Pixar’s ‘Lightyear’ Restores Same-Sex Kiss After Backlash Over Disney’s Response To Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill

finally denounced the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which was signed into law earlier this week.After weeks of controversy surrounding Disney’s silence on the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and subsequent walkouts by Disney employees, CEO Bob Chapek apologized and announced a pause in political donations in Florida. On Monday, Disney reacted to the law’s passage by stating that Florida HB 1557 “should never have passed and should never have been signed into law,” and adding that the company would be working with other organizations to get it repealed.Since then, DeSantis has taken aim at the company several times, including on Thursday when he told reporters that the state government may be re-evaluating Disney’s “special privileges” in Florida. “Someone said, ‘Hey, Disney has all these special perks.

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.

signed the controversial legislation into law on Monday and wants the law to be repealed. In a statement, the company said that they would like for the bill to be repealed or struck down in the courts and are working with other state organizations to achieve that goal.

“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.

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.

Lightyear following a backlash after it was cut.As reported in Variety, the animated prequel for Toy Story’s Buzz Lightyear includes a relationship between two female characters. A kiss between the two is said to have been removed but later reinstated after a backlash to its removal, and Disney’s recent handling of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Disney CEO Bob Chapek recently apologised to employees for his silence over Florida’s controversial ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill which was passed earlier this month.The Republican-led bill, formally known as Parental Rights in Education, bans discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten to third grade classes (aged 8-9).

The Walt Disney Co. and CEO Bob Chapek are under fire for their perceived slow reaction to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill that recently passed the Florida Senate. It now heads to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is likely to sign it into law.

After coming under fire for its handling of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, Pixar is restoring a cut scene from its upcoming film “Lightyear”.

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment WriterOn March 9, LGBTQ employees and allies at Pixar Animation Studios sent a joint statement to Walt Disney Company leadership claiming that Disney executives had actively censored “overtly gay affection” in its feature films.

Gabrielle Union has hit out at the Walt Disney Company over its decision to take a soft stance regarding the “Don’t Say Gay” bill banning Florida teachers in classes up to third grade from talking about LGBTQIA+ issues with their students.

Angelique Jackson A group of Disney employees have planned a week of in-person and virtual walkouts in response to the company and CEO Bob Chapek’s handling of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” Bill.On Monday afternoon, the Twitter account called Disney Walkout posted a message explaining that, “The LGBTQIA+ workers and allies at The Walt Disney Company are standing in solidarity together over the coming weeks.”The post then linked to an open letter written in partnership with members of the LGBTQ community across the Walt Disney Company (including Disney Corporate, Disney Television Animation, Lucasfilm, Pixar, Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution, Disney Streaming, Enterprise Finance, Enterprise Technology/Global Information Security and Bento Box). “The recent statements by The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) leadership regarding the Florida legislature’s recent ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill have utterly failed to match the magnitude of the threat to LGBTQIA+ safety represented by this legislation,” organizers wrote.

Walt Disney Company Chief Executive Officer Bob Chapek issued a memo to the company’s LGBTQ+ and ally employees apologizing over his handling of the controversy over the media conglomerate’s response to Florida HB 1557, colloquially known as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill.

It’s been a rough first two years for Bob Chapek in Disney’s top job.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek is facing a major test of his leadership, after the company’s botched response to an anti-gay bill in Florida sparked a staff revolt among LGBTQ employees and their supporters.Chapek apologized to the staff on Friday, saying he should have been “a stronger ally.” But for some employees, who found the company’s silence on the bill profoundly alarming, the statement came too late.“This is a CYA [cover your ass] for Chapek — this is a weak statement,” one Disney staffer told Variety. “We should have gotten this apology on March 1, not weeks after — and after this bill was passed in Florida.”For Chapek, the apology capped a full week of attempted damage control.

first reported on Twitter by journalist Judd Legum of the newsletter Popular Information, strikes back against Chapek’s comments — in both a company-wide memo sent to Disney employees and subsequent remarks at the company’s annual shareholder meeting — purporting to stand with the company’s LGBTQ employees and the LGBTQ community more broadly.In the memo, issued earlier this week, Chapek defended the company’s decision not to issue a statement on the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill — a piece of “parental rights” legislation that seeks to keep parents informed of any changes in the way schools deal with their children, particularly with respect to affirming a child’s gender identity or sexual orientation without the parents’ knowledge.The bill explicitly bans teacher- or school-led discussions of LGBTQ-related topics up to the third grade, and requires that any conversations in older grades be age-appropriate and “developmentally appropriate.” But critics say that, in practice, given the pressure on teachers and the lack of support from administrators seeking to appease overly-sensitive or litigious parents, schools — and individual teachers — will preemptively censor student speech or LGBTQ-related content, even at the middle and high school levels. Chapek’s memo was issued in response to demonstrations by LGBTQ groups outside of Disney theme parks in Florida and California, as well as simmering discontent among employees, which stemmed not only from what critics characterized as a tepid response to the bill, but from an Orlando Sentinel report that Disney donated to every politician who sponsored and co-sponsored the legislation.In the internal memo, Chapek said the company “unequivocally” stands in support of its LGBTQ

For all intents and purposes, Disney is synonymous with Florida. That’s where Disney World is, and that’s kinda where everyone just assumes the corporation does most of its business.

awaits signature by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, prevents elementary school teachers from even acknowledging the existence of gay people, and is partly enforced by allowing parents to sue any school they believe has violated it.The Pixar employee letter, which is undated, was made public hours after Disney CEO Bob Chapek claimed during a shareholder meeting that the company had attempted behind the scenes to oppose the law — though of course it refused to take a public position on it even as the law appeared likely to pass.“We hoped that our company would show up for us.