• Disney shareholders rejected anti-DEI proposal on Thursday.
  • A conservative think tank proposed that Disney stop participating in the Corporate Equality Index.
  • Shareholders for Apple and Costco previously rejected similar proposals.
  • @cecilkorik@lemmy.ca
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    3053 months ago

    They … rejected … anti-DEI … making them … pro-DEI … and anti-Trump? Am I getting that right? Sorry, there are just getting to be a lot of double-negatives these days it’s hard to keep track.

    • @Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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      363 months ago

      The most accurate takeaway is that the shareholders wish for Disney to continue participating in Diversity Equity and Inclusion measures.

      The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.

    • @jj4211@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Shareholders in a company whose entire business is around being well liked globally thinks it would be a bad business move to cancel a program that is part of a good public image in favor of placating a relatively small chunk of Americans that would both be paying attention and against DEI.

      They could still be pro-Trump, and not really caring about DEI, but they know the value of optics in the context of a company like Disney.

    • Juniper (she/her) 🫐
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      73 months ago

      Call of what if is and it becomes more clear.

      DEI is diversity equity and inclusion. You know, inclusion of racial minorities, disabled people, and women in historically male dominated roles.

      Disneys board rejected enacting a Trump inspired policy of racism, sexism, and general bigotry.

  • @N0body@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1883 months ago

    Disney wants as many customers as possible and doesn’t care about temporary optics based on hard right politics. Don’t mistake them for the good guys. Megacorps that buy up everything in sight and use their ridiculous piles of money to exert influence over politics are the core of the problem.

    Guess why copyright laws in the US kept adding decades and decades to copyright protection from the death of the creator. HINT: Megacorp money controlling laws may have been involved.

    • @Godort@lemm.ee
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      723 months ago

      Like all corporations, Disney is a mercenary. Their allegiance lies with whoever puts the bigger number on their cheque.

      If MAGA is going to get in the way of Disney trying to make money, I’m more than happy to let Disney fight that battle and waste some cycles

    • @chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      263 months ago

      While most of that is true, they actually did let the Mickey Mouse copyright expire, and Mickey as portrayed in Steamboat Willie is now public domain.

      But instead they’re using trademark. There’s a reason they’ve started using Steamboat Willie in an animated logo.

    • @JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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      3 months ago

      I’ve got a love/hate thing with Disney. Like…enemy-of-my-enemy-enemy kind of thing.

      I do love when they stick it to DeSantis.

      But I still ain’t going to FL anytime soon. We did Disney in 2022 and I think that’s probably near the end of when FL was tolerable (in small doses) for sane people.

  • @dhork@lemmy.world
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    1163 months ago

    Conservatives have been worshipping on the altar of Shareholder Value since the 80’s.

    Guess what? These shareholders just told us all what they value. Think Conservatives will accept it?

    • @floofloof@lemmy.ca
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      783 months ago

      Conservative “values” are just cover stories for greed, selfishness and prejudice. They grew up with a set of prejudices and they refuse ever to reexamine them. So they adjust the “values” to suit. Conservatives are incurious, stubborn people who refuse to grow.

    • @TheFogan@programming.dev
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      293 months ago

      I mean they value money…

      and apparently they are smart enough to realize that Diversity helps with money, Which makes sense… they are a machine designed to extract money from people…

      rich white billionares do not fill up theatres or make a substantial percentage of disney+ and Hulu subscriptions… a group of people that know how to target different demographics will obviously outperform one that targets the hell out of maga fans but doesn’t know how to talk to the other 70% of the country.

      • @Ledericas@lemm.ee
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        33 months ago

        remember the actors that went all anti-lgbtq+ tried to make thier “anti-woke circle jerking movies” like gina carano,and some others.

    • LupusBlackfur
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      163 months ago

      worshipping on the altar of Shareholder Value since the 80’s.

      Thanks, Milton Friedman…

      🙄 🙄 🖕 🖕

    • @Ledericas@lemm.ee
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      63 months ago

      dint disney rollback some of DEI initiatives at least for a show, and introduced a “fully outed christian”

  • @moody@lemmings.world
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    923 months ago

    Just 1% of shareholders voted to approve the proposal

    1% of shareholders, or the holders of 1% of shares?

          • @RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works
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            53 months ago

            Yeah, but those systems still don’t count votes by “number of shareholders” as indicated above. They’re still weighted by number of shares, just some shares have more benefits than others

            The class offered to the general public often has limited or no voting rights, while the class available to founders and executives has more voting power and often provides for majority control of the company.

  • @gamer@lemm.ee
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    783 months ago

    Fuck this shit, now I gotta be pro Disney too? I’d gotten so used to hating them. They grew on me a little back when they stood up against DeSantis in Florida too.

    I miss the days when we could just love/hate corporations based on their business practices instead of culture war bullshit.

    • @agent_nycto@lemmy.world
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      313 months ago

      It’s always more complicated than the binary. Disney might be getting DEI but still forces creators to censor out any LGBT references in their shows, or cancel them if they do them anyway. They still are anti union and work people to the bone.

      If you want it simple, no corporation is your friend, ever. They are there simply to take your money, without regard for scruples, and any form of morality they seem to be acting on is either because it will make them more money or it is illegal and not cost effective to break the law.

      It’s still a good sign the shareholders have some sense in this specific case, but make no mistake, Disney doesn’t care about anything other than money.

    • @afronaut@slrpnk.net
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      3 months ago

      I mean, Disney is still evil. They probably saw how much Target fucked up and don’t want to make the same mistake.

      There’s more money in appealing to everyone instead of just white evangelicals Americans.

    • @captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      203 months ago

      They have met their fundamental duty as an organization led by human beings who can and should be held to moral standards.

      I despise their behavior with copyright but here they’ve earned the right to not get the “caved to fascists” boycott

    • @Stepskippin@lemmy.world
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      163 months ago

      Nah, its just more proof that this think tank is shit at making money. Disney doesn’t have morals, but it does have a very profitable “princess” marketing strategy. This think tank didn’t really read the room very well.

      • @captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        73 months ago

        Conservative think tanks don’t exist to make money or spread prosperity, they exist to find justifications to enact conservative policies

    • @Nangijala@feddit.dk
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      163 months ago

      Their brand of diversity is some bs anyways so you don’t have to be pro Disney.

      Remember, they gladly took help from a Chinese concentration camp to make their girl boss Mulan remake.

      They also fired all their park workers during covid and gave themselves 10 million bonuses while their workers were surviving on food stamps. Some workers had even signed non compete clauses so they literally could not use their talents elsewhere to feed themselves.

      Further more, Disneys current version of DEI is divisive, soulless and insincere.

      It isn’t a black or white situation. You can hate Disney AND MAGA. To me, they are all two sides of the same rotten coin. Ruthless, selfish and greedy people who use others to get ahead and pull the ladder up after themselves.

      • @Ledericas@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        they also began to renege on thier “Dei” i think for a show they removed the lgbtq+ person and including a " persecuted christian in the mix". additionally they started public resumed donation to desantis and GOP in florida when all the news blew over.

        • @Nangijala@feddit.dk
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          23 months ago

          Oh, they have done shit like that for years. Removing black actors from their movie posters when sending their films to places like China, removing all LGBT stuff from their oh so diverse remakes when sending them to countries that dislike gay stuff.

          They are so fake.

          • @Ledericas@lemm.ee
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            13 months ago

            one thing i do notice they never touch christians though, most people watching disneys arent christians, its just to get them from not complaining about Disney. SPN was one show that have to astroturf with christianty is the one true religion" and disrepecting other dieties/mythology.

        • @Nangijala@feddit.dk
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          3 months ago

          Saying that current day Chinese concentration camps are nicer than some concentration camps America had in the past is very tone deaf.

          Besides, I hear your president is talking about sending immigrants to guantanamo so maybe you guys get to compete with the Chinese on who has the nicest concentration camps in this say and age soon enough.

      • @Eyron@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        They also fired all their park workers during covid and gave themselves 10 million bonuses while their workers were surviving on food stamps. Some workers had even signed non compete clauses so they literally could not use their talents elsewhere to feed themselves.

        There are plenty of things to hate Disney for, especially as they approach super-monopoly status, ruin nearly every franchise they touch, and have trouble telling what’s good or not. As a company, Disney’s morals and decisions grow more concerning every month. Disney is basically a disaster in progress.

        However, this specific complaint seems bad: it’s the wrong scale. Many companies were in the wrong during COVID, but it’s hard to look at these numbers and say the layoffs here were bad decisions based on $10M in bonuses. The scales are just too different.

        Disney laid off 32,000 park workers At a measly 40 hours per week at their “minimum wage” (formerly $15/hr, now $24/hr): that’s $83.2 million PER MONTH: $998M a year. A $10M “bonus” is 1% of that, and even smaller compared to the $6.4B of park revenue they had loss.

        The former CEO “gave up” their salary ($3M) and “bonus” ($45M in 2019), had 20-30% pay cuts to the executive staff, and a few other items. The CEO did get “$10M” in stock awards, but stock awards don’t get you off food stamps. Those stocks become nothing if the company posts bad financials, which would hurt more than just the execs.

        The $1.5B dividend payout in April 2020 looks much worse. Abigail Disney ranted about it on Twitter (now X). His rant is at the appropriate scale: Disney paid out billions before they chose to save millions. The execs got quite a bit of that dividend payout. That’s the greed.

    • @zovits@lemmy.world
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      133 months ago

      It’s almost like there were nuances to almost everything instead of the world being neatly divisible into good and bad.

    • @Wilco@lemm.ee
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      83 months ago

      This is like rooting for the villain. Ok, whatever … Disney is cool again.

    • @SippyCup@feddit.nl
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      73 months ago

      I miss boycotting Disney because some prude thought she saw sex hidden in dust in the Lion King.

      The kooky, fun kind of crazy we can all share a laugh at

    • @Bosht@lemmy.world
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      53 months ago

      They’re still a massive company that’s way bigger than it should be and could be considered a monopoly.

    • @Tilgare@lemmy.world
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      53 months ago

      It’s a shame that it’s only the companies with more money than God that feel comfortable standing up for their values. The Felon will attack anyone who disagrees with them, and while everyone gets mad about nobody standing up to him - that’s not exactly a zero risk scenario for most. But for these hundred billion and trillion dollar companies, they know they can defend themselves just fine.

  • @TommySoda@lemmy.world
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    653 months ago

    Probably because they realise that all the companies that ditched DEI have been doing significantly worse. Almost like it’s something people want.

      • @TommySoda@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I’ve been watching the stock market since the inauguration and companies like Target have been dropping significantly faster than companies like Costco that didn’t roll it back. It’s all going down, but the anti-dei ones are going faster.

        Edit: just looked and Costco is down 8% in the last 3 months while Target is down 20%.

        • @TommySoda@lemmy.world
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          23 months ago

          I just compared Costco which didn’t roll back vs Target that did. In the last 3 months Costco is down 8% and Target is down 20%

      • @andallthat@lemmy.world
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        183 months ago

        Looking forward to that “Failing Disney and nasty, perverted Mickey Mouse, going around in shorts” post on Truth Social. If there’s one corporation that might even take Donnie down it’s Disney. Kinda like Kong vs Dumbzilla

  • @Sibshops@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    No suprise there. A large portion of Disney’s viewers are girls and minorities. You know, those dreaded DEI folk.

    • @JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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      3 months ago

      Well yeah they learned that more than just little white girls like their movies. Look at the animated Disney/Pixar feature films, so much more than it was in the pre- renaissance era.

      Even during the Renaissance …we had Pocahontas and Mulan and Jasmine…but these people were more like phoned-in representatives of their cultures compared to now.

      Look at Encanto, or Moana/Viana. Or Coco. Or even Soul.

      Hell, Strange World features a mixed race family with a queer son and a three-legged dog.

      And the movies are better for it. They are more relatable because they aren’t all some xeroxed copy of the same plain princess with a slightly different tint. And more importantly, they are showing their young and impressionable viewers a cast that reflects reality. That not every family is a carbon-copy “traditional” family. That different cultures exist and yeah, live a bit differently than suburban white folk (who live a shockingly similar life to the Sultan of Agrabah).

      • @Ledericas@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        youtube videos of disney cinema is infested with these “anti-woke comments” its really not for conservatives anyways. like how the recent snow white movie is being spammed all over youtube with anti-woke twist. they trying very hard to get people to hate disney and using the actor as thier anchor.

    • @Ledericas@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      and disney also have “virtue signalling” for LGBTQ+ for a couple decades already. harder to divorce from that. ALso children is thier money maker too.

  • @HeyJoe@lemmy.world
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    263 months ago

    As someone who actually works on real stuff, it’s insane to me that for some people, they go to work and have high-level conversations revolving around things such as this.

    • @Zenodyne@lemmy.world
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      233 months ago

      You are right, but also, I think it’s okay to take the small victories where they are. They shouldn’t have to be applauded for doing the bare minimum, but when this bare minimum is a big middle finger to the administration I’ll look the other way

        • @JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world
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          23 months ago

          I agree, but in the right circumstances. Posting it here in the comment section is one thing, we’re discussing their actions. But some people (not you, necessarily) will take it a step further and go bully a company when they take a good step because the step wasn’t big/good enough. We gotta positively reinforce good behavior

        • @JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world
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          23 months ago

          Imagine if tomorrow they decided to stop DEI for good

          I wonder if they could point towards their secession when handling that. Technically Disneyland and world aren’t part of America, but they’re not recognized as sovereign states by any country so they might have a hard time really putting that fight up

            • @JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world
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              13 months ago

              Look into “Company towns” a bit. It could be done right, but putting that into the hands of the current oligarchs would be a spell for destruction

              But I like your sentiment. I actually am planning to start a non-profit apartment complex and I’m trying to get my employer to be a primary investor. I plan on offering them a temporary exclusivity deal if they’ll let me build close enough to where we work but I’ll have to look into the laws about that. Exclusivity deals are a lil weird around housing, might not actually be able to offer that

        • @atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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          13 months ago

          My friend, have you not been paying attention? Trump doesn’t give a shit about any of that. He’s burning all the bridges to “eradicate woke”.

  • @Etterra@discuss.online
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    193 months ago

    Maybe that’s because “DEI” has become code for “anything done by minorities” and “woke” now means “minorities.” With minorites here meaning “not white heterosexual men.” Also cis but these snowflakes can’t even accept that cisgender is a technical term.

  • Tony Bark
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    143 months ago

    “I guess you forgot whose really in charge,” said Mickey.

  • circuitfarmer
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    123 months ago

    Lots of media worried about upsetting the King of America with their reporting