Confound that Climate Change! Look what it did!
Once upon a time you could blame it on the bossa nova. Now…?
Disney Corp cranks out ten or 11 movies in a row that are box-office disasters, losing around a billion dollars. Their new “Snow White” movie, not even due to be released until next year, has become a daily food fight. Subscribers are canceling their subscriptions.
And–gasp!–attendance at the Disney theme parks has “dropped substantially” (https://climatechangedispatch.com/barren-disney-theme-parks-blamed-on-climate-change/).
So what’s the problem? What’s to blame? Don’t worry, they already know the answer. Why aren’t people coming to the theme parks? Drum roll, please–
CLIMATE CHANGE!
Aw, c’mon–you knew that, didn’t you? Never mind the content of those movies, which would make a hyena turn up its nose and run away. This is Disney, it’s gotta be right–Americans want their kids groomed for sex! But don’t take their word for it–ask any drag queen.
Once they get the climate fixed–world government, draconian new Rules that cover everything, anyone who doesn’t like it disappears, and bob’s your uncle–the plebs will come flocking back to Disney’s parks, eager to get their five-year-olds primed for sexual adventure. Think of it as icing on the cake made by the public schools.
Every bite of which is poison.
It is their belief systems which are wrecking them. It’s similar to someone that is under the thrall of a cult leader, and cannot process any new information without filtering it through the belief system of the cult.
If a cult member believes that everyone outside of the cult is essentially evil, then all outside information is suspect, and will be interpreted in such a way as to reinforce the cult belief system. If a cult that claims to be Christian believes that all other denominations have ill intent towards them, they will process every action as hostile. If a member of another denomination avoids members of the cult, that is proof positive of hostility. If a member of another denomination is friendly and seeking to find common ground, that will be interpreted as deceptive behavior and treated as further evidence of hostility. You can’t win; it’s a case of heads I win, tails you lose.
Now apply this to a woke company, like Disney. The standard of all reality is their belief that they are woke, and that anyone that doesn’t agree is not woke, not in touch with what is real. If they make a woks movie and it does well, they would take that as proof that they are on the right track. If it doesn’t do well, that’s proof the the masses are on the wrong track.
This leads to what is sometimes referred to as a “sunk costs fallacy”. In simple terms, a sunk costs fallacy is an escalation of commitment, based upon the flawed notion that cumulative past investment justifies further investment.
A perfect, and common example of this would be a gambler doubling down after a loss, expecting that the odds will eventually favor the gambler. The problem with that is that the costs escalate quickly, and a $1 loss would escalate to $1,048,576 by the 21st iteration. If the gamble won that 21st iteration, after 20 losses, their profit would be $1, for a million dollar risk. Ever wonder why casinos make so much money? This is why.
I personally know someone that squandered nearly half a million dollars in casinos and ended up broke. Gambling is entertainment for people with poor math skills.
When a person, or a company, commits to a belief system, they have essentially wagered their lives on the veracity of that belief system’s claims. Any challenge to that belief system force the person involved to face the fact that they have wagered their life, and that is an unfaceable fact for many people. Instead, the sunk cost fallacy kicks in and any challenge to the belief system is rejected vigorously, and even attacked as the equivalent of blasphemy. The end results are usually tragic.
I personally knew a man who believed that the End was coming and lived in constant expectation for most of his long life. When quite elderly, he realized that his health was failing and that his expectations were not going to be fulfilled. He was reduced to despair, and essentially talking to himself as his belief system crumbled. Family members within his belief system avoided the situation, and family members that had broken free offered support. He died a few months later, a completely broken person.
When it comes to Disney, I feel that it’s easy to overestimate them, in their salad days. Even when Walt was alive, Disney flirted with sorcery and magic in some of their productions, although they did make numerous movies, TV shows, etc. which were quite wholesome. Sex was all but a forbidden topic, and the productions avoided controversy. This made them much more family friendly than many other entertainment providers. Sadly, they gave into pressure and began to include content that mainstream families might not desire as part of their entertainment, and they’ve been doubling down on this, ever since.
The last Disney movie I remember seeing was The Kid, from roughly the year 2000. As best I recall, it wasn’t too bad, and actually had some entertainment value. I’m not much of a movie goer, but in the years since 2000, I’ve seen plenty of controversy regarding Disney releases which has not me want to see any more of their pictures. Apparently, I am far from alone, in this. So, where will this end up?
In my personal opinion, Disney, as in the theme parks, the studios, etc. is unlikely to be able to stop the momentum. I would not be at all surprised to see the theme parks change hands and for many of their other operations close down, slowly over the next few years. They are probably operating off of their war-chest monies at this point and savvy investors are unlikely to want to invest, so unless they suddenly have a string of unexpected blockbusters, they are likely to soon feel the pinch.
Perhaps a more intriguing question would be; what will become of the Disney brand? There is a massive back catalog of great material which has market value that it would be sad to lose. I could easily see a brand, along the lines of “Classic Disney” emerge, and which would be used to market Disney’s older content. That would strike me as a truly valuable product which would generate a stable stream of revenue, with a customer base of people holding traditional family values.
The more modern version of Disney could cease to exist, re-brand itself as some sort of “progressive” family entertainment, or possibly return to the values that built Disney into the juggernaut it once once. I would not hold my breath for that last option coming to pass.
We live in interesting times, to paraphrase an alleged ancient Chinese curse. In the last 20 years, the music business has all but turned inside out, with a massive change of the power base within the industry. It would be possible to compose, copyright, record and distribute a song in a manner of hours, from the comfort of one’s living room.
Likewise, a surprising quantity of new video content is coming out on YouTube, and in many cases, it takes little more than an iPhone, a microphone, and a pleasant setting to produce a video which is salable, over YouTube. Fortunes are being made by a small few, and many more people are at least augmenting their income with home-produced videos. In the meantime, television viewership numbers are no longer impressive. This would have been unimaginable, just a few decades ago.
I could definitely envision a world where the Disney we know today ends up but a memory.
Well said–and you do know interesting things.
A couple of interesting things. 🙂
When there is no God, and no reason or purpose to life, then sex becomes God, lots of it and all kinds of it, and lots of drugs to stimulate it.