Another Disney star is urging the company to “step up” amidst Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Bill, also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
03.04.2022 - 09:29 / deadline.com
Marvel Studios’ Victoria Alonso said she had a 45-minute sitdown with Disney boss Bob Chapek recently regarding the anti-LGBTQ legislation in Florida, Texas, and Arizona. She revealed the details of their chat while accepting the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film for Eternals.
“If you are a member of the LGBTQIA community and you work at the Walt Disney Company, the last two or three weeks have been a sad event. I’ve asked Mr. Chapek for courage in a 45-minute sit-down,” she said while standing aside Chloe Zhao and Nate Moore.
She continued, “I asked him to look around and truly if what we sell is entertainment for the family, we don’t choose what family. Family is this entire room. Family is the family in Texas, in Arizona, in Florida, and in my family, in my home. So I ask you again Mr. Chapek: please respect—if we’re selling family—take a stand against all of these crazy outdated laws. Take a stand for family. Stop saying that you tolerate us—nobody tolerates me, let me tell you that. You tolerate the heat in Florida, the humidity in Arizona or Florida, and the dryness in Arizona and Texas. And you tolerate a tantrum in a two-year-old. But you don’t tolerate us. We deserve the right to live, love, and have. More importantly, we deserve an origin story.”
She also passionately shared that everyone can play a role in helping to enact change.
“I encourage all of you to stop being silent—silence is death,” she said. “Silence is poison. But if you don’t stand up, if you don’t fight, if you don’t give your money, if you don’t vote, then all we can do is have a party and be gay. Fight, fight, fight! As long as I am at Marvel Studios I will fight for representation for all of us.”
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Another Disney star is urging the company to “step up” amidst Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Bill, also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
Does it ever feel like those of us in and around Hollywood are at war with the world?
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis escalated his attack on The Walt Disney Co. on Tuesday, as he called on the state legislature to end a self-governing special district covering Walt Disney World.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suggested that The Walt Disney Co. should be stripped of its “special privileges” in the state following its opposition to the new Parental Rights in Education law, dubbed by detractors as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
Bob Chapek, the Disney CEO who is under siege, hopefully does not watch much TV. If he does, he’ll see a succession of fellow CEOs who seem prone to self-destruction — Adam Neumann of WeWork, Travis Kalanick of Uber, Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos, etc. — portrayed on buzzy TV series. Viewing these shows back to back, the stolid Chapek might wonder whether the CEO is extinct as a folk hero.
Florida State GOP Representative Spencer Roach said legislators have met twice to discuss repealing a statute that impacts how Disney can invest in its theme parks there. The move is retaliatory after the company and CEO Bob Chapek came out strongly against the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill just signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has been lobbing criticism Disney’s way this week.
Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorThe Daily Wire, a conservative media organization with no history of producing children’s programming, is using Disney’s opposition to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law as a rallying point to enter the business of kids entertainment.The Nashville-based company announced Wednesday that it plans to invest at least $100 million over the next three years into live-action and animated kids’ content. The right-wing outlet’s first content targeted at children is supposed to launch on Daily Wire’s subscription platform in the spring of 2023; it didn’t detail any kids’ shows or movies that it may have in the works.Americans are “tired of giving their money to woke media companies who want to indoctrinate their children with radical race and gender theory,” Daily Wire co-CEO Jeremy Boreing said in announcing the initiative.
Zack Sharf Ron Perlman slammed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this week after he signed into law the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill on March 28. The “Hellboy” and “Don’t Look Up” actor posted a video to his Twitter page in which he called DeSantis a “fucking Nazi pig” and a “piece of shit.” The legislation, officially titled the Parental Rights in Education Bill, bans kindergarten to third grade classrooms from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity topics.
One of Chris Wallace’s first guests on his new CNN+ series is former Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger, who makes the case for why corporate leaders should wade into major issues like climate change, immigration and, most recently, Florida’s so-called ‘don’t say gay’ bill.
Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle EditorAriana DeBose made history on Sunday night by becoming the first openly queer woman of color to win an acting Oscar for her work as Anita in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story.” The musical was distributed by 20th Century Studios, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company.On the Academy Awards red carpet before the ceremony, I talked with DeBose about Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. DeBose says she has reached out to Disney CEO Bob Chapek to talk about the studio’s controversial reaction to the legislation.“Bob and I, we’re gonna do the work,” DeBose said. “I have [spoken to Chapek].
Disney has issued a statement following the signing of Florida’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill into law.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has signed the controversial Parental Rights in Education bill, also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, into law.
“Here I am being queer and gorgeous and I’m on the red carpet, and I’m very happy to represent fellow gorgeous queer that consume Disney,” Encanto actress Jessica Darrow told Deadline tonight on the Oscars red carpet.
an escalating employee backlash at the Mouse House threatening to spoil the party.Disney is scrambling to contain the fallout over its response to a Florida bill that would bar teachers from discussing LGBTQ topics like sexual orientation or gender identity with students unless they’re in the fourth grade or higher. The issue prompted an internal battle among company employees who are divided on whether Disney should get political.Left-leaning employees staged walkouts this week, arguing the company failed the LGBT community by initially failing to denounce the bill.
LGBTQ+ Walt Disney Company employees and their allies put on a “full stage” walkout Tuesday at various corporate locations across the U.S. to protest what they see as a “lame” and “inadequate” stance taken by the company and its CEO Bob Chapek to the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida.
Disney CEO Bob Chapek is facing a crisis of confidence in his leadership that is fueling an atypical level of turmoil at the top of the world’s largest entertainment company.Though Chapek’s current employment contract, expiring next February, is expected to be renewed soon, according to sources, his tenure as CEO has been marked by upheaval since he was named to the job in February 2020. Some of the disruption has been far out of his control, such as a global pandemic.
list of demands for how the company at large should take steps to protect LGBTQ+ rights. “Today and every day, we Hulugans are united against all legislation that infringes on the basic human rights of the LGBTQIA+ community,” Hulu wrote in a tweet Tuesday morning.
As many of its LGBTQ+ employees get set for a full-day walkout tomorrow, Disney has decided to postpone a management retreat set for next week as it continues efforts to calm the internal waters.
Some new details are coming out about Pixar’s movie Luca.
On Saturday night, Greg Berlanti used his PGA acceptance speech as a platform to widely criticize the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation in Florida.