This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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&#8220;Toy Story 5&#8221; has struck a nerve. Since its release on June 19, it has become the highest-grossing &#8220;Toy Story&#8221; movie ever and pulled in the second-highest Pixar opening. The film captures something many parents have felt: the age of toys is over. Play-based childhood has ended, and we are now in the age of screens. The movie’s accurate diagnosis of the crisis in modern American childhood captures the frustrations parents feel over kids and screens. If you talk to most parents, they lament the state of childhood today, but they also feel a sense that the screens are inevitable.
The film captures this sentiment well by portraying the collective action problems that screens during childhood present. As Jonathan Haidt explains in his book &#8220;The Anxious Generation,&#8221; screens and their apps create negative network effects, where even kids who aren’t on smartphones or social media can still experience their negative impacts by how it changes the group social dynamics among peers. In the film, Bonnie has no one to play with because all the other kids are sitting inside on screens.
As Jessie, the beloved cowgirl first introduced in &#8220;Toy Story 2,&#8221; says, “No wonder she can’t make a friend; she is the only one out there still playing with toys.” All the other kids are just tap, tap, tapping away inside on screens. This collective action problem pressures parents to give in to the screens, despite their initial reservations. Oftentimes, like Bonnie’s parents in the movie, parents believe that giving the screen will solve the child’s loneliness problems and help them connect more with friends. 
While &#8220;Toy Story 5&#8221; captures how parents feel fed up with the screens, unfortunately, the film misses the mark on solutions and instead <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-lesson-toy-story-5-gets-dangerously-wrong">affirms a sense of helplessness</a> on the part of parents that screens are now just an inevitable part of childhood. As Bonnie’s parents hand her a tablet, they note, &#8220;Now that you are eight, we figured it was time.”
Sadly, the movie is mainly reflecting our cultural reality. The combination of social pressures and the dominant modern parenting strategy of child-led, gentle parenting leads most parents, despite their reservations, to fall into the “screen-time trap.” By age 2, 40% of children have their own tablet; by age 4, over half of children (58%) own a tablet, and about 80% of kids between ages 5 to 11 interact with tablets, according to Common Sense Media’s latest <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/2025-common-sense-census-web-2.pdf">survey</a>. Despite initial concerns, parents end up relenting to the screens, and they are told by the tech companies that they can mitigate any dangers by imposing time limits and controls. 
Thus, most parents (86%) have rules around when, where, or how their child can use screens, according to a Pew Research Center <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/10/08/how-parents-approach-their-kids-screen-time/">survey</a>. However, in practice, only one-in-five parents say they are able to stick to their rules around screens all the time. Furthermore, even companies’ own internal research finds that their time limit tools are ineffective. TikTok created the option for parents to limit children’s time on the app, and the company set the default time limit for children to 60 minutes each day. Their internal research showed that this tool didn’t put a dent in the average time children spent on the app. Minors’ usage dropped by less than 1%, from about 108.5 minutes each day to roughly 107 minutes on the app each day.
All of this shouldn’t surprise us if we correctly understand that interactive screens are designed to be addictive to our brains, especially the developing brains of children. Brain studies show that screens activate the same reward pathway in the brain as alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, as they release constant bursts of dopamine. Dopamine is responsible for motivation and incentivizes us to keep going to get a reward. But dopamine doesn’t produce satisfaction or fulfillment; it only creates a constant craving for more. Unlike natural rewards in real life, with screens there is no completion point, no consummation that triggers an opioid satisfaction response in the brain and then naturally winds down our motivation. Instead, a user is permanently trapped in a wanting phase, stuck dopamine chasing. 
A time limit will never be enough. Even 15 minutes of screen time a day creates a biological constant compulsion for more. As one mom said to me about managing screen limits, “It’s me, a drug-dispensing machine, and an underdeveloped child.” No wonder only one in five parents can stick to their screen rules. But what are parents to do instead?
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_1119343" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1119343" class="size-medium wp-image-1119343" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/g_disneymovies_toystory5_6_b89f2798-300x168.jpeg" alt="" width="300" height="168" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/g_disneymovies_toystory5_6_b89f2798-300x168.jpeg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/g_disneymovies_toystory5_6_b89f2798-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/g_disneymovies_toystory5_6_b89f2798-768x431.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/g_disneymovies_toystory5_6_b89f2798.jpeg 1300w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Photo courtesy of Pixar</div>
Unfortunately, &#8220;Toy Story 5&#8221; doesn’t offer parents a positive path away from the screens. The sad irony in the movie is that even once it becomes evident to her parents that Bonnie is being harmed by her screen, Lilypad, and its group chat, it is not the parents who take decisive action to take the screen away. It is Lilypad, the screen herself, who takes action when she realizes that for all the connection and friendship she promised, she has only ended up hurting Bonnie. (If only real screens were so self-aware; unfortunately, they are run by aggressive algorithms that keep kids addicted at whatever cost.) 
At this cultural moment, when the evidence of the harms of screens has never been clearer, &#8220;Toy Story 5&#8221; missed its opportunity to take a stronger stance and show parents that screens do not need to be an inevitable part of modern childhood and, in fact, a better way is possible: getting rid of the screens entirely. We don’t need better uses for screens, as portrayed at the end of the film when Lilypad connects Bonnie with a new friend in real life. We need loving, yet authoritative, parents who decisively take the screens away and instead guide their children toward a life of independent, imaginary play and in-person friendships. 
In my <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tech-Exit-Practical-Freeing-Smartphones/dp/059373629X">book</a>, I outline this different path, called “the Tech Exit.” The definition of the Tech Exit is: no smartphones, social media, tablets, or video games during childhood or the teen years. If this sounds impossible, let me offer you a few tips for how to start on this journey to embracing the real-life childhood that you already want for your kids. It can be done, and it’s even possible to reverse course if you’ve already given your child screens.
First, you have to detox from all interactive screens if you have already given them. Start with a 30-day detox if you can. Prepare your family by explaining what you’re doing and why. Pick a day to start, and then do it. Get rid of all the screens from your house. Science shows that detoxes work to reset our brains — for anyone at any age at any time. 
Once you have detoxed, to keep going over the long-term, you will need to find other families. 
No parent can make this exit alone. From tablets in kindergarten classrooms to smartphone apps required of college and even high school students, we are all expected to participate in a society-wide social experiment. To counteract these pressures, parents must join together. By working with other families in your communities and schools, you can create counter pressures to push screens back out of childhood. 
This also means parents need to take a more active role in helping a child build an in-person social life, setting up play dates, helping them set up in-person activities, and helping them find friends who also aren’t on screens. Helping your children find friends and build a healthy social life takes work.
One older mom gave me as a young mom a word of caution: “You’ll have to work at helping children build a social life, especially when they’re tweens and teens. These things used to happen more naturally, but because kids are so plugged in now, you have to be far more intentional about it as a parent.” Parents can help by facilitating social activities in their homes, like having a fire pit in their backyard for teens to hang out around, putting a ping-pong table in the basement, or organizing hikes or service projects for teens to do together. 
Saying no to screens is ultimately about saying “yes” to so much more in real life. As we take screens away, we need to replace them with positive responsibilities and activities in the real world. Give children tools and tasks that foster independence and adult responsibility. For teens, it can be a car or a first job. For tweens and younger children, it can be a bike they are allowed to ride to their friend’s house or the neighborhood pool, a pet that is their responsibility, chores around the home, or even early informal jobs such as raking a neighbor’s yard or babysitting. Real-life responsibilities channel a child’s time and energy toward building productive life skills such as work ethic, care, responsibility, creativity, and problem-solving that will help them flourish both in the present and in the future.
This is the life we all want for our children and the bold solution that &#8220;Toy Story 5&#8221; should have held out to parents: Get rid of the screens entirely, get your kids outside, help them find friends in real life, and give them responsibilities. This is the path to true flourishing. 
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Clare Morell is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of &#8220;<a title="https://thetechexit.com/" href="https://thetechexit.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://thetechexit.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1782928654208000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0hMMb9Wd14gC_Q6CvYcT5Y">The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones</a><a title="https://thetechexit.com/" href="https://thetechexit.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://thetechexit.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1782928654208000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0hMMb9Wd14gC_Q6CvYcT5Y">.&#8221;</a> She previously worked in the White House Counsel’s Office and the Justice Department during the first Trump administration.

g_movies_toystory5_still_3_52ea0cb0

What ‘Toy Story 5’ Should Have Told Parents About Screens

Children

Pixar

Technology

Toy Story

Upstream

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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In Pixar&#8217;s original 1995 Toy Story, Buzz Lightyear completes his character arc from arrogant, wannabe space ranger to humble yet confident toy who straps himself to a rocket and saves the day with his new friend Woody. Fast-forward 30 years, and the story couldn&#8217;t be more different.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-lesson-toy-story-5-gets-dangerously-wrong">&#8220;Toy Story 5&#8221;</a> ends with a marriage scene where Buzz, wearing a kilt, is escorted down the aisle while his bride waits for him at the altar before tipping him over for a kiss after they are pronounced husband and wife. Were the writers intentionally trying to feminize Buzz? Or was all this done for comedic effect? I went viral on TikTok and Instagram for asking that very question.
As I type this, my video titled “Toy Story 5 And The Feminization Of Male Characters” has over 2.5 million views between <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@claytonkeirns/video/7654016602131729677">TikTok</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reels/DZ3mkAwNKjh/">Instagram</a>. As the views and comments continue to rack up, it’s clear that I struck a nerve on both sides of the aisle.
Many on the Right are thanking me and saying they now refuse to see the movie. Meanwhile, the Left is saying I’m “overreacting” and that I need to get a life. However, the truth is that I genuinely enjoyed &#8220;Toy Story 5&#8221; and am by no means calling for a boycott. And no, liberals, I was not “triggered” or “offended” by this movie.
There were simply a few over-the-top optical choices the writers made when it came to feminizing Buzz’s character that appeared to go beyond writing for “comedic effect.” It was too on the nose. Too deliberate. They’re the kind of things you include in a script when you’re really trying to hammer a message home. As I left the theater, I didn’t get the sense that these scenes just “accidentally” made it into the final cut.
I also tried watching this movie from the lens of a parent. Since I don’t have kids myself, I had to imagine how I would feel if I had kids and they saw their favorite strong male characters slowly fade into irrelevance, weakness, and, quite frankly, femininity.
For context — spoiler alert — Buzz’s main “bit” throughout the film is that he is trying to muster up the courage to ask Jessie (the tomboy cowgirl introduced in &#8220;Toy Story 2&#8221;) to marry him. I obviously had no problem with him being “nervous.” I’d be lying if I claimed I never got nervous in situations like this. Heck, last year in Barcelona I had to circle the block twice before marching back into a clothing store to ask the cute sales associate for her number. We’ve all been there.
So in the first two acts, Buzz is practicing his proposal. He rehearses his speech, his cadence, and his kneel. Fun and humorous. Still no problems.
Then, in the third act, as the toys are on their way to save the day, Buzz stutters while attempting to pop the question. Before he’s able to ask Jessie, she kisses him. During their kiss, Buzz kicks his leg back as a woman would traditionally do in movies.
Was this done for comedic effect? Maybe.
In fact, I’d be very inclined to say “yes” if it weren’t for what came next. Because, as I said at the beginning of this piece, the movie ends with the two main human characters holding a “wedding” for Buzz and Jessie. And that is where they really dialed things up to an eleven.
The wedding scene takes all of the classic imagery of the groom and applies it to Jessie. As you can guess, all of the “bridal” imagery is applied to Buzz’s character. Mind you, Buzz is a character that children have previously seen depicted as a competent, masculine hero in several movies before it.
As the wedding music plays, Buzz is escorted down the aisle while Jessie waits for him at the altar. Buzz is wearing a kilt, making him look even more feminine. Then, Jessie gives Buzz a diamond ring. And when they are announced husband and wife, Jessie is the one to tip Buzz over to kiss him.
Now I’m not saying that this scene is going to make or break your children. But if there was ever an agenda to weaken and feminize strong male characters for all young boys to see, this is how they would do it. Brick by brick, with scenes like this.
But this scene is just one piece of the very large puzzle. Our kids are being exposed to hundreds of woke messages every single day in mainstream programming. Some of it is subtle, some of it is very deliberate. Either way, the seeds are being planted, and they’re having an effect on the minds of the youth, whether they know it or not.
In response to my commentary on this scene, liberals have tried pointing me to a scene in &#8220;Toy Story 1&#8221; where they claim the writers even feminized Buzz way back then. But as is so often the case, not only did they not make their own point; they made mine.
The scene they’re referring to is when one of the children dresses Buzz in feminine tea party attire. When Woody comes into the room, a distraught Buzz calls himself “Mrs. Nesbit.” Now, why is Buzz acting like this? Simply put, he’s not being himself. In fact, he’s going a little bit crazy. He has just found out that he is a toy, not a real superhero from outer space.
When Woody slaps Buzz back to reality, he snaps out of it and then admits he’s “depressed.” Then poof, the bit is over. That right there is an example of something being done for comedic effect. Not whatever they did to Buzz in this movie.
I enjoyed &#8220;Toy Story 5&#8221; as a whole. The movie also had a few classic, heartfelt “Toy Story” moments, one of which was an absolute tear-jerker (if you know, you know). I thought the movie did the best it could to remind kids of how fun it can be to imagine, play, and rely less on their screens. I thought it <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-lesson-toy-story-5-gets-dangerously-wrong">could have done a better job</a> “villainizing” technology for kids through the end of the movie instead of giving it a redemption arc, but that’s a topic for a different time.
Finally, one scene won’t break your child’s view of traditional gender roles in a wedding. But 30 years ago, Buzz taught a generation of boys what it looked like to be brave, to lead, to charge in when everyone else froze. Ask yourself what the new Buzz is teaching them.
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Clayton Keirns is a conservative political commentator and cofounder of Trending Politics &amp; Quantus Insights. You can find his videos on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090710613645" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id%3D100090710613645&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1782489277071000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0dH84VunXJaxB6WIXQMBSX">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/clayton.keirns/?hl=en">Instagram</a>.

g_disneymovies_toystory5_6_b89f2798

How ‘Toy Story 5’ Stripped Buzz Lightyear Of His Masculinity

Disney

“Toy Story 2” almost didn’t exist, thanks to one string of code that deleted the entire movie.
“Toy Story” is a massively successful franchise. Its fifth installment, “Toy Story 5,” premiered Friday. But in 1998, Pixar nearly lost “Toy Story 2” when an employee accidentally erased it from the company’s servers, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/media/toy-story-5-saved-pixar-78e29161">according</a> to The Wall Street Journal.
The code culprit was a short command: /bin/rm-r-f*. That command directed the chosen server to delete all of its files immediately, without requesting permission, the Journal reported. 
Technical employees used it to free up storage in their personal directories, but since they could also access the “Toy Story 2” master drive, it was easy to input the command in the wrong place.
Technical Director Oren Jacob was working on the film in Pixar’s Richmond, California, offices when the files disappeared from his computer, according to the Journal. Pixar had lost about 90% of the movie.
“You don’t often watch a company vaporize in front of your eyes,” Jacob told the Journal.
Pixar planned to release the movie in theaters, and any delay would have been catastrophic for the company, according to co-founder Ed Catmull.
“We didn’t have the resources at that time to absorb that kind of delay and survive,” Catmull told the Journal.
Catmull focused on finding a solution instead of someone to blame.
Looking for someone to blame doesn’t help us learn from mistakes,” he told the Journal. “We understood that the deletion of the movie was an accident because somebody typed in a command when they were in the wrong directory. We don’t know who typed the command, or if they even knew that they were the one who did it, but it didn’t matter.
Supervising Technical Director Galyn Susman initially thought Pixar could recover the film from the company’s backups — only to discover the backup systems had also failed.
Then Susman realized she had a backup on her home computer, the Journal reported. She had created a work-from-home setup while on maternity leave. She would take the computer to the Pixar offices once a week and download the latest copy of the movie so she could continue working on it.
Susman and Jacob transported the computer from Susman’s home to the office and were able to restore the movie’s files.
After recovering the movie, however, the studio deleted it again — on purpose this time — and completely overhauled it less than a year before its release date, according to the Journal. The do-over worked, and the film became incredibly successful.
“Personally, I still think ‘Toy Story 2’ is the best of the franchise,” Susman told the Journal.

Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, CA, United States

A Coding Mishap Nearly Wiped Out A Beloved Pixar Masterpiece

A Coding Mishap Almost Deleted A Classic Children’s Film

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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Parents today have every reason to mistrust Pixar. From <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-real-reason-lightyear-bombed-at-the-box-office">“Lightyear”</a> to “Elio,” which <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pixar-bomb-elio-was-supposed-to-be-super-gay-only-changed-after-dismal-screening">would have</a> depicted an 11-year-old boy as “queer” had audiences not panned test screenings, its films are literally getting gayer. But its latest offering, “Hoppers,” proves that when the company dispenses with identity box-checking, it can still create a story that will delight parents and children alike. 
I’ll admit I was skeptical going into the theater; the film’s premise had me anticipating an environmental screed. Mabel, a 19-year-old who once spent her school days freeing class pets from their cages, is embroiled in a battle with her city’s mayor, who wants to build a highway over a pond where she used to watch the local fauna with her grandmother. After stumbling upon her college professor’s secret research project, she uses the technology to put her own mind in the body of a robotic beaver and infiltrate the habitat to enlist the animals’ help in stopping the construction project.
What sounds like a throwback to the peak Greta Thunberg days is actually a heartwarming and hilarious commentary on the good in humanity, Teddy Roosevelt-style environmentalism, and what happens when the downtrodden finally get power. The twist in the film&#8217;s second act is so good that I have to spoil it in order to discuss the movie&#8217;s moral themes.
If you’d like to watch “Hoppers” with your (slightly older) kids, which I recommend that you do, read the rest at your own peril.
The pond is a special place for Mabel because it’s where her grandmother taught her to control her childhood anger issues. “It’s hard to be mad when you feel like you’re part of something big,” her grandmother tells her. At a time when Generation Z seems to spend its time yelling at people online or literally <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/01/09/luigi-mangione-approval-poll-gen-z">celebrating</a> (alleged) murderers, the gentle reminder that we humans, and animals, are all part of the same big world is well-timed.
Mabel starts the movie off as the typical rebellious teenager: She steals the beaver tech to use it for her own ends, tricks her new animal friends into believing she is one of them, and presumes to know what’s best for the animals and their ecosystem. She believes she’s better than the rest of those meddlesome humans, but her initially well-meaning interference disrupts the delicate balance of the animal kingdom. As one bug says to her, “You stole, you lied, you used us!”
Thanks to Mabel’s decision to rile up the animals, they, led by a blood-thirsty butterfly, decide to stop the construction project from continuing by “squishing” the mayor. Now, instead of rescuing the animals, Mabel finds herself desperately trying to save the life of her arch-nemesis. 
Mabel’s activism comes from a good place: her love for animals and her memories of her grandmother. But it exhausts her. She is tired of feeling “like I can’t make a difference,” she says. It is just that desire to stamp down her feeling of powerlessness that makes her lose her moral compass, pursuing whatever avenue she can just to feel like she can do something.
After convening a council of the animals, Mabel grows so flustered by the butterfly queen that she reflexively solves the problem with a simple squish. The shocking moment (hilarious for older viewers but perhaps disturbing to younger ones) leads to mayhem in the animal kingdom and the ascendance of the butterfly’s caterpillar son, who turns out to be even more Darwinian than his mother.
Mabel quickly learns and accepts that her mad dash for power, even with good intentions, has led her to exploit and harm others. After her unceremonious squishing betrays the trust of the beaver king, he forgives her: “Trust is like a dam,&#8221; he says. &#8220;It’s gonna leak sometimes.”
The freshly pupated butterfly king, Titus, learns no such lesson. After ordering the “squishing” of the mayor, he inhabits an animatronic human body and tries to use high-decibel sound to kill a crowd of townspeople. (Helpful euphemisms such as “squishing” aside, moments of death, peril, and a misshapen face mask flying off the murderous robot are as laugh-out-loud funny for adults as they may be scary for small children.) Titus airs his grievances, complaining that he has not had the power he feels he deserves. Now, given the chance, he declares, “I’ll burn the whole world down!” I’ll let you guess how that works out for him.
“Hoppers” may have the trappings of an environmentalist sermon, but its lessons are far deeper and more traditional than that. In the end, Mabel and the mayor, who in one scene is shown making pancakes for his mother’s breakfast, are more frenemies than nemeses. The human-mind-to-animal-body project is shuttered, lest we begin to anticipate &#8220;Hoppers 2: Frankenstein&#8217;s Beaver.&#8221;
Pixar finally remembered how to make a good movie, and it just had to focus on a unique story rooted in truth: The ends don’t justify the means, might doesn&#8217;t make right, and “taking back the power” is no way to achieve human (or animal) progress.

HOPPERS-ONLINE-USE_h170_27c_4k.pub16.1244

Pixar Finally Gets It Right With Hoppers. And There’s A Twist Parents Won’t See Coming

Movies

Just before Pixar celebrated their first big win of the year at the box office with “Hoppers,” Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter explained why the company decided to cut the gay storyline in the original film “Elio” last year.
“Hoppers” is being lauded because it doesn’t push any inkling of LGBT themes that have become quite common in animated films recently. “Elio,” meanwhile, flirted with the idea, and it was widely considered to be a box office flop.
The original narrative included tidbits about former director Adrian Molina’s experience growing up gay, as <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/media/pixar-disney-franchises-pete-docter-80c57f9d">reported by</a> The Wall Street Journal. But Docter said the studio opted to change it up because parents weren’t necessarily ready to have those discussions with their young children watching the film.
“We’re making a movie, not hundreds of millions of dollars of therapy,” the Pixar exec said. “As time’s gone on, I realized my job is to make sure the films appeal to everybody.”
The film tells the tale of an 11-year-old boy, Elio, who bonds with aliens. The outlet noted that the original storyline showed Elio raising a child in the future with a same sex partner.
Upon its release, The Hollywood Reporter <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/elio-pixar-america-ferrera-director-queer-2-1236301860/">described</a> Elio as a “queer-coded character” whose “characterization gradually faded away throughout the production process.”
LGBT activists who worked on the film blamed these edits for its poor performance. “Suddenly, you remove this big, key piece, which is all about identity, and Elio just becomes about totally nothing,” one former Pixar artist told THR. “The Elio that is in theaters right now is far worse than Adrian’s best version of the original.” Another said the final character version was “generic.”
Meanwhile, there was speculation that “Elio” never took off because those “queer coded” themes were leaked to the media and parents were avoiding it.
After being understood as a hitmaker for years with beloved projects such as the “Toy Story” franchise beginning in 1995, “Monsters Inc” (2001), “Finding Nemo” (2003), “The Incredibles” (2004), “Up” (2009), “Inside Out,” (2015), and a slew of others, Pixar, which was acquired by Disney in 2006, seemed to lose its way by going too niche. It produced sequels to some of its most popular titles, but also came up with out-of-the-box concepts like the controversial “Turning Red” (2022), a movie about puberty.
Then there was that whole “Lightyear” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gay-kiss-included-woke-toy-story-spinoff-lightyear-struggles-at-box-office">same sex kiss fiasco</a> in 2022, which proved that even Pixar films based on treasured IP weren’t guaranteed to hit, especially if they included topics parents didn’t want their kids to see.

Elio

Pixar Exec Explains Why Studio Killed Gay Storyline In Animated Children’s Film

Animation

Entertainment

LGBTQ

U.S.

Disney-Pixar&#8217;s latest box office bomb &#8220;Elio&#8221; was supposed to be even worse, according to a <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/elio-pixar-america-ferrera-director-queer-2-1236301860/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> published Monday by The Hollywood Reporter — but a number of elements were cut after a screening of the film went nowhere with the audience.
The movie&#8217;s titular character was originally written as &#8220;queer-coded&#8221; — a nod to the film&#8217;s original openly-gay director Adrian Molina — with photos in Elio&#8217;s bedroom that suggested he was crushing on a boy, and a scene where he shows off the clothing he created from trash he found on the beach.
Vestiges of the latter scene remained in the finished product, as THR reported: &#8220;Hints at the trash fashion remain in the released film, with the boy wearing a cape decorated with discarded cutlery and soda can tabs, although without any explanation for the unusual attire.&#8221;
Some of the elements were whittled away throughout the production process, as leadership reportedly pressed for Elio to be more masculine.
But still, the writing was on the wall after a screening that took place in Arizona back in 2023. Not one person in the audience, despite several saying they enjoyed the film, said that they would pony up the cash to see it in a theater.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Pixar massively changed ‘ELIO’ after the original cut was test screened &amp; not a single person raised their hand when asked if they’d pay to see the film in a movie theater
Elio was also initially a queer-coded character until leadership told them to make him more masculine… <a href="https://t.co/3VReaNSSQW">pic.twitter.com/3VReaNSSQW</a>
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) <a href="https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1939809054638932454?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 30, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Things did not go better for Molina when a cut of the film was viewed by Pixar boss Pete Docter, and he left the project. New directors Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi took over, and although a number of those associated with the project said good things about Sharafian and Shi, they complained about the fate of the film.
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&#8220;I was deeply saddened and aggrieved by the changes that were made,” former Pixar assistant editor Sarah Ligatich, a member of the company’s internal LGBTQ group PixPRIDE, said. &#8220;The exodus of talent after that cut was really indicative of how unhappy a lot of people were that they had changed and destroyed this beautiful work.&#8221;
Another Pixar artist who asked to remain anonymous told THR, &#8220;It was pretty clear through the production of the first version of the film that [studio leaders] were constantly sanding down these moments in the film that alluded to Elio’s sexuality of being queer &#8230; Suddenly, you remove this big, key piece, which is all about identity, and &#8216;Elio&#8217; just becomes about totally nothing. The &#8216;Elio&#8217; that is in theaters right now is far worse than Adrian’s best version of the original.&#8221;

Pixar Bomb ‘Elio’ Was Supposed To Be Super Gay, Only Changed After Dismal Screening

Hollywood

Media

Politics

queer

Disney and Pixar&#8217;s latest offering is lagging well behind box office expectations — and the animation studio isn&#8217;t taking it sitting down.
“Elio” has earned just $35 million worldwide since its June 20 release, a record-low for Pixar. The film — which addresses themes like childhood and social isolation through the story of &#8220;Elio, a space fanatic with an active imagination and a huge alien obsession&#8221; — only brought in $21 million in ticket sales during its first three days in theaters.
In response to the disappointing numbers, Pixar shared a snarky post on its official Instagram account.
In the video, a woman addresses the reaction to &#8220;Elio,&#8221; which isn’t a remake or sequel, saying “Stop complaining that Disney doesn’t make original stories if you don’t show up to movie theaters and support them in the first place.”
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“Who… who said that?” a woman in her car says by way of reaction. “Oh my gosh, I thought I was the only one in my car. But anyway, there’s a new original story,” she continued, holding up a photo of the movie poster.
“Look at that, from Disney-Pixar, called Elio,” she <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DLaQFO-yad-/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">went on</a>. “You should go ahead and support it, it comes out this Friday so yeah, you should go to the movie theater, thank you.”
Commenters on the Instagram post noted the lack of marketing for the film, which they indicated may have contributed to the lackluster results.
“Maybe actually market the movie then???” one comment read.
“Some marketing would&#8217;ve helped… but yes it deserves way better; it&#8217;s such a good movie!!” another commenter echoed.
“I think what drove people away from this one was reusing that same animation style. So many people are wanting something different and we’ve now gotten it quite a few times with movies and shorts,” another person wrote.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m beyond excited to see this new movie! I think it’s just time to switch up the animation again. Also there was barely any marketing for the movie,” a third said.
“Elio” is the latest in a long line of Disney flops, but there have also been several success stories, including the live action remake of “Lilo &amp; Stitch,” which earned over $945 million worldwide.

Pixar Blames Fans For ‘Elio’ Flopping, Says ‘Stop Complaining’ About Lack Of Original Content

Pixar Blames Fans For 'Elio' Flopping, Says 'Stop Complaining' About Lack Of Original Content

Disney ended 2024 by erasing a trans character from an upcoming streaming series. Weeks later, the Mouse House threw in the towel on its DEI policies.
It seems the cultural war on woke is off to a roaring start in Trump 2.0. right? Not so fast.
For every hard-fought battle there are new losses to absorb. Yes, free speech is on the ascendancy, from the return of roast comedy to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/zuckerberg-says-meta-restoring-free-speech-will-get-rid-of-fact-checkers">Facebook scrapping unscrupulous fact-checkers.</a> There’s still too much evidence that the woke rot infesting Western society won’t be dispatched overnight.
The war for common sense has only begun.
Let’s start with the good news. The Disney+ series “Win or Lose” follows a co-ed middle-school softball team battling for the championship. The Pixar show planned a trans-themed story arc for later in the season. That plan got hijacked weeks before the show’s February 19 debut. Disney&#8217;s <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/disney-pulls-transgender-storyline-win-or-lose-1236088172/">corporate comments</a> on the matter could have been written by The Heritage Foundation or PragerU:
<blockquote>When it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline.</blockquote>
This is the same company where an executive once bragged about her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/not-at-all-secret-gay-agenda-disney-employees-break-down-adding-queerness-to-shows-and-degenderizing-theme-parks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“not-at-all-secret gay agenda.”</a>
That wasn’t all.
Disney just downgraded its DEI commitments, vowing to focus more on the bottom line. Imagine a mega-company having to say that out loud. The company also removed trigger warnings for classic Disney titles like “Dumbo” and “Peter Pan” on its Disney+ service.
Residents around the nation’s Capitol won’t be seeing any drag shows or trans-positive stories at The Kennedy Center moving forward. President Donald Trump installed a new board to oversee the cultural Mecca, putting the center’s “woke” programming in the rear-view mirror.
<div id="attachment_877377" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-877377" class="wp-image-877377 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-2188398741-864x576.jpg" alt="Members of the Grateful Dead Bill Kreutzmann, from left, Bobby Weir, and Mickey Hart attend the 47th Kennedy Center Honors ceremony in Washington, DC, on Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts 47th honorees for lifetime artistic achievements include Francis Ford Coppola, the Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, Arturo Sandoval, and The Apollo, the first organization honored in the history of the Kennedy Center Awards. Photographer: Ron Sachs/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-2188398741-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-2188398741-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-2188398741-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-2188398741.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Members of the Grateful Dead &#8230; attend the 47th Kennedy Center Honors ceremony in Washington, DC, on Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024. Ron Sachs/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images</div>
Woke may appear to be on the ropes, but we’re seeing more than a few examples suggesting it’s ready to fight another day. It’s particularly strong across the pond. 
Consider the University of the West of England Bristol. The school created <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/university-put-over-200-trigger-warnings-shakespeare-writings-says-request-came-from-students" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more than 200 trigger warnings</a> for William Shakespeare’s body of work, including notes about “extreme weather.”
The scary part? Fox News reports the student body members requested it.
U.K. police are cracking down on people who share the “wrong” thoughts on social media, too, an alarming escalation of the woke movement’s Thought Police.
Even beloved movies aren’t safe from the waning woke tide.
A less “problematic” version of 1986’s “Crocodile Dundee” screened in both the U.K. and Australia. The so-called “Encore Cut” of the film <a href="https://7news.com.au/news/sally-bowrey-why-the-re-release-of-crocodile-dundee-wont-be-the-same-as-the-one-you-saw-in-the-80s-c-17491985" target="_blank" rel="noopener">removed critical scenes</a>, including Paul Hogan’s character groping a trans person’s genitals and brandishing a weapon.
The latter features the film’s most iconic line: “That’s not a knife. THAT’S a knife.”
That censored edition debuted in England and in Hogan’s native Australia. The “improved” “Dundee” goes into wider re-release in Australia later this year.
<div id="attachment_877357" style="width: 869px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-877357" class="size-large wp-image-877357" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-159827921-859x576.jpg" alt="Paul Hogan and Linda Kozlowski in a scene from the film 'Crocodile Dundee', 1986. (Photo by Paramount/Getty Images)" width="859" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-159827921-859x576.jpg 859w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-159827921-300x201.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-159827921-768x515.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-159827921.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 859px) 100vw, 859px" />Paramount/Getty Images</div>
Stateside, the sexual thriller “Blink Twice” greeted theatrical audiences last year with a trigger warning about its R-rated content. The film follows two women who travel to a billionaire’s private island only to learn he doesn’t have their best interests at heart, to put it mildly.
That warning still haunts viewers on Prime Video. The streamer recently added the title to its content lineup and kept the warning intact.
Another infamous trigger warning hasn’t been memory holed, at least not yet. Max subscribers who want to revisit 1939’s “Gone with the Wind” must endure an “explainer” video sharing why the film’s 1930s-era values don’t align perfectly with the 21st century.
Recent woke attacks carried more than a whiff of violence.
Woke censors targeted Jewish performers throughout 2024, including actor-turned-comedian Michael Rapaport. Death threats <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/michael-rapaport-comedy-vault-shows-death-threats/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">canceled his Chicago-area appearance</a> at Batavia’s Comedy Vault last June. As recently as November other protesters tried to cancel the New York native’s shows in Chicago’s Vic Theatre.
<div id="attachment_877391" style="width: 875px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-877391" class="size-large wp-image-877391" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-2036403442-865x576.jpg" alt="TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - FEBRUARY 24: Michael Rapaport speaks to the crowd as people gather outside the HaKirya base which serves as the IDF’s headquarters to demand the return of the hostages held by Hamas on February 24, 2024 in Tel Aviv, Israel.” Frustrations with the government have grown as over 100 hostages remain captive in Gaza, after more than four months of war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)" width="865" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-2036403442-865x576.jpg 865w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-2036403442-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-2036403442-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-2036403442.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 865px) 100vw, 865px" />Roy Rochlin/Getty Images</div>
Other Jewish artists, including musician <a href="https://www.thefire.org/news/recent-concert-cancellations-jewish-rapper-matisyahu-reflect-continuing-threat-free-expression" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Matisyahu</a> and actor/author <a href="https://deadline.com/2024/03/stranger-things-actor-brett-gelman-signing-canceled-book-soup-safety-concerns-1235849470/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Brett Gelman</a> also saw their public appearances canceled due to woke-like protests.
There’s little reason to think they won’t face similar threats in 2025. In fact, Pro-Palestinian protesters just <a href="https://variety.com/2025/film/news/pro-palestine-protesters-captain-america-brave-new-world-premiere-boycott-1236304675/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called for a boycott</a> of the MCU release “Captain America: New World Order.” The film features a Jewish superhero named Sabra (Shira Haas) who works as part of the president’s security team.
The film downplays the character’s superpowers and doesn’t connect her directly to either Israel or the Mossad. (In Marvel Comics lore, Sabra worked with the latter group). The fact that Disney stripped the character of her overt Israeli roots speaks volumes.
Last month, an Amsterdam club canceled Jewish comedian <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/amsterdam-club-cancels-israeli-comedians-show-after-antisemitic-threats/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Yohay Sponder’s show</a> due to anti-Semitic threats.
The most ironic woke moment of 2025, so far, has a whiff of poetic justice. “Emilia Pérez’s” trans star Karla Sofía Gascón snagged a Best Actress Oscar nomination in January for the film. Awards show pundits figured Gascón could emerge triumphant come March 2, giving the Oscars the chance to make history by honoring a trans actor.
Then, the performer’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/emilia-perez-director-disavows-films-star-says-controversial-tweets-are-inexcusable" target="_blank" rel="noopener">old tweets resurfaced</a> all but crushing those chances.
Many argued that Oscar voters feted both Gascón and “Emilia Pérez” in the first place for political purposes. What better way to smite President Donald Trump than to elevate a trans musical?
The war on woke is a necessary one, and for the first time in years we’re seeing some major victories. The fight continues, and the woke warriors won’t give up easily.
* * *
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Hollywood Walk of Fame

Will Woke Exit Stage Left? Hollywood’s Culture Clash In Trump’s Second Act

Will Woke Exit Stage Left? Hollywood's Culture Clash In Trump's Second Act

Donald Trump

Kennedy Center

Woke Culture

It&#8217;s no secret that Disney isn&#8217;t doing well lately. They just laid off nearly 15% of the workforce at Pixar, their movie studio that used to produce guaranteed hits. But Pixar&#8217;s recent films &#8220;Elemental&#8221; and &#8220;Lightyear&#8221; were bombs, and the division hasn&#8217;t turned a profit in more than two years. People just didn&#8217;t go for the strained interracial/immigrant metaphor in &#8220;Elemental&#8221; or the same-sex kiss in “Lightyear,” or the rehashed, stale vibe of both projects.
Additionally, Disney&#8217;s much-touted &#8220;fully immersive&#8221; hotel called “Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser,” shut down late last year, after operating for less than two years. Disney had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the project, apparently on the theory that people cared so much about the &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; brand that they&#8217;d be willing to spend thousands of dollars for the privilege of staying two nights in a windowless concrete building posing as a spaceship. That didn&#8217;t pan out. Apparently people weren’t excited to stay in a hotel where the experience is seemingly designed to be as aggressively unpleasant as possible.
That same quarter, Disney&#8217;s streaming service, Disney+, reported a loss of more than a million subscribers. And that&#8217;s not even getting into Disney&#8217;s decision to get involved in Florida politics, on the side of activist teachers who want to talk to kindergartners about &#8220;gender identity&#8221; and &#8220;sexual orientation.&#8221;
Faced with this brand collapse, Disney had two options. One option was to retool their content to focus on entertainment and family values instead of activism, which is what Disney used to do, when it was a universally beloved and much more financially successful company. They could get back to their roots. Not in the sense of churning out more remakes, but in the sense of being a company that makes wholesome family films that capture a sense of wonder and imagination. 
The other option was to keep doing exactly what they’ve been doing, and continue to shove the same agenda — the equity/representation/LGBTQ approach — that they&#8217;ve been pushing for years now.
Eight months ago, Disney&#8217;s CEO, Bob Iger, publicly pledged to pursue the first option. He declared that Disney would refocus its efforts on entertainment, not political messaging. That was the plan, or at least the plan that was shared with the public. But that&#8217;s not what happened. 
Disney, over the past eight months, has apparently decided to double down on agenda-driven content, to the point that they&#8217;re openly attacking their own fans. It&#8217;s a remarkable turn of events, and it&#8217;s one that&#8217;s worth discussing because this development isn&#8217;t unique to Disney. And it suggests that &#8220;wokeness&#8221; may not be the best way to describe what we&#8217;re seeing at Disney and other major corporations like it. That&#8217;s certainly part of what we&#8217;re seeing, but there&#8217;s something else going on here. It looks a lot like corporate mediocrity run amok — the private-sector version of what we see across the public-sector bureaucracy. Unimpressive people with impressive-sounding credentials, who check the right demographic boxes, are taking the helm of businesses and products that they don&#8217;t understand. They&#8217;ve insinuated themselves into these companies like a cancer that&#8217;s evidently impossible to remove. And even when the company CEO publicly tells them one thing, they&#8217;re free to do another.
To get a better idea of what I mean, take a look at this interview from the other day, featuring Leslye Headland, the creator of the new Disney &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; show, &#8220;The Acolyte.&#8221; I don&#8217;t want to prejudice you in any way, so watch this clip with that introduction. This is the showrunner talking about her show. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aSFW5OO8fI" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Watch</a>: 
<iframe loading="lazy" title="ff" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OTRtQ_l8sPo?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Don&#8217;t worry about the story, or the plot, or the characters. Who has time for that? Instead, just listen to these two women call old &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; characters gay, and then giggle like schoolgirls. They are excited that this new &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; show will be the gayest &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; show yet. Which is, in every way, the exact opposite of what the audience actually wants.
The only thing you learn from that interview is that Leslye Headland is gay and has no respect whatsoever for her audience or her own show. This is how Disney is promoting the latest entry in a franchise they spent $4 billion to buy a decade ago. And that has a lot of fans wondering how exactly she was chosen for the role of showrunner. If her role is to push some subversive woke ideology, she&#8217;s not being very subversive about it. She&#8217;s just angering as many fans as she possibly can. That&#8217;s all this is.
And she&#8217;s not the only one doing it. The CEO of Lucasfilm — a woman named Kathleen Kennedy — just came out in defense of her showrunner. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/arts/television/leslye-headland-the-acolyte.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kennedy declared</a> that if you&#8217;re not a fan of how Leslye Headland is handling herself, then you probably hate women. 
<blockquote>I think Leslye has struggled a little bit with it. I think a lot of the women who step into Star Wars struggle with this a bit more. Because of the fan base being so male-dominated, they sometimes get attacked in ways that can be quite personal. &#8230; My belief is that storytelling does need to be representative of all people. That’s an easy decision for me.</blockquote>
Yes, she really said that. &#8220;Storytelling does need to be representative of all people,&#8221; says the CEO of Lucasfilm, as she mocks her own fanbase. These people are so dumb that they don&#8217;t even understand the words coming out of their own mouths. &#8220;Representative of all people,&#8221; really? Are they going to have eight billion characters in this show, one for each person on Earth? How exactly is this going to work? Is storytelling supposed to be “representative of all people” — whatever that means — or is it supposed to be representative of the creative vision of the storyteller?
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1381-disney-churns-out-its-gayest-star-wars-show-yet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h4>
I was going to show some more clips of these women, but it&#8217;s honestly too painful to subject you to. These are people who can&#8217;t even communicate without descending into valley girl nonsense, and they&#8217;re putting together shows that they expect millions of people to watch. Kathleen Kennedy was lucky enough to work with Steven Spielberg, and Leslye Headland worked on rom-coms with titles like &#8220;Sleeping With Other People.&#8221; Those are their credentials, and they&#8217;re considered impressive in the industry. So they get to continue butchering &#8220;Star Wars.” 
By the way, “The Acolyte” was released this week and — as has become a new tradition for “Star Wars” films and shows — it has a very high critics score on Rotten Tomatoes but a failing grade of 45% from the audience. 
Joel Berry, who apparently <a href="https://x.com/JoelWBerry/status/1798332506640626023?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">subjected himself</a> to at least some of the show, offered this review: 
<blockquote>The Acolyte is a queer, Marxist vandalization of the myth of Star Wars. In The Acolyte, the Force is a metaphor for cultural hegemonic power. The Jedi are a metaphor for cisgender white oppressors who hoard the power for themselves. Yes, it really is that obnoxious and stupid.</blockquote>
The account <a href="https://x.com/WallStreetSilv?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Wall Street Silver</a> offered this viewer warning: 
<blockquote>The Acolyte, Star Wars new series streaming, very woke. 1) main character has two mothers 2) main Jedi characters are all Black and Asian, no white men 3) only speaking role for white men in first episode is prisoners on prison ship.</blockquote>
So Disney has decided to right the ship by ramming it directly into another iceberg. That’s not to pick on &#8220;The Acolyte&#8221; too much, although it obviously deserves it. Because of the fact that Disney is now pumping out &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; shows on an assembly line, there&#8217;s another one I can mock as well called &#8220;Tales of the Empire.&#8221; This one is apparently geared towards kids, and I guess it features a nonbinary Jedi, based on how all of the characters use &#8220;they/them&#8221; pronouns to refer to his corpse. Watch this, if you can get through it:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="003 Star Wars They:Them Show" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XVGR4oFc2Z0?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This is the result of Disney&#8217;s big plan to focus on &#8220;entertainment&#8221; and not &#8220;messaging.&#8221; We have nonbinary Jedi and girl bosses making sure we get the gayest &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; ever.&#8221; And that&#8217;s not all.
As Bloomberg recently reported, Disney is now banking on the upcoming film &#8220;Inside Out 2&#8221; as the, &#8220;key to restoring the magic.&#8221; They think this film — a sequel to a movie from 2015 — is going to be a smash hit, to the point that they&#8217;re going to give it a 100-day run in theaters. As Bloomberg reports: 
<blockquote>If families show up for Inside Out 2 in the kinds of numbers Pixar used to see, it will reaffirm the studio’s standing. But if the movie fails, it will fuel concerns about the company’s relevance.</blockquote>
So what&#8217;s &#8220;Inside Out 2&#8221; going to be about? It&#8217;s hard to say, because it&#8217;s not out yet. But after some Googling, I came across this headline from an outlet called Pride.com. Here&#8217;s their assessment, based on the trailer: 
<blockquote>The long-awaited sequel to Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out isn’t hitting theaters until this summer, but the official trailer dropped this week…and it’s looking a little gay. &#8230; Fans think Inside Out 2 is going to be gay AF.</blockquote>
How brave is that? Are they also going to gay-ify “Inside Out” — which was kind of a middling Pixar entry in the first place? Who knows? But based on the fact that they can’t make anything that isn’t gay — we can assume the answer is yes.
This is all very woke, yes. It’s also incredibly lame and stale and unimaginative. That would also be an apt descriptor for what Disney is doing with its theme parks. As the writer <a href="https://x.com/KeenanPeachy/status/1798134848294637569?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Peachy Keenan documented</a> on X/Twitter yesterday, Disney is currently re-theming their famous &#8220;Splash Mountain&#8221; ride because apparently it is racist. And they&#8217;re creating a politically correct replacement.
Keenan watched all of Disney&#8217;s promotional materials, and she put together a comparison of the old ride with the new one. Basically, the new ride won&#8217;t have Princess Tiana in a nice dress with a handsome prince, or even a storyline of any kind: 
<blockquote>Instead, you get a lot of dead space, repeated boring animatronic who look like zombies compared to the Pirates animatronics, and Tiana—incredibly—in ugly baggy pants, no makeup, no nonsense hair, zero glamour. &#8230; It&#8217;s Girl Boss Tiana and she&#8217;s dressed like a Jungle Cruise.</blockquote>
Sounds thrilling. I was trying to figure out why all of this is happening at Disney — why they&#8217;re sabotaging their own brand, despite what the CEO said they&#8217;d do. And it&#8217;s clear that, whatever&#8217;s going on here, it&#8217;s not unique to Disney.
Consider what just happened at Cracker Barrel. Their CEO is a woman named Julie Felss Masino. She took the job last year. Previously, she worked at Taco Bell, Mattel, Sprinkles Cupcakes, Starbucks, and Macy&#8217;s. Of course, the clientele of every single one of these companies is very different from the typical Cracker Barrel, which skews older. But in general, her old jobs were mostly in the food industry, just like ”The Acolyte&#8221; showrunner&#8217;s jobs were mostly in the entertainment industry. And that&#8217;s good enough, so Julie Masino got the job.
Unfortunately, it&#8217;s not working out too well. Masino just announced on a call with investors that the company is, &#8220;just not as relevant as we once were.&#8221; To &#8220;ignite growth,&#8221; she said, it&#8217;s necessary to &#8220;revitalize&#8221; the brand. She then outlined a bunch of generic initiatives, like rewards programs that every other restaurant offers. Her announcement sent the stock down 11% immediately, putting it down nearly 50% in the past year. And why wouldn&#8217;t the stock drop? The new CEO clearly views Cracker Barrel as completely indistinguishable from every other place she&#8217;s ever worked. If anything, she probably hates the brand. And we can assume she hates the brand’s primarily blue collar, Christian clientele. 
We saw something similar with that Bud Light VP, Alissa Heinerscheid, when she dismissed her own customers as &#8220;fratty&#8221; and said Bud Light needed a rebrand. They brought on Dylan Mulvaney, and we all know how that turned out. Alissa Heinerscheid, like Julie Masino, had great credentials. She went to Harvard and Wharton, and had worked at big companies like Listerine and General Mills. But she didn&#8217;t understand Bud Light or care about the customers, so she destroyed the brand.
That&#8217;s now unfolding at Cracker Barrel as well. And it&#8217;s a very preventable, slow-motion collapse. On social media, someone using the handle &#8220;Pine Barron&#8221; summed up the problem better than anyone I&#8217;ve seen. Here&#8217;s what he wrote, describing an alternative to Cracker Barrel&#8217;s current CEO: 
<blockquote>Imagine a CEO who actually loved Midwestern and Southern culture. What about pop up concerts and endorsements by Zach Bryan and Morgan Wallen? Why not lean into its heritage as an &#8216;after church&#8217; spot and create programs for church groups including discounts and shuttle bus services. Grassroots evangelical support has made huge hits of movies like the Sound of Freedom and restaurant chains like Chik-Fil-A. &#8230; Imagine a public company with leadership that didn’t hate the blue collar evangelical population. There are so many obvious partnership opportunities with brands like NASCAR or country music stars. I don’t think this is wokeness or girlbossery per se, but rather typical corporate mediocrity. &#8230; They hired a generic MBA type who built a career on the massive brand equity of Yum Brands and Starbucks. &#8230; Just a cog in the corporate machine. I hope we will see titans of industry again but this is not how we’ll get them.</blockquote>
That does a fairly good job of putting into perspective everything we&#8217;ve been seeing over the past few years at Disney, Bud Light, and so many other major corporations. And I think it&#8217;s a more apt explanation than simply chalking all of this decline up to &#8220;wokeness.&#8221;
This trend of hiring interchangeable CEOs with resumes and trendy demographics has been an unmitigated disaster because it overlooks what the leader of every company should have, at a bare minimum — which is an understanding of their product and a genuine respect for their customers. Without that, you get shows like &#8220;The Acolyte.&#8221; You get Dylan Mulvaney and angry customers, and your stock collapses along with your brand.
All the combined efforts of feminism and diversity and equity and wokeness have brought us to this point. But it&#8217;s bureaucracy and inertia that&#8217;s keeping it alive, long after everyone&#8217;s tired of it. That inertia is the reason why — whether you&#8217;re going to a restaurant or a movie theater — you&#8217;re now guaranteed a product that&#8217;s as mediocre as the people who created it.

Disney Acolyte

Disney Churns Out Its ‘Gayest’ Star Wars Show Yet

Disney Churns Out Its 'Gayest' Star Wars Show Yet

Bud Light

Cracker Barrel

Readers Pass

Star Wars

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/who-is-disneys-new-star-wars-director-the-queen-of-raunch-comedy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Disney</a> has begun major layoffs at <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pixars-elemental-with-non-binary-character-flops-at-box-office-with-2nd-worst-opening-in-studio-history" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pixar</a> Animation Studios as part of proposed cost-cutting measures it announced earlier this year.
Nearly 200 people, or approximately 14 percent of the company&#8217;s work force, will be let go as part of the biggest restructuring in the history of the studio, the <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/pixar-layoffs-hit-storied-animation-studio-1235904847/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hollywood Reporter</a> noted. However, none of the layoffs will affect top leadership, the outlet reported.
In January, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/disney-owned-animation-studio-pixar-poised-undergo-layoffs-2024-techcrunch-2024-01-11/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reuters</a> reported that the layoffs could go as high as 20%, bringing the total number of employees at the studio to under 1,000.
Pixar will focus on its feature films and not on direct-to-streaming series, as had been the focus during the pandemic, THR noted. 
The cuts are part of proposed changes by Disney CEO <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/disney-ceo-bob-iger-addresses-recent-marvel-and-pixar-flops" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bob Iger</a>, who said in 2023 that Disney planned to reduce streaming content, focus on quality, and cut its workforce by thousands to save money, as previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/disney-to-cut-thousands-of-jobs-to-save-money-as-desantis-set-to-take-control-of-companys-orlando-district-under-new-bill-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
Variety <a href="https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/disney-layoffs-cost-savings-1235517203/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> in February 2023 that Iger said on the company’s earnings call for the final quarter of fiscal year 2022 that the company will reduce its workforce by 7,000 employees.
The cut represents 3.2% of the company’s 220,000 global workforce, the report said.
The company hopes to save more than $5 billion in costs, half of which is aimed at cutting back on “non-content costs,” the report said. The company also is looking to cut back on sports by roughly $3 billion.
“I have enormous respect and appreciation for the dedication of our employees worldwide,” Iger said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
14% of Pixar’s employees will be laid off as part of Disney’s cost-cutting measures.
It will be the biggest restructuring in Pixar&#8217;s history.
(Source: <a href="https://t.co/T98Rp0iWUu">https://t.co/T98Rp0iWUu</a>) <a href="https://t.co/nugpFGzA0n">pic.twitter.com/nugpFGzA0n</a>
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) <a href="https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1792929342927863955?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 21, 2024</a></blockquote>
The report said that Iger laid out a new company structure for Disney comprised of three separate segments: Disney Entertainment, ESPN, and Disney Parks.
In June last year, 75 jobs were cut at Pixar, including two executives responsible for the box office flop of “Lightyear,” <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/walt-disneys-pixar-animation-eliminates-75-positions-2023-06-03/">Reuters</a> reported. The cuts included &#8220;Lightyear&#8221; director Angus MacLane, a 26-year animator, and Galyn Susman, producer of &#8220;Lightyear,&#8221; the outlet noted.
The studio — responsible for the popular &#8220;Toy Story,&#8221; &#8220;The Incredibles,&#8221; and &#8220;Cars&#8221; franchises — suffered with the box office failure of &#8220;Lightyear.&#8221; The animated film had a reported budget of $200 million and ended up only bringing in $<a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt10298810/?ref_=bo_se_r_1">226.7 million</a> in worldwide ticket sales. By comparison, “<a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0435761/?ref_=bo_se_r_2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Toy Story 3</a>” and “<a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt1979376/?ref_=bo_se_r_4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Toy Story 4</a>” each earned more than $1 billion globally.
Ryan Saavedra contributed to this piece.

disney plus

Disney Has Begun Major Layoffs At Pixar Animation Studios

Celebrities

Jobs

Lightyear

Netflix and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-the-magic-is-leaving-the-kingdom-at-disney" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Disney</a> are responsible for pushing the gay agenda and creating the most LGBTQ content in Hollywood for movies in 2022, with an overall 8% increase over the prior year.
<a href="https://assets.glaad.org/m/3235608fa1547fcf/original/GLAAD-2023-Studio-Responsibility-Index.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GLAAD&#8217;s Annual Studio Responsibility Index</a> was released on Monday and showed that of the top 10 major motion picture studios that were analyzed, Disney and Netflix far exceeded the rest with more &#8220;LGBTQ-inclusive&#8221; content and woke films released between January 1 and December 31, 2022, than all the rest.
The top 10 studios the group looked at were A24, Amazon Studios, Apple TV+, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount Global, Sony, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Discovery, and their subsidiaries.
In order for GLAAD to determine how much inclusivity a film had, the activist group used the &#8220;The Vito Russo Test,&#8221; which rates a film on the following criteria:
<ol>
<li> The film contains a character that is identifiably lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer.</li>
<li> That character must not be solely or predominantly defined by their sexual orientation or gender identity (i.e. they are comprised of the same sort of unique character traits commonly used to differentiate straight/cisgender characters from one another).</li>
<li> The LGBTQ character must be tied to the plot in such a way that the character&#8217;s removal would have a significant effect, meaning the character is not there to simply provide colorful commentary, paint urban authenticity, or set up a punchline. The character must matter.</li>
<li> The LGBTQ character&#8217;s story must not be outwardly offensive (avoids defaulting to well-known tropes or stereotypes with no further development). In films with multiple LGBTQ characters, at least one character must pass this point for the film to pass the test.</li>
</ol>
And according to the GLAAD study, it&#8217;s Walt Disney Studios and Netflix who <a href="https://boundingintocomics.com/2023/10/02/glaads-studio-responsibility-index-report-reveals-netflix-and-disney-produced-the-most-films-with-lgbtq-content-in-2022/#:~:text=The%20Walt%20Disney%20Company%20scored" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pushed more LGBTQ content</a> on their viewers than the rest.
Disney produced 24 movies out of 59 with LGBTQ content, meaning 41% of its movies were &#8220;inclusive.&#8221; Diving inside the Disney numbers, seven of the movies came from Walt Disney Studios, five were from Disney+, and 12 were from Hulu. In its summary, GLAAD found that &#8220;Walt Disney Studios included LGBTQ characters in all five of its Disney theatrical releases last year.
Films that passed their test included movies such as &#8220;Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,&#8221; &#8220;Thor: Love and Thunder,&#8221; &#8220;Better Nate Than Ever,&#8221; &#8220;Turning Red,&#8221; and more.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/animated-gay-teen-romance-film-is-woke-disneys-latest-box-office-bomb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Disney</a> was also specifically singled out in the report for such films as &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/disneys-strange-world-on-track-to-lose-100-million" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Strange World</a>&#8221; and &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gay-kiss-included-woke-toy-story-spinoff-lightyear-struggles-at-box-office" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lightyear</a>,&#8221; both which bombed at the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/we-asked-too-much-of-the-audience-disney-exec-offers-excuse-for-lightyear-flop-makes-no-mention-of-same-sex-kiss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">box office</a>, as well as Disney+&#8217;s &#8220;Zombies 3,&#8221; for its LGBTQ stories directed right at children.
Netflix&#8217;s contribution to the woke agenda, was responsible for also producing 24 &#8220;LGBTQ-inclusive films&#8221; out of its 107, which meant 22% of its total releases met the LGBTQ criteria, the report found.
Films that passed their test included movies like &#8220;Falling For Christmas,&#8221; &#8220;Do Revenge,&#8221; &#8220;Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,&#8221; &#8220;The Royal Treatment,&#8221; &#8220;Senior Year,&#8221; and more.
The streaming site was also recognized for its transgender hero boy film &#8220;Wendell &amp; Wild,&#8221; with an LGBTQ character story directed at kids.
The report noted that over the last decade LGBTQ films have increased from Hollywood studios by 50%, something the group celebrated.
&#8220;Of the 350 films released theatrically and on tracked streaming services by the ten distributors counted in 2022, 100 (28.5 percent) were LGBTQ-inclusive,&#8221; GLAAD said in the report, calling it the &#8220;the highest percentage and number recorded in this report.&#8221;
&#8220;Of the 100 LGBTQ-inclusive films released in 2022, 55 (55 percent) included gay men, 45 (45 percent) included lesbians, 21 (21 percent) included bisexual+ characters, 12 (12 percent) included transgender characters, and 17 (17 percent) included queer characters that don&#8217;t fall specifically into those other labels,&#8221; the report added.
GLAAD CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said this year&#8217;s results shows that &#8220;the stories told in those films have been an inextricable part of a culture-shift seen and experienced by the LGBTQ community with support for LGBTQ people and acceptance at an all-time high.&#8221;
&#8220;Hollywood has accelerated acceptance for LGBTQ people worldwide with stories including &#8216;Blockers,&#8217; &#8216;Love,&#8217; &#8216;Simon,&#8217; &#8216;Booksmart&#8217;, &#8216;Strange World&#8217;, &#8216;Bros&#8217;, &#8216;Fire Island&#8217;, &#8216;Anything&#8217;s Possible&#8217;, and many more,&#8221; she added.
(Disclosure: The Daily Wire has announced plans for kids’ entertainment content.)
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-pixar-reinstates-same-sex-kiss-in-lightyear-film-over-so-called-dont-say-gay-bill-source-shares" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Report: Pixar Reinstates Same-Sex Kiss In &#8216;Lightyear&#8217; Film Over So-Called &#8216;Don’t Say Gay Bill&#8217;</a>

Full Woke: Disney And Netflix Created The Most ‘LGBTQ-Inclusive’ Content In 2022

Full Woke: Disney And Netflix Created The Most 'LGBTQ-Inclusive' Content In 2022

kids

Netflix

Disney CEO <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/disney-ceo-bob-iger-defends-marvel-says-cooglers-work-on-black-panther-not-less-than-what-scorsese-or-coppola-have-done" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bob Iger</a> addressed the recent flops at the box office for Marvel movies like &#8220;Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and animated Pixar films such as &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/we-asked-too-much-of-the-audience-disney-exec-offers-excuse-for-lightyear-flop-makes-no-mention-of-same-sex-kiss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lightyear</a>&#8221; and &#8220;Elemental.&#8221;
During Iger&#8217;s appearance at the Sun Valley Conference, he called the Disney film&#8217;s performance &#8220;disappointing,&#8221; adding that most of the problem was the decision to offer too much content on the Disney+ streaming service, <a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/news/marvel-flops-too-many-disney-tv-shows-bob-iger-1235669262/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Variety</a> reported.
&#8220;There have been some disappointments,&#8221; Iger admitted. &#8220;We would have liked some of our more recent releases to perform better. It&#8217;s reflective not as a problem from a personnel perspective, but I think in our zeal to basically grow our content significantly to serve mostly our streaming offerings, we ended up taxing our people way beyond — in terms of their time and their focus — way beyond where they had been.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Bob Iger has acknowledged that Pixar movies going straight to Disney+ has caused an impact in the demand for seeing new Pixar movies in theaters.
However, he also adds that the studio has had some “creative misses.”
(Source: <a href="https://twitter.com/CNBC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CNBC</a>) <a href="https://t.co/CWZKoxbiKV">pic.twitter.com/CWZKoxbiKV</a>
&mdash; DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) <a href="https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1679516690600665089?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 13, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Marvel&#8217;s a great example of that,&#8221; he added. &#8220;They had not been in the TV business at any significant level. Not only did they increase their movie output, but they ended up making a number of television series, and frankly, it diluted focus and attention. That is, I think, more of the cause than anything.&#8221;
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And when it comes to such Pixar flops as &#8220;Elemental,&#8221; Iger said the COVID-influenced decision to skip theaters and go straight to streaming, which was also the strategy for movies like &#8220;Luca&#8221; and &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/my-panda-my-choice-mom-disney-and-pixars-turning-red-has-some-parents-outraged-over-themes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Turning Red,</a>&#8221; was a mistake.
&#8220;That may have created an expectation in the audience that they&#8217;re going to eventually be on streaming and probably quickly, and there wasn’t an urgency,&#8221; said Iger.
&#8220;And then I think there was some, I think you&#8217;d have to agree that there were some creative misses, as well,&#8221; he added, without specifying further.
The &#8220;Ant-Man and the Wasp&#8221; sequel was released in February and, to date, has failed to earn $500 million worldwide.
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/woke-disney-lost-almost-900-million-on-last-8-films-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Woke Disney Lost Almost $900 Million On Last 8 Films: Report</a>

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