship Disney for keeping its streets clean.

Of course, they're forgetting that a Disney theme park is not the real world. That's an important consideration, isn't it?

In fact, I reiterate: Veneration of Walt Disney is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate.

Grow up, folks.

Verily, I wasn't made for a world this stupid: "Visiting Disney World is the modern version of a medieval pilgrimage."

Like the time Disney's for-profit masterminds proposed a history theme park, including "a new vision of a Disneyland for slavery."

"The weirdness of historical Disneyfication" failed miserably, but it accurately presaged the Dickey Error.

As Charles "Strong Towns" Marohn noted in a 2018 article about crony capitalism, Disney's in it for the money just as much, if not more, than any other power-wielding multinational:

When a company like Walt Disney, which had $25 billion in gross profits last year, can demand—and receive—decades of tax amnesty from a city like Anaheim, a city with a $1.7 billion budget that is struggling to pay pensions, maintain streets and provide basic services, something is broken.

Perhaps it isn't possible to prove categorically that Walt Disney himself was "sexist, anti-Semitic and racist, aside from the backlash against the now-banned Song of the South."

But his successors shouldn't be absolved from fleecing generations in pursuit of obscene profits. Shouldn't we be embracing history's verdicts, not fleeing headlong from them?

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

A disturbance in the force: Disney's universe is all about money, people. It gets as little of mine as possible.


Hard pass for me. I'd read vintage phone books before I give Disney any more money. To paraphrase the esteemed Ignatius J. Reilly, "Veneration of Disney is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate."

Will “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” rebalance Disney’s universe? (The Economist)

Getting the franchise right is crucial to Disney’s future in theme parks, toys and streaming

THIS WEEK “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” will dominate the global box office, and will probably delight fans across the galaxy. Yet the “Star Wars” franchise has not been nearly the success story for its owner, Disney, as its other blockbuster factory, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which this year produced the highest-grossing film of all time, “Avengers: Endgame”. The story of why that may be is worth telling, because getting “Star Wars” right would further Disney’s long-term ambitions across its businesses, from toys and theme parks to its latest endeavour, streaming television ...