Rachel Zegler taught them nothing. 
The star of the live-action “Snow White” reboot trashed the source material in comments that quickly went viral in 2023. Zegler followed that up by attacking MAGA nation months before the expensive film hit theaters, wishing Trump voters “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/disneys-snow-white-actress-attacks-trump-voters-tells-people-to-leave-x" target="_blank" rel="noopener">never know peace</a>.”
More viral infamy. What happened next? “Snow White” flopped, hard, in its March theatrical debut. 
It was the clearest example of a star sabotaging their own film, a warning for other actors not do the same. They didn’t listen.
Celebrities don’t open up to Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and other Legacy Media outlets because they’re bored. It’s all part of the marketing machine meant to fill movie theater seats.
It’s why stars sing Karaoke in moving cars, gulp down hotter than hot wings and otherwise make themselves available to podcast interviewers weeks before their new film or TV show bows.
It’s Marketing 101. Yet stars use these moments to push their political agendas, lash out at conservatives and cause potential customers to avoid the nearest movie house.
You’d think one of Hollywood’s savviest storytellers might know the drill. Yet writer/director James Gunn ignored ZeglerGate in the days leading up to “Superman’s” release.
Gunn’s Man of Steel reboot is the key to DC Comics relaunching its superhero universe on the big screen. Gunn, who previously delivered three “Guardians of the Galaxy” films, was entrusted by Warner Bros. to revive Superman and kickstart who knows how many new superhero films.
<div id="attachment_946199" style="width: 742px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-946199" class="size-large wp-image-946199" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224028853-732x576.jpg" alt="HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - JULY 07: Peter Safran, Nicholas Hoult, Rachel Brosnahan, David Corenswet and James Gunn, Co-Chairman &amp; CEO, DC Studios arrives at the Los Angeles Premiere Of Warner Bros. &quot;Superman&quot; at TCL Chinese Theatre on July 07, 2025 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Steve Granitz/FilmMagic)" width="732" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224028853-732x576.jpg 732w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224028853-300x236.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224028853-768x605.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224028853.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 732px) 100vw, 732px" />Steve Granitz/FilmMagic</div>
The movie’s marketing campaign stayed upbeat and positive for month after month. No one on Team Superman brought up political or culture war issues. It was all about the iconic character – an overgrown Boy Scout who came to Earth to protect it.
And then, mere days before the film’s July 11 debut, <a href="https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/james-gunn-interview-superman-film-2025-david-corenswet-dhb3bw3rp">Gunn got political</a> during a Times of London interview. And nasty.
<blockquote>I mean, Superman is the story of America … An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country, but for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost.” I ask if he has considered how differently the film might play in say, blue state New York — aka Metropolis — and Kansas, where Kent grew up? “Yes, it plays differently,” Gunn admits. “But it’s about human kindness and obviously there will be jerks out there who are just not kind and will take it as offensive just because it is about kindness. But screw them.</blockquote>
The ”Them” in that sentence may have been eager to see Gunn’s take on Superman. Not anymore.
Brother Sean Gunn, who has a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo in the film, <a href="https://variety.com/2025/film/news/james-gunn-superman-immigrant-backlash-response-1236449068/">doubled down</a> on his older brother’s rhetoric on the red carpet.
<blockquote>My reaction to [the backlash] is that it is exactly what the movie is about …  we support our people, you know? We love our immigrants. Yes, Superman is an immigrant, and yes, the people that we support in this country are immigrants and if you don’t like that, you’re not American. People who say no to immigrants are against the American way.</blockquote>
It’s worth noting Gunn’s “Superman” is neither political nor woke. So this was a case of Gunn pushing his personal politics into the public arena, knowing how social and new media outlets would process it.
And, evidently, not caring what impact it might have.
“Superman” may end up being too big to fail. It’s a beloved character who unites generations of movie goers, and the double barrel Gunn comments might not be enough to hurt its box office standing.
Or it could be enough of a wedge to stop the film from making all the money to spark a fresh wave of superhero films.
Why risk it?
It isn’t just Gunn ignoring the lesson Zegler learned the hard way. Omnipresent actor Pedro Pascal stars in the second-biggest film of the summer. He’s Reed Richards in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” the reboot of a reboot of the Marvel Comics super family.
<div id="attachment_946201" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-946201" class="size-large wp-image-946201" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224148805-864x576.jpg" alt="BERLIN, GERMANY - JULY 08: Pedro Pascal attends the &quot;The Fantastic Four: First Steps&quot; blue carpet fan event at Das Center on July 08, 2025 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Gerald Matzka/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224148805-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224148805-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224148805-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224148805.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Gerald Matzka/Getty Images</div>
He’s spent the last few weeks attacking J.K. Rowling for defending women from trans female athletes. Bullies, Pascal said, make him sick. And he considers the “Harry Potter” author to be just that.
He also used a red carpet appearance <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2025/07/09/pedro-pascal-uses-fantastic-four-premiere-to-lecture-about-protecting-trans-people-in-a-world-they-never-asked-to-be-brought-into/">to push for trans rights</a>. He has a trans sibling and routinely speaks out on the issue.
<blockquote>It’s important to protect people, especially those simply asking for the right to exist in bodies that belong to them and in the world that they never asked to be brought into … It’s a very, very small, vulnerable, inspiring, courageous and brave community that fills me with a lot of inspiration. Therefore, it’s very important to protect that. They would do that for us.</blockquote>
Oh, and “The Fantastic Four” opens July 25.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. Actor Christian Bale <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O6Kqy3JGnY">called Moses a “terrorist”</a> during the runup to the release of “Exodus: Gods and Kings.” That 2014 film bombed.
The list of stars getting aggressively political while promoting their movies, in general, is too long to include here. It’s standard procedure in Hollywood, but the Zegler fallout suggested stars might understand their corrosive takes will hurt their bottom lines at some point. Plus, the industry is buckling under seismic tech advancements, from A.I. threats to streaming platforms struggling to make ends meet.
They don’t seem to care.
Artists can say whatever they want, whenever they want. That’s the beauty of the First Amendment. They shouldn’t be punished for holding a specific point of view.
That said, an actor’s job is to promote their work to ensure they get even more work down the short road. Insulting potential audience members and stoking Culture War fires for no reason is incredibly short-sighted.
There are countless ways consumers can spend their leisure time today, from video games to doom-scrolling on social media. We need an excuse, preferably a big one, to shlep to a theater and pay the exorbitant fees for tickets and popcorn.
Artists like Gunn, Zegler and Pascal often make it easy for us. Nah … I’ll Netflix and chill instead.
* * *
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.

“Superman” World Tour – Manila

The Rachel Zegler Effect: How Hollywood Continues To Lose Audiences With Just A Few Comments

Hollywood

James Gunn

Leftists

Movies

Superman

Woke Culture

Home Depot, Netflix, and Delta Airlines are just some of the companies being warned to cut ties with a left-wing program that pushes companies to cover sex change procedures for employees, a letter from a former attorney general obtained by The Daily Wire reveals.
The <a href="https://1792exchange.com/">1792 Exchange</a>, which fights the diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda in corporate America, is urging 92 companies to end their participation in the Corporate Equality Index, a rubric used by the far-left Human Rights Campaign (HRC) to grade companies’ adherence to left-wing gender ideology.
The Corporate Equality Index, the 1792 Exchange says, “functions as a social credit scoring system, promoting partisan initiatives that impede sound corporate governance” and even “pressures companies to adopt unlawful policies that only sow division.”
“You should cease participation in this index immediately,” the letter charges.
The 1792 Exchange is run by former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who told The Daily Wire that some companies simply don’t understand just how radical the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index really is.
“Unfortunately, many companies have no idea what they’re actually signing up for when they participate in the HRC’s survey. This should be a wake-up call,” Cameron told The Daily Wire. “As we move forward with America’s renewal, 1792 Exchange urges every responsible HR leader to reconsider their involvement with HRC and refocus on merit, excellence, and integrity in the workplace.”
Other notable companies that received the letter include Costco, Cracker Barrel, Lowe&#8217;s, Albertson’s, Autozone, and Rite Aid.
In order to receive a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-left-wing-activists-are-trying-to-save-corporate-wokeness">perfect score</a> on the Corporate Equality Index, companies in previous years had to offer healthcare coverage for so-called “medically necessary” transgender hormone replacement therapy, sex change operations, and puberty blockers for youth, while also establishing supplier diversity pipelines focused on LGBTQ+ suppliers.
Several companies, including Walmart, McDonald’s, and Tractor Supply, have <a href="https://1792exchange.com/dei-tracker/">ended their participation</a> in the Corporate Equality Index in recent years. Ford Motor Company similarly backed out of the left-wing organization’s scoring system, <a href="https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1828820035118518737">announcing in a memo</a> last year that it would “stop participating in external culture surveys such as the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.”
Now, Cameron is calling on the 92 corporations addressed in his letter to follow suit.
“As you prepare for the upcoming 2026 CEI survey, I encourage you to carefully consider the risks and consequences of continued participation,” Cameron writes before offering them assistance in decoupling from the far-left organization. “We are here to support you&#8230;your team of experienced professionals offers confidential, pro bono assistance to help you align your company’s policies with both business success and legal prudence.”
“Let’s ensure that workplaces remain welcoming, productive, and focused on excellence,” Cameron’s letter concludes. “Withdrawing participation in the CEI represents a responsible step in this direction.”

Home Depot

EXCLUSIVE: Home Depot, Netflix Hit Over Involvement In LGBT ‘Social Credit’ System

Corporations

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

LGBT

Netflix

ESPN host Stephen A. Smith, who is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/espn-host-stephen-smith-consider-run-president" target="_blank" rel="noopener">considering</a> a run for the presidency in 2028, said on Sunday that he believes the Democratic Party needs to be &#8220;purged&#8221; of its far-left tendencies before he would associate with it as a candidate.
CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper asked Smith on this Sunday&#8217;s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/04/politics/video/sotu-jake-tapper-interviews-stphen-a-smith-on-potential-presidentila-bid" target="_blank" rel="noopener">episode</a> of &#8220;State of the Union&#8221; whether he would run for the White House as a Democrat.
&#8220;You know what? I&#8217;m an independent. I&#8217;m a registered independent. I would lean — who leans left. I&#8217;m fiscally conservative when it comes to my money. I&#8217;m socially liberal. I&#8217;m liberal when it comes to social issues pretty much across the board. I believe in living and let living,&#8221; Smith said.
&#8220;So I&#8217;m a moderate,&#8221; he went on. &#8220;And I would say, if I had to run, it would be as a Democrat, but I&#8217;m not happy with the Democratic Party. So the Democratic Party, as presently constructed, it would pretty much need to be purged in order for me to assume that I would want to be associated with them and I would garner their support, because I don&#8217;t like the way they have gone about doing a lot of things for a very, very long period of time.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/stephenasmith?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@stephenasmith</a> to <a href="https://twitter.com/jaketapper?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jaketapper</a> on potential 2028 bid: “I would say, if I had to run, it would be as a Democrat, but I&#8217;m not happy with the Democratic Party. So the Democratic Party, as presently constructed, it would pretty much need to be purged in order for me to assume that I… <a href="https://t.co/vgYrvfV2cH">pic.twitter.com/vgYrvfV2cH</a>
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) <a href="https://twitter.com/CNNSOTU/status/1919041686136561801?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 4, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Smith added: &#8220;And I think that I don&#8217;t view Donald Trump as winning the election. I view the Democrats as losing the election, as absolutely, positively blowing it with some of their actions. And that&#8217;s why I think that, again, if somebody was to associate me with that, the party, as presently constructed, where it leans so extremely left, or at least has spent the vast majority of time doing that, oh, that is not something that I would vibe with at all. I would definitely be looking to be a game changer in that regard.&#8221;
When pressed by Tapper, Smith said that he would not name anyone he thinks should be &#8220;purged,&#8221; but the media personality did take aim at the &#8220;extreme left&#8221; of the party.
&#8220;We know how they go about operating. We know what we lean towards when it came to open borders. We know that the spending was excessive, even though it&#8217;s excessive on the Republican side as well. I think a $37 trillion budget, when Republicans try to act like it&#8217;s just the Democrats, that&#8217;s not true. But the Democrats certainly shouldn&#8217;t be absolved from blame in that regard,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;Certainly, with identity politics, woke culture, cancel culture, I thought that that was something that ravaged our nation psychologically, because you had people literally scared they were going to lose their jobs if they pronounced the wrong pronoun, for crying out loud,&#8221; Smith continued. &#8220;It got that bad.&#8221;
Smith said he believes the focus on &#8220;the individual&#8221; rather than &#8220;actual policies&#8221; is one reason why Trump won a second term.
&#8220;I&#8217;m talking about what they preached and what they talked to the American people about more so than what they&#8217;re doing. The kind of messages that they were disseminating was incredibly uncomfortable to listen to and to hear,&#8221; Smith said.
&#8220;And I thought that it wasn&#8217;t emblematic of what most Americans are thinking about. They&#8217;re trying to pay their mortgages, rent, buy food and groceries, pay gas and deal with the prices, the cost of living. And they want safety in the streets. That&#8217;s primarily what most American citizens are about, trying to live in peace and harmony,&#8221; he added.  &#8220;And that&#8217;s not something that I think either side has promoted along the way. And that&#8217;s why I think the state of the nation is what it is at this particular moment in time.&#8221;

Stephen A. Smith

Stephen A. Smith Refuses To Associate With ‘Extreme Left’ Of Democratic Party

Cancel Culture

Democratic Party

Democrats

Identity Politics

Politics

U.S.

WASHINGTON—The Department of Transportation is terminating $54 million worth of recently-discovered &#8220;woke university grants,&#8221; The Daily Wire has learned, arguing that the grants advanced radical agendas that ran counter to the department&#8217;s mission.
Seven schools received grants which Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told The Daily Wire were advancing a &#8220;radical DEI and green agenda&#8221; that is wasteful and counter to the Trump administration&#8217;s priorities.
The University of California, Davis&#8217;s National Center for Sustainable Transportation was receiving $12 million for “accelerating equitable decarbonization” research, according to the department, while City College of New York&#8217;s Center for Social and Economic Mobility for People and Communities through Transportation was receiving about $9 million for research into “equitable transportation for the disadvantaged workforce.&#8221;
“The previous administration turned the Department of Transportation into the Department of Woke,&#8221; Duffy told The Daily Wire Friday afternoon. &#8220;I’ve focused the Department on what matters; safety, making travel great again, and building big, beautiful infrastructure projects.&#8221;
The department&#8217;s discovery is yet another instance of massive amounts of American taxpayer dollars going to the ideological pet projects of the past administration. In the Transportation Department&#8217;s case, officials looked under the hood and were horrified to find that many of the grants weren&#8217;t even aligned with transportation at all.
&#8220;The American people have zero interest in millions of their tax dollars funding research on the intersection of gender non-conforming people and infrastructure inequality or whether road improvement projects are racist,&#8221; Duffy added. &#8220;It’s time to inject a dose of reality back into our higher education system, and that starts with ending these wasteful and divisive grants.&#8221;
Other recipients of grants that have now been terminated included the University of Southern California Pacific Southwest Region, New York University, San Jose State University, University of New Orleans, and Johns Hopkins University, The Daily Wire can first report.
<div id="attachment_915229" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-transportation-department-learns-its-funding-54-million-in-woke-grants-and-ends-them/transportation-secretary-sean-duffy-announces-plan-to-boost-air-traffic-controller-workforce-2" rel="attachment wp-att-915229"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-915229" class="wp-image-915229 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2212921634-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2212921634-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2212921634-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2212921634-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2212921634.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></a>U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)</div>
The University of Southern California&#8217;s Pacific Southwest Region University Transportation Center received about $9 million for research on how “the transportation system creates and perpetuates inequities,&#8221; the Transportation Department said, and New York University&#8217;s Connected Communities for Smart Mobility Toward Accessible and Resilient Transportation for Equitably Reducing Congestion was receiving $6 million for research into “e-bikes to low-income travelers in transit deserts.&#8221;
Under the former grants, San Jose State University&#8217;s Mineta Consortium for Emerging, Efficient, and Safe Transportation was also receiving about $6 million for research on “intermodal inequities, particularly how improvements to auto travel can benefit higher income, often white drivers, while depressing transit ridership potential and depriving it of revenues necessary to provide comprehensive services to lower income, often BIPOC people and research into using crowdsourcing and collaborative planning to address safety concerns of women and gender non-conforming people using public transportation,&#8221; the Transportation Department told The Daily Wire.
The University of New Orleans&#8217; Center for Transit Oriented Communities was receiving $6 million for &#8220;equitable transit-oriented communities [and] how neighborhood stabilization efforts support environmental justice” research, and Johns Hopkins University&#8217;s Center for Smart Transportation was receiving $6 million for climate change focused research on “hyperlocal pollution exposure inequalities in New York City, promoting EV usage for low-income gig workers, long distance ride sharing, gentrification.&#8221;
The Trump administration has been vocal about ending these types of grants and wasteful spending, tasking the Department of Government Efficiency with ending wasteful spending. DOGE has cut almost $200 billion from government spending since Trump took office, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4j33klz33o">Elon Musk shared in a recent interview</a>.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Announces Plan To Boost Air Traffic Controller Workforce

EXCLUSIVE: Transportation Department Learns It’s Funding $54 Million In Woke Grants — And Ends Them

Department of Transportation

Sean Duffy

There have been a lot of changes in the second Trump administration, as we all know. But there was one change from the very beginning that hasn&#8217;t gotten nearly as much attention as it should. It&#8217;s when Trump stood up during his inauguration speech and invoked the idea of Manifest Destiny, which is of course deeply rooted in the idea of American exceptionalism.
For the first time in many generations, a U.S. president felt no shame in proclaiming that America is the greatest nation on the planet. And crucially, Donald Trump didn&#8217;t make this proclamation as a platitude. He wasn&#8217;t seeking to get a quick sound bite out of it, by reminding people of history class when they heard terms like &#8220;Manifest Destiny&#8221; and American exceptionalism. Instead, Trump meant it, in a practical sense. We&#8217;re the best nation, he said. And therefore we can do what we want. We can impose tariffs and force everyone to the negotiating table. We can deport criminals and ignore corrupt judges who tell us otherwise. In a matter of weeks, we can eliminate bureaucracy, talk about acquiring Greenland, and become energy independent — which is no small thing when the entire continent of Europe teeters on the verge of a blackout.  We can do all of these things because, in very real terms, we are unique. Period. We have a fighting spirit that no other nation on the planet can match.
If you attended college in the last 50 years, you&#8217;ve probably been conditioned not to say things like this. You&#8217;re told it&#8217;s gaudy, or a relic of colonialism or something like that. But it happens to be true. And every day, we&#8217;re reminded it&#8217;s true. We can see, right out in the open, that other nations are inferior to our own. Look closely enough, and you&#8217;ll see that they&#8217;ll admit it. They are preoccupied with their own destruction.
Let&#8217;s start with the UK, which is allegedly one of our closest allies. A couple of weeks ago, you might remember, we <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg3G_P1jO_c" target="_blank" rel="noopener">talked about</a> the Netflix show &#8220;Adolescence,&#8221; and how it&#8217;s essentially taken over the entire country. 
&#8220;Adolescence&#8221; is a mini-series in which a white 13-year-old boy named Jamie stabs a girl to death after the girl rejects his advances. The &#8220;hook,&#8221; if you can call it that, is that the show blames online culture for the killer&#8217;s actions, at least to some extent. The victim had bullied the 13-year-old boy on Instagram, for example. He had been called an &#8220;incel&#8221; and so on. The point of the show is that &#8220;male rage&#8221; is fueled by online misogyny and bullying, and that children are liable to become murderers at any moment, even if they live in a loving, stable two-parent household. That&#8217;s the message the showrunners wanted to convey, even though it flies in the face of common sense and every data point we have. Beyond that, there wasn&#8217;t anything very interesting about the show. The cameraman is doing more interesting things than any of the actors, since everything is supposedly shot in one take.
So it was reasonable to assume that, after the initial hype died down over this mini-series, that the UK would move on pretty quickly. That&#8217;s the normal trajectory that shows like this tend to follow. And indeed, that&#8217;s what many in my audience said would happen. I received dozens of comments on my last monologue on &#8220;Adolescence&#8221;, where several people who live in Britain explained that, actually, the show isn&#8217;t that popular over there to begin with. Additionally, as we discussed, there was an infamous interview broadcast on the BBC, where the anchors grill a conservative politician about the fact that she hasn&#8217;t seen the show. They were stunned, for the entire interview, that she hadn&#8217;t watched it. And no matter how much the politician tried to explain to these anchors that the show isn&#8217;t real, they kept doubling down. When we played that footage two weeks ago, it seemed like it was safe to assume that the obsession over this show had officially jumped the shark. It seemed too absurd to continue. Everyone, even fans of the show, would certainly walk away slowly and find something else to fixate on.
But that hasn&#8217;t happened in the UK. Instead, &#8220;Adolescence&#8221; isn&#8217;t simply dominating political discussions anymore. Now the show is being used to justify new legislation that would dramatically curtail free speech rights in the country — almost as if that was the point of the show all along. In fact, the show&#8217;s creators just testified in parliament to demand this new legislation. Yes, the government held an entire hearing on a fictional television show, in which the show&#8217;s writer testified as an expert before the government&#8217;s &#8220;Women and Equalities Committee.&#8221; That is the very dire and hopeless state of the so-called United Kingdom at the moment.
We&#8217;ll start at the beginning of the hearing, when a member of parliament named Sarah Owen begins questioning Jack Thorne, who&#8217;s the creator and executive producer of &#8220;Adolescence.&#8221; And this member of parliament is very interested in knowing more about Jamie, and why he snapped and decided to kill a girl. But there&#8217;s a bit of a snag, because the politician clearly doesn&#8217;t understand what the creator of the show was getting at, which leads to this mildly amusing exchange. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="001 Discussing fake character" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SlPhT8p7xqU?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>
There&#8217;s a couple of layers of embarrassment here. First of all, of course, they&#8217;re talking about a fake person as if he&#8217;s real. He&#8217;s saying it would take him &#8220;nine years&#8221; to unpack the brain of a fictional character named Jamie, who, because he doesn&#8217;t actually exist, does not therefore have a brain, or a history, or emotions. And for her part, the politician — who apparently chairs this committee in parliament — keeps pressing for more information about this fictional individual. She&#8217;s really determined to understand what makes him tick, even though he doesn&#8217;t exist. This went on for something like two hours, by the way. The hearing was full of moments like this.
As it went on, it became clear that Jack Thorne is especially concerned about &#8220;conspiracy theories,&#8221; as he calls them. And at one point in the hearing, Thorne elaborated on the term &#8220;conspiracy theories.&#8221; It turns out that — stop me if you&#8217;ve heard this one before — a conspiracy theory is something that&#8217;s completely true, but highly inconvenient for the political Left. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="003 conspiracy" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_pNtI0EQBpg?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>
That&#8217;s his response, when he&#8217;s asked about the race-swap in &#8220;Adolescence.&#8221; He&#8217;s asked about a conservative politician who pointed out that, unlike what you see on Netflix, white kids from stable households are not stabbing many people in the UK. That&#8217;s the truth. It&#8217;s kids from broken homes, along with jihadists, who are doing most of the damage. And in response to that point, which is obviously true, Thorne states that the conservative politician must be &#8220;consuming&#8221; the wrong content online. The implication, of course, is that anyone who tells the truth about knife crime in the UK — and violent crime in general — should be censored. You&#8217;re required to think that it&#8217;s young white kids from loving two-parent households that are knifing everyone, and you&#8217;re supposed to ignore the literal jihadist with an Al Qaeda training manual in his backpack who murders young girls at a dance studio.
Again, this is the state of the UK — a country that we once had a lot in common with. But this is what they&#8217;re reduced to. I want to show one more clip from this hearing, because it just kept getting more and more comical as it went on. Eventually Jack Thorne left, and he was replaced by a bunch of self-described &#8220;experts&#8221; and government officials who — supposedly — would provide some hard evidence in support of more online censorship. 
But then, a funny thing happened. 
When they were asked for evidence that misogyny is on the rise in the UK, they didn&#8217;t have any data. They couldn&#8217;t point to any objective, verifiable information about all the young white men who are going out and killing women because of Andrew Tate or whatever. Instead — and I&#8217;m not making this up — the experts turned around and cited the show &#8220;Adolescence,&#8221; and the testimony from Jack Thorne. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="004 Experts cite show" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8KCdtC9tgIU?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>
&nbsp;
So they don&#8217;t have any data, actually. They just have the show &#8220;Adolescence,&#8221; and the testimony from its &#8220;executive producer.&#8221; According to the government expert, that qualifies as &#8220;evidence&#8221; in the UK. Time to pass a law eliminating free speech on the internet, I guess. But the point here is not to mock the UK, as entertaining as that would be. The point is that this kind of embarrassing spectacle is not very surprising for them. There aren’t very many people left in that country to speak out against it. There isn’t much of a &#8220;right wing&#8221; in the UK, or almost anywhere else in the western world outside of the United States.
And if you don&#8217;t believe that, look at the election that just <a href="https://barsoom.substack.com/p/post-mortem-for-the-canadian-election" target="_blank" rel="noopener">took place</a> in Canada. After ten years of destroying Canada&#8217;s economy and opening the borders to hordes of foreign nationals, the Liberal Party was just re-elected. Voters once again handed the Liberal Party control of government, even after the Liberals froze the bank accounts of peaceful protesters, arrested journalists in the street, trampled old ladies with horses, disarmed the entire population, and effectively banned independent journalists from posting their content on social media platforms. Canadians saw the government declare martial law over a bunch of truckers who didn&#8217;t want to be compelled to take an experimental shot, and they said, &#8220;we want more of that.&#8221; And also, of course, they want more taxes so that they can stop the weather from changing.
I&#8217;m not going to pretend to be an expert on the ins-and-outs of Canadian politics. If you&#8217;re interested in a more granular breakdown, there&#8217;s a Substack <a href="https://barsoom.substack.com/p/post-mortem-for-the-canadian-election" target="_blank" rel="noopener">article</a> from someone named John Carter that goes into some detail about what happened in this week&#8217;s election. Here&#8217;s how it begins.
<blockquote>Have you ever noticed how election results are regularly broken down geographically, as well by the demographic categories of age, sex, and – depending on the country – race, yet we almost never see the results separated into taxpayer vs tax-eater status? &#8230; It is absolutely no surprise that Ottawa voted solidly for the Liberal Party of Canada, whose base consists of three primary groups: migrants, public sector workers, and baby boomers, all of whom are regime client groups, and all of whom are tightly packed into the nation’s capital. Perhaps it’s that it’s tax season and I’m in a grumpy mood because I just got the bad news, but I can’t help but wonder about how electoral politics would change if only taxpayers were allowed to vote.</blockquote>
That&#8217;s a useful framework to look at what just happened in Canada, especially as you hear a lot of people blaming Donald Trump and tariffs and so on. In Canada, very few young people can afford homes. There aren&#8217;t many good jobs. The only really viable aspects of Canadian society are the public sector — which is sustained through taxes and borrowed money — and retirees. The public-sector employees are the ones who celebrated when truckers were beaten by the police in Ottawa a few years ago. They resent the working-class. Their only interest is seeing their pensions vest. Meanwhile, older Canadians have made their money, and they don&#8217;t seem to care about what happens to their country going forward.
Take a look at this chart, which is making the rounds:
<div id="attachment_914325" style="width: 692px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-914325" class="wp-image-914325 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/e5df823e-f7b0-4335-ad69-cdc16a1a914e_1240x1048-682x576.webp" alt="Abacus Data. Substack, John Carter." width="682" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/e5df823e-f7b0-4335-ad69-cdc16a1a914e_1240x1048-682x576.webp 682w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/e5df823e-f7b0-4335-ad69-cdc16a1a914e_1240x1048-300x254.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/e5df823e-f7b0-4335-ad69-cdc16a1a914e_1240x1048-768x649.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/e5df823e-f7b0-4335-ad69-cdc16a1a914e_1240x1048.webp 1240w" sizes="(max-width: 682px) 100vw, 682px" />Abacus Data. Substack, John Carter.</div>
It shows the &#8220;most important factors&#8221; in people&#8217;s votes, broken out by age. It&#8217;s from Abacus Data, which is a Canadian polling firm. Notice that, for most young people under the age of 44, &#8220;reducing the cost of living&#8221; is the top issue. But for Canadians over the age of 60, the top issue was &#8220;dealing with Donald Trump.&#8221;
In other words, Canadian seniors are not even pretending to be interested in the internal affairs of their own country. They&#8217;re not concerned about the fact that young people are overdosing at increasing rates, or that many of them are well into their 30s, sharing tiny apartments with roommates just to make ends meet. What they care about, instead, is &#8220;dealing with Donald Trump&#8221; — an elected official from a different country, who hasn&#8217;t caused a single ounce of the misery that Canada has been enduring for the past decade.
In this country, by contrast, older voters were mostly <a href="https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-2024/election-analysis-older-voters.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">concerned</a> about the economy in the last election. In Michigan, for example, the AARP found that &#8220;24 percent of older voters cited the economy and jobs, and another 24 percent cited inflation, as top concerns.&#8221; So nearly half of these voters are interested in things that every American should be interested in — which is creating a stable and functioning economy so that people can buy homes and raise children.
But in Canada, as in the UK, the priorities are different. That&#8217;s why these countries are spending their time talking about Netflix shows, and electing globalists who promise to send mean tweets to Donald Trump or whatever.
It&#8217;s a sobering realization, but it&#8217;s true: These countries, which are supposed to be great allies who we have a lot in common with, do not have a functioning conservative movement at all. One that respects the sanctity of life from the moment of conception, one that values the importance of economic growth for everyone, and one that understands the distinction between fiction and reality. With every election that takes place in Canada, and every humiliating hearing on &#8220;Adolescence&#8221; that the UK is subjected to, the truth becomes clearer by the day. It&#8217;s time to admit it, because it&#8217;s unavoidable at this point: The future of conservatism, and thus of Western civilization, is in our hands — and our hands alone.

“Adolescence” Special Screening – Arrivals

UK Parliament Hosts Incredibly Embarrassing Hearing Over Netflix Show ‘Adolescence’

England

Great Britain

Matt Walsh

Migrants

Opinion

Stabbing

Teenagers

It’s not an exaggeration to say that conservative shareholder engagement is changing the corporate game. For years, Left-wing activists controlled the agendas at our largest companies, using not only their leverage as stockholders but their perpetual devotion to activism to get in the ear of America’s boards and directors. The result? Leftward drift in virtually every major company. But now conservative shareholders, from ordinary investors to major conservative nonprofits, are stepping into the game — and their engagements are bearing major fruit. The latest proof? IBM.
IBM’s track record on corporate bias and activism is notorious. The company was a member of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a group created by the World Federation of Advertisers that worked to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-daily-wire-addresses-the-ad-industry-following-the-fall-of-garm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">keep ad revenue away</a> from conservative news sites like the Daily Wire to free speech-centric platforms like X. And that’s before all the DEI concerns surfaced. After IBM CEO Arvind Krishna was caught on a <a href="https://x.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1734374423124176944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1734374423124176944%7Ctwgr%5E42e55266e59ec08d85550be6ab044097866bd072%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdallasexpress.com%2Fbusiness-markets%2Fceo-of-tech-corp-ibm-enshrines-dei-hiring%2F">hot mic</a> discussing how the company uses quotas of ‘underrepresented’ minorities in determining their executive pay — in Krishna’s words, execs have “got to move both [race and gender] forward by a percentage point” in order to get a higher bonus. That means DEI. That means quotas. Following these snafus, the reputational, ethical, and (in the case of the Missouri AG who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/missouri-attorney-general-sues-tech-giant-ibm-alleging-discrimination-against-whites-asians-men" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued</a> IBM) legal scrutiny was swift in coming.
IBM’s motto since its early years has been “THINK,” referring to the innovative spirit with which the company solves problems. Yet when it came to political bias, that motto was missing in action — and shareholders took notice. In January, the firm I work for, Bowyer Research, began <a href="https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-foundation-expands-efforts-hold-corporate-america-accountable-end-its-discriminatory" target="_blank" rel="noopener">work</a> with the Heritage Foundation to hold IBM accountable for the DEI quotas that Krishna described. The argument? Simple — use of non-meritocratic quotas based on race and gender aren’t just bad for reputation, but illegal on their face and bad for business. Shareholders, from major nonprofits to ordinary mom-and-pop investors, shouldn’t have their business returns impacted by IBM’s belief in identity politics.
As the shareholder engagement heated up on the internal front, pressure from <a href="https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5515346/the-ibm-red-hat-leaks-what-weve-learned-so-far" target="_blank" rel="noopener">journalists</a> and <a href="https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1910425361034383545" target="_blank" rel="noopener">influencers</a> like Robby Starbuck increased on the external front. That pressure built and built — and the release began earlier this month, when IBM announced the end of many of its DEI initiatives and related goals, including the elimination of its diversity council, the phaseout of its supplier diversity initiatives, and no longer participating in surveys put out by radical corporate <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-radical-intolerance-behind-woke-corporate-activism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">activist groups</a> like the Human Rights Campaign, which pressures companies to cover puberty blocker access for employees’ children in the name of “health care access.”
That would have been news enough — until several days ago, when IBM also <a href="https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-foundation-secures-commitment-viewpoint-neutrality-ibm-encourages-company" target="_blank" rel="noopener">agreed</a> to include viewpoint neutrality as part of its advertising policy in response to Heritage’s shareholder engagement. That means that biased, activist-driven, political censorship that ad cartels like GARM perpetuate is now explicitly banned under IBM corporate policy. IBM listened to its shareholders, its employees, and its customers — and the result is another company willing to make commitments to political neutrality. This is what happens when authentic shareholder advocacy, championing political neutrality, merges with external pressure to drop corporate bias: change happens, and happens in the form of concrete policy commitments, not just boilerplate PR statements. It’s a praiseworthy step.
But is the scrutiny over? Absolutely not. IBM needs to demonstrate that they’re committed to actually staying the course on being politically-neutral and quota-free. Outstanding questions remain. During our engagement on behalf of Heritage, the company <a href="https://www.sec.gov/files/corpfin/no-action/14a-8/heritageibm3325-14a8.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">notably claimed</a> to the SEC that they couldn’t give a definition of DEI as grounds to ignore shareholder concerns — so how did they go from not knowing what DEI is to getting rid of it? (You can probably guess how.) The company holds its annual meeting of shareholders today, and if they’re savvy will make a point of focusing their messaging on business, not activism.
Achieving the commitment to neutrality at IBM was the result of a myriad of groups, from shareholders like Heritage to <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/sec-sides-with-adf-denies-absurd-attempt-from-govt-contractor-ibm-to-hide-from-shareholders-on-dei-proposal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">legal giants</a> like Alliance Defending Freedom to the courageous IBM employees willing to speak out about the bias behind the scenes. And it’s going to take all of those groups to be vigilant now — not paying attention to our boardrooms is what got us into the woke mess in the first place.
This is the next phase of rooting out bias and wokeness from corporate America — watching tirelessly to see whether companies that commit to ditching DEI are actually willing to put their messaging and money where their mouths are. Smart companies will be willing to commit to change. Foolish ones will hope to either avoid scrutiny altogether or reintroduce the same tired DEI policies under the guise of <a href="https://www.shrm.org/executive-network/insights/time-to-add-b-for-belonging-to-workplace-dei-strategy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">phrases</a> like “belonging.” It’s our job, as shareholders, as customers, and as Americans, to keep up the pressure for accountability with the leverage that we’ve been given. And above all, to make the case for what truly makes every company successful: the courage to resist activism and the fortitude to focus on business.
* * *
Isaac Willour is an award-winning journalist focusing on race, culture, and American conservatism, as well as a corporate relations analyst at Bowyer Research. His work has been featured at outlets including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Opinion, C-SPAN, and The Daily Wire. He is a member of the Young Voices contributor program and can be found on X <a href="https://twitter.com/IsaacWillour" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@IsaacWillour</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Traders On The Floor Of The New York Stock Exchange As Fed Chair Powell Holds New Conference

IBM Rolls Back DEI, Commits To Political Neutrality

Business

Diversity

Dow Jones

GARM

Heritage Foundation

Human Rights Campaign

Robby Starbuck

Stock Market

Wall Street

You may have noticed that most of the headlines right now revolve around President Trump and the Republicans. It&#8217;s almost as though the Democrats don&#8217;t exist.
That’s because they don&#8217;t. They have almost lost the will to resist, as you have Bernie Sanders and AOC taking private jets to large venues.
Democrats are struggling for what their message ought to be, so they have unleashed a new term.
It is “Dark Woke,” which is going to go about as well as “Dark Brandon” did.
Just a few years ago, at a NASCAR race, people started chanting “F*** Joe Biden” and a woman who was covering that race then suggested the crowd was actually chanting, “Let&#8217;s go, Brandon!”
Republicans started using the slogan “Let&#8217;s go Brandon” to imply “F*** Joe Biden.” And then the Biden administration, trying to seize the language back, put out memes of old Joe Biden with laser eyes calling him “Dark Brandon.” Or they put up memes of him with his sunglasses, grinning, and they called it “dark.”
It didn&#8217;t go well because he then physically died in the middle of the race and dropped out. In fact, it went very poorly.
So now they&#8217;re trying “dark” again. They think that just by adding the word “dark” to things, that makes it cool.
Dumb.
They&#8217;re obviously trying to copy the Elon Musk memery of “Dark MAGA.” And so now they have “dark woke.”
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2184-member-exclusive?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/style/dark-woke-democrats-jasmine-crockett-trump.html">According</a> to The New York Times, “There was a time last summer when the Democratic Party was cool.”
That was a really, really short period of time. (There was a point in time when I was significantly closer to weighing 150 pounds. It was a moment, and then it went away.)
The Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/style/dark-woke-democrats-jasmine-crockett-trump.html">continued</a>:
<blockquote>Kamala Harris had just stepped in as the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in the waning days of Brat summer. She went on the popular podcast “Call Her Daddy.” Tim Walz’s outdoorsy drip led to a Chappell Roan-inspired camo trucker hat. The mems were flowing, and the party’s mood was high.</blockquote>
You&#8217;ll recall that even by the end of Brat summer, it was pretty much over for Kamala Harris. The “Call Her Daddy” appearance was a giant failure and cost her a bunch of money.
Tim Walz was never a bro. Nobody ever saw Tim Walz as a bro, unless the bros were hanging out at a high school musical production using jazz hands.
But now, apparently, Democrats are in search of a new memery. The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/style/dark-woke-democrats-jasmine-crockett-trump.html">writes</a>:
<blockquote>As liberals try to get their groove back, some party insiders say Democratic politicians have been encouraged to embrace a new form of combative rhetoric aimed at winning back voters who have responded to President Trump’s no-holds-barred version of politics. It’s an attempt to step outside the bounds of the political correctness that Republicans have accused Democrats of establishing. And it requires being crass but discerning, rude but only to a point. Online, it has a name: “Dark woke.”
“Republicans have essentially put Democrats in a respectability prison,” said Bhavik Lathia, a communications consultant and former digital director for the Wisconsin Democratic Party. “There is an extreme imbalance in strategy that allows Republicans to say stuff that really grabs voters’ attention, where we’re stuck saying boring pablum. I see this as a strategic shift within Democratic messaging — I’m a big fan of ‘dark woke.’”</blockquote>
What exactly is “dark woke?”
The Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/style/dark-woke-democrats-jasmine-crockett-trump.html">again</a>:
<blockquote>During a meeting of the House Oversight Committee last May, Representative Jasmine Crockett, Democrat of Texas, found herself in a spat with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, after Ms. Greene made a jibe about “fake eyelashes” that the chair, Representative James Comer, Republican of Kentucky, declined to prosecute under the committee’s rules on decorum.
“Mr. Chair, a point of order,” Ms. Crockett said. “I’m just curious, just to better understand your ruling. If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleach blonde bad built butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?”
Ms. Crockett’s moment became a meme. It was printed on T-shirts. It got her an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel. And now, Democratic strategists say, it has become a perfect example of “dark woke.”</blockquote>
Democrats are very much in love with this sort of stuff.
And it ain’t gonna get them out of their morass.

Bernie Sanders And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Hold “Fighting Oligarchy” Rally In L.A.

The ‘Dark Woke’ Rises — And Trips Over Itself

Ben Shapiro

New York Times

Republicans

Controversy has reared its head again in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) in California. The district recently convened a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwPu4CQ_rZk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">special board meeting</a> to deliberate on its Ethnic Studies curriculum and the potential renewal of a contract with Community Responsive Education (CRE). <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-a-new-ethnic-studies-curriculum-promotes-anti-semitism-in-california">As I reported last month,</a> the State of California previously rejected the draft Ethnic Studies curriculum co-authored by CRE founder and director Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, which was deemed to promote antisemitism and neo-Marxist ideology.
Though the district’s multi-stage contract with CRE was canceled in 2023 amidst the controversy, Tintiangco-Cubales’s ideas live on. No wonder many are concerned that PVUSD is considering a renewed contract with CRE.
The meeting made it clear that PVUSD was fully aware of the nature of CRE’s philosophy when it was previously considered for the Ethnic Studies curriculum. Assistant Superintendent Claudia Monjaras argued in her presentation to the board that CRE did not develop the curriculum — that the district’s staff developed the curriculum with only support from CRE. Yet the reality is that the core ideas and philosophy of CRE remain central to the curriculum. 
Ms. Monjaras’s characterization of the curriculum as being primarily a product of her team is akin to an individual arguing in traffic court that an external influence, namely alcohol, had little bearing on their reckless driving. Similarly, the philosophical underpinnings of CRE are deeply interwoven into the curriculum and cannot be dismissed as incidental or superficial contributions.
The special <a href="https://go.boarddocs.com/ca/pvusd/Board.nsf/files/DEXVZ7831F15/$file/Special%20Board%20Mtg%20Packet.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">board meeting packet</a> and <a href="https://go.boarddocs.com/ca/pvusd/Board.nsf/files/DEXW2N835755/$file/3.28%20ES%20Special%20Study%20Session%20(1).pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PowerPoint presentation</a> referenced at the meeting makes the goal of Ethnic Studies clear: “The vision of Ethnic Studies in Pajaro Valley Unified School District is to provide rich learning that centers experiences, stories, and knowledge of Ethnic Studies groups while also shaping a lens to understand and critique dominant power structures, ultimately to eliminate racism and intersectional forms of oppression. Ethnic Studies will provide a culturally and community-responsive education values the F.I.E.L.D.S in and of Pajaro Valley.” This may be laudable in certain contexts, but I fail to see how these lofty aims relate to the mission of any school district.
Throughout the meeting, CRE supporters among both staff and public commenters repeatedly used terms such as “solidarity,” “oppression,” “systems of power,” “dominant narratives,” “intersectionality,” “lived experience,” “white supremacy,” and “critical consciousness” — all of which are hallmark concepts of neo-Marxist Critical Race Theory (CRT). It is concerning that these loaded ideological terms are being introduced surreptitiously without clear acknowledgment of the underlying philosophy and its appropriateness for K-12 education.
The adoption of such ideology promotes a backward-looking worldview, which both lacks a constructive vision of the future and fails to recognize that significant social progress has been made over the past several decades. Instead of fostering hope and optimism, this framework is mired in grievances that suggest a cultural regression of a century ago.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-907565 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Pajaro-Valley-II.png" alt="" width="258" height="287" /></div>
In its “Ethnic Studies Framework &amp; Guiding” document (board meeting packet), PVUSD borrows the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raised_fist" target="_blank" rel="noopener">clenched black power fist</a> rising out of a book with a pencil in hand as its logo. This clenched fist has most recently been associated with the <a href="https://www.capitalfm.com/news/black-lives-matter/blm-black-power-fist-symbol-meaning-history/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Black Lives Matter (BLM)</a> movement in 2020 and also closely associated with the struggle for Black civil rights. However, the <a href="https://www.rd.com/article/history-behind-the-clenched-first-and-the-symbol-for-black-power/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">clenched symbol</a> also has historical significance in 19th century Europe, where it represented revolutionary courage against European monarchies. The symbol ties in perfectly with neo-Marxist thought of revolution to overthrow what are perceived to be dominant power structures of oppression in current day America.
The state of California <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB101" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mandates</a> only a single semester-long course of Ethnic Studies for students to earn a high school diploma, whose current model curriculum could have adequately served as the foundation for PVUSD’s ethnic studies efforts. While the mandate is reasonable, PVUSD’s approach of embedding Ethnic Studies seen through a CRT lens into a multi-year endeavor in English courses crosses into the territory of indoctrination rather than education. Investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a curriculum tied to CRE and neo-Marxist ideology, which had been rejected by the state because of its controversial nature, represents both a financial and educational misstep.
Given PVUSD’s current English and math achievement challenges, prioritizing Ethnic Studies to this degree is misaligned with the district’s most pressing needs. During the 2023-2024 school year, only <a href="https://go.boarddocs.com/ca/pvusd/Board.nsf/files/DDK29600FC8D/$file/2024_SARC%20Pajaro_Valley_High_School_20250123.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">25%</a> of students met or exceeded state standards in English, while only 18% achieved the same in mathematics. The funds already spent — and those proposed on Ethnic Studies — would have been better utilized to enhance student academic performance. The purpose of K-12 education is to equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to thrive as contributing members of society, not to cultivate the next generation of social activists. Teaching social activism should never take precedence over academic achievement.
California school districts must learn from PVUSD’s missteps and focus on their fundamental mission: educating students. The integration of divisive ideologies into the curriculum undermines this mission, shifting the focus away from preparing students for productive futures. The PVUSD board should reject controversial influences and return to the state-provided model as a guide that emphasizes balanced, inclusive education.
Ethnic Studies should aim to educate students about diverse histories and cultures in a way that fosters unity and forward-looking ideals, rather than perpetuating divisive rhetoric and outdated grievances. The focus must remain on education, not indoctrination, ensuring that students gain both historical awareness and the tools to envision a brighter, more connected future.
* * *
Walter Myers III is a Senior Fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and an adjunct faculty member at Biola University’s Talbot School of Theology.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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Graduation day

‘Systems Of Power’: CA Ethnic Studies Program Continues To Radicalize Students

'Systems Of Power': CA Ethnic Studies Program Continues To Radicalize Students

Anti-Racism

California

Education

Ethnic Studies

Intersectionality

Marxism

Oppression

School Boards

White Supremacy

If there’s one thing that puts me in a worse mood than politics, it’s Hollywood, which never fails to disappoint in its stupidity and its arrogance.
I watched the new preview for “Superman” from director James Gunn. As you may know, I’m not a huge James Gunn fan. His work on &#8220;Guardians of the Galaxy” is fine, when he engages in ridiculous, gonzo humor. But elsewhere?
Back in the day, Gunn’s old jokey and ugly tweets were resurfaced. Based on those old tweets, he was actually fired by Marvel. I publicly supported the idea that he should be rehired because people shouldn&#8217;t be canceled based on jokes they made back when Twitter was a jokier platform.
But now he&#8217;s directing the new “Superman” movie and the preview sucks. It&#8217;s bad. It’s terrible.
In the preview, Superman is wounded and lying on the snow, then whistles for Krypto, the Superdog, who arrives and then proceeds to beat the living hell out of him for over a minute. He&#8217;s screaming in pain as Krypto jumps on him and continues to fight him.
I don&#8217;t see the purpose of this; it’s not dramatic. It&#8217;s just silly and ridiculous.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2173-fallout-stock-market-drops-trump-pushes-on-member-exclusive?row=2&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Finally, Krypto figures out that he needs to take Superman back to the Fortress of Solitude. Every James Gunn joke is a Monty Python gag that lasts three times too long. So now Krypto is dragging Superman&#8217;s prone body through the snow back toward the Fortress of Solitude, which arises from the Arctic. And it&#8217;s a cool-looking Fortress of Solitude.
But don&#8217;t worry, it gets worse.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Superman | Sneak Peek" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xFU8U4UVUBs?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>
Once Superman is brought inside, a team of robots, presumably of Kryptonian origin, starts to handle him and then they have one of the most nonsensical exchanges in any James Gunn movie. They say robots have no feelings, and then the female robot starts giggling like a little girl.
The entire attitude is wrong. The gold standard for a “Superman” movie remains the original “Superman” from 1978, by far the best “Superman” movie. It was significantly better than “Man of Steel” because it understood in the first half that there&#8217;s a solemnity to Superman, that he is supposed to be the embodiment of America, and then the second half of the movie shifted into a more comic-book, humorous mode. The color palette was very rich and very bright.
In “Man of Steel,” they basically desaturated the entire film so the entire color palette was grayscale and kind of ugly and dark and the entire character of Superman was much darker.
The attitude of the preview is totally wrong. It&#8217;s just “Guardians of the Galaxy” in a Superman suit, and it ticks me off, it really does. As a lifelong fan of the Superman brand, it&#8217;s not that hard to get Superman right. He&#8217;s supposed to be the embodiment of everything cool and heroic about America. And of course, he&#8217;s supposed to be charming as well. That&#8217;s the whole shtick.
So you don&#8217;t need full-scale James Gunn. He makes Superman the same as Chris Pratt&#8217;s character in “Guardians of the Galaxy” and all the jokes are the same as the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies. It&#8217;s silly and stupid and bad. Two thumbs down.
Then I discovered that for Greta Gerwig&#8217;s Netflix adaptation of “The Magician&#8217;s Nephew” — the first book in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series — the person who they are thinking about casting as the voice for the lion Aslan — who is obviously a metaphor for Jesus — is Meryl Streep.
This makes no sense at all on a character level. On a metaphorical level, it&#8217;s one of the dumbest things you could possibly do. If you want to alienate the entire C.S. Lewis audience, this is exactly what you should do. Meanwhile, Charli XCX is apparently in talks for the role of the White Witch.
Why are they doing this??
Just adapt the story straight. It&#8217;s not that difficult. It’s a great book. Adapt it straight.
This is the same as that ridiculous suggestion a while back that Cynthia Erivo was going to be cast in “Jesus Christ Superstar” as Jesus.
Stop with this stuff. Stop it. Just stop. It&#8217;s stupid and it&#8217;s insulting and it&#8217;s gross and you would never do this with any other religion. You wouldn&#8217;t.
It&#8217;s ridiculous and annoying and demonstrative of how Hollywood spits on people who don&#8217;t believe the things they believe, and then takes classic intellectual property from those spaces and uses it against them.

CinemaCon 2025 – Warner Bros. Pictures Presentation – Inside

Superman, Jesus, And Hollywood Stupidity

DC Studios

Entertainment

Late-Night TV may never be the same.
HBO’s John Oliver, host of “Last Week Tonight,” is facing a <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/04/01/media/healthcare-exec-sues-john-oliver-for-defamation-over-toilet-hygiene-rant/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">new defamation lawsuit</a> from health care executive Dr. Brian Morley who claims the comedian slurred him “for ratings and profits.” 
In an April 2024 telecast, Oliver played an alleged audio clip of Morley at an administrative hearing <a href="https://ew.com/john-oliver-sued-by-healthcare-official-he-called-out-on-last-week-tonight-11708201" target="_blank" rel="noopener">saying</a>, “People have bowel movements every day where they don’t completely clean themselves and we don’t fuss over [them] too much. People are allowed to be dirty … You know, I would allow him to be a little dirty for a couple of days.”
Oliver’s immediate on-air response: “F*** that doctor with a rusty canoe! I hope he gets tetanus of the balls.”
Morley’s lawyer claims the recording was altered by the program.
Suing comedians for telling the wrong jokes seems an uphill legal battle at best. The First Amendment allows for plenty of creative embellishments, although Oliver’s comments proved highly specific and potentially damaging to the doctor’s reputation.
The courts will have the final say on the matter.
Should Dr. Morley emerge victorious it could have a much larger impact. Yes, “Last Week Tonight” would take a sizable hit, but consider the big picture.
What if other satirical comics have to watch what they say moving forward? Will they require fact-checkers on set? Should Stephen Colbert run his anti-Republican rants by CBS Legal before hitting the stage each night?
Comedians have considerable leeway when it comes to political satire as opposed to everyday citizens. Those wide guardrails matter, allowing for satirists to skewer elected officials without fear of political ramifications.
How far is too far, though? Thanks to the sorry state of modern late night TV, the question matters more than ever.
<div id="attachment_903043" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-903043" class="size-large wp-image-903043" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2176959872-864x576.jpg" alt="NEW YORK CITY - OCTOBER 8: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and guest Vice President Kamala Harris during Tuesday's October 8, 2024 show. (Photo by Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2176959872-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2176959872-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2176959872-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2176959872.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images</div>
The hosts in question, however, bend the truth so regularly it’s often unrecognizable. It’s not a bug but a feature. Yes, Legacy Media outlets warp reality in damning ways, too. The list of Fake News narratives continues to grow in the Age of Trump.
Colbert and co. often walk in lockstep with their journalist pals.
Look no further than the Russian Collusion Hoax™. Yes, the media fed that narrative beast for far too long, but late-night hosts parroted even the most extreme collusion talking points while assuming they had the goods on President Donald Trump.
They didn’t.
CBS’s Colbert hit the lowest low when he called President Donald Trump Vladimir Putin’s <a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/you-cant-say-television-colbert-edition" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BLEEP holster.</a> in one incendiary monologue. He also played up the Fake News story known to many as the Trump “pee-pee tape.”
The litigious world leader could have had something to say about that.
Colbert and fellow far-Left host Jimmy Kimmel also defended President Joe Biden from accusations, later confirmed, that he was suffering from dementia-like conditions during the 2024 presidential campaign. Both comedians had seen Biden up close during separate fundraising events.
They must have witnessed his diminished state firsthand. They didn’t share what they saw with their audiences, and Kimmel took that a step further. He used his “Jimmy Kimmel Live” bully pulpit to call anyone who said Biden froze up during his <a href="https://www.tvinsider.com/1140442/joe-biden-freezing-video-fundraiser-jimmy-kimmel/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fundraising effort a liar</a>.
The projection was strong that night.
Other hosts have taken the media’s warped baton and run with it. Take the host of NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers.” The “Saturday Night Live” alum skewered President Trump in 2017 for <a href="https://time.com/4705083/seth-meyers-trump-meals-on-wheels-budget-cuts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gutting</a> the “Meals on Wheels” program.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fake-news-did-trump-just-kill-meals-wheels-not-ben-shapiro" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Except Trump didn’t.</a>
Meyers also played down the rampant violence spreading in Portland in 2020, as did some press outlets, in ways that felt like propaganda, not satire. And he wasn’t alone.
<div id="attachment_903053" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-903053" class="size-large wp-image-903053" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1248172738-864x576.jpg" alt="LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS -- Episode 1405 -- Pictured: (l-r) Comedian John Oliver during an interview with host Seth Meyers on March 13, 2023 -- (Photo by: Lloyd Bishop/NBC via Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1248172738-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1248172738-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1248172738-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1248172738.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Lloyd Bishop/NBC via Getty Images</div>
Oliver also downplayed the ongoing violence swirling around parts of Portland, <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/john-oliver-media-portland-violence/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">serving up this epic distortion</a>.
“Protests had been mostly peaceful there… it’s about one block that was actually starting to see fewer confrontations between protesters and police before federal agents moved in.”
Fake News? It’s beyond debate. But is it worth suing over? That’s where the conversation gets sticky.
What about late-night alum Amber Ruffin? She briefly hosted an ill-fated talk show on Peacock and has written for “Late Night with Seth Meyers.” Ruffin recently cited the serially debunked <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/amber-ruffin-dropped-white-house-correspondents-dinner-response_n_67eb51c2e4b0ff137ab490b4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Very Fine People” hoax</a> anew during a late-night chat to smite President Trump.
Said hoax claims Trump praised Neo Nazis following a 2017 Charlottesville rally which left one woman dead. The lie proved so brazen even Snopes called it out (albeit several years after the lie gained cultural ground).
It’s not just late-night comedy, of course. Comedians use their considerable platforms to spread lies that could be seen as libelous.
Take <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bill-burr-goes-full-ahole?row=0&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;author=Ben+Shapiro&amp;title=Bill+Burr+Goes+Full+A**hole&amp;category=News" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bill Burr</a>, who insinuated Kyle Rittenhouse was a White Supremacist during his Netflix special “Bill Burr Presents: Friends Who Kill.”
<div id="attachment_903055" style="width: 730px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-903055" class="size-large wp-image-903055" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1428254659-720x576.jpg" alt="BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 27: Comedian Bill Burr performs at the Bob Golub Stand-up For Deaf, Hard Of Hearing Fundraiser at Flappers Comedy Club and Restaurant Burbank on September 27, 2022 in Burbank, California. (Photo by Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images)" width="720" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1428254659-720x576.jpg 720w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1428254659-300x240.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1428254659-768x614.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1428254659.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px" />Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images</div>
Rittenhouse shot three people, killing two and injuring one during a 2020 fracas tied to the BLM protests. A court of law found him innocent, agreeing with his self-defense explanation. Elements of the press and the Left insisted his actions were racist, even though his victims were white and they couldn’t pin any racially-charged comments to the young man.
Burr picked up that false narrative, saying Rittenhouse was a <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/bill-burr-kyle-rittenhouse-white-supremacist/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">White Supremacist.</a>
“You gotta drop me off like two blocks away so my other racist friends don’t see my mommy drove me,” he cracked in the special, channeling Rittenhouse.
Comedians have more leeway when it comes to politicians, but no one elected Rittenhouse to elected office.
There’s a better solution here, one that doesn’t require legal challenges for First Amendment squabbles. A healthy, robust press would let viewers know that much of what’s said on late-night TV just isn’t true.
Journalists routinely regurgitate late-night jokes. They do the same with “Saturday Night Live” skits. That’s all well and good, but that practice is hollow if it doesn’t include fact checking when appropriate.
If comedians knew they’ve be held accountable for twisting the truth into so many pretzels, they might crack smarter gags that actually speak truth to power.
* * *
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.

76th Primetime Emmy Awards – Show

The People Versus John Oliver: The Murky Ethics Of Modern Comedy

Comedy

Humor

John Oliver

Lawsuit

Media Bias

President Trump

Satire

U.S. Politics

Christian Bale pulled a Rachel Zegler before anyone knew the young actress’ name.
Everyone recalled Bale’s work from the “Dark Knight” trilogy, so when director Ridley Scott cast him in 2014’s “Exodus: Gods and Kings” it mattered. Who wouldn’t want the Oscar winner in their next project?
Then Bale dubbed Moses a “<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/christian-bale-says-moses-could-be-considered-a-terrorist/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">terrorist</a>” in publicity interviews for the film.
&#8220;If you&#8217;re not religious, you can look at it as one man&#8217;s freedom fighter is another man&#8217;s terrorist,&#8221; he said of Moses.
<div id="attachment_899039" style="width: 792px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-899039" class="size-large wp-image-899039" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-460174862-782x576.jpg" alt="GOOD MORNING AMERICA - Christian Bale is a guest on &quot;Good Morning America,&quot; 12/5/14, airing on the Walt Disney Television Network. (Photo by Fred Lee/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images)" width="782" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-460174862-782x576.jpg 782w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-460174862-300x221.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-460174862-768x566.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-460174862.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 782px) 100vw, 782px" />Fred Lee/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images</div>
Religious audiences, otherwise curious to see a movie featuring Moses, weren’t amused. The film, despite the talents of Scott and Bale, tanked.
Sound familiar?
By now, everyone knows how Zegler helped crush Disney’s “Snow White” at the box office. She’s not alone, though.
Stars routinely damage their own projects with ill-advised comments. That mostly involves stars getting hyper-political on publicity tours, stoking partisan rage. Many movie goers refuse to see movies made by two-time Oscar winner Sean Penn, for example, due to decades of charged comments.
Just look at Robert De Niro. He has spent nearly a decade savaging President Donald Trump from every available platform. His latest film, “The Alto Knights,” opened to a disastrous $3.1 million despite his gravitas in gangster movies and tackling not one but two mobster roles in the film.
Was it something he said? It can’t be ruled out.
The Zegler fallout, though, is different. And it could be the final warning for stars to heed when they talk to the press moving forward. Anger potential fans at your peril.
<div id="attachment_899013" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-899013" class="size-large wp-image-899013" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2205296417-864x576.jpg" alt="LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 15: Rachel Zegler attends the World Premiere of Disney's Snow White at El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on March 15, 2025. (Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images for Disney)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2205296417-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2205296417-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2205296417-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2205296417.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images for Disney</div>
“Snow White’s” slow-moving car crash began two years ago when <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/rachel-zegler-viral-backlash-snow-white-disney-live-action-rcna99848" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Zegler trashed the iconic source material</a> on the red carpet.
“I just mean that it’s no longer 1937 … We absolutely wrote a ‘Snow White’ that &#8230; she’s not going to be saved by the prince, and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love; she’s going to be dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be and that her late father told her that she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave and true.”
<div id="attachment_610047" style="width: 690px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-610047" class="wp-image-610047 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-1243085976-copy1.jpeg" alt="D23 EXPO 2022 - The Ultimate Disney Fan Event presented by VISA - brings together all the worlds of Disney under one roof for three packed days of presentations, pavilions, experiences, concerts, sneak peeks, shopping, and more. The event, which takes place September 9, 10, and 11 at the Anaheim Convention Center, provides fans with unprecedented access to Disney films, series, games, theme parks, collectibles, and celebrities. (The Walt Disney Company via Getty Images) Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot" width="680" height="504" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-1243085976-copy1.jpeg 680w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-1243085976-copy1-300x222.jpeg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" />The Walt Disney Company via Getty Images. Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot.</div>
A separate interview found her mocking the story’s male hero, the prince who saves Snow White with a kiss.
“Weird,” she infamously called him, reframing his affection as a “stalker.”
&#8220;It&#8217;s really not about the love story at all, which is really, really wonderful.&#8221;
Tell that to adults who grew up adoring “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” the 1937 animated film that helped launch Disney into the pop culture stratosphere. Chances are they introduced the classic story to their children and grandchildren.
That’s the opposite of weird.
Zegler opened her mouth and inserted both feet. Enter an army of YouTube personalities who ran with Zegler’s quotes.
Had she opined in the past, the quotes would have circulated in the press and faded to black. In our digital age, they only got more attention as the months wore on. It got worse when she started braying, “Free Palestine” on social media, another deeply divisive message.
It didn’t help that her co-star, Gal Gadot, is Israeli and served in the IDF.
Then, before the film’s belated March 2025 opening, Zegler raged against President Donald Trump and, more specifically, his supporters. She hoped they would “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/disneys-snow-white-actress-attacks-trump-voters-tells-people-to-leave-x" target="_blank" rel="noopener">never know peace.”</a>
Now, we’re seeing the fruits of her warped words. “Snow White” opened to a dreadful $43 million at the U.S. box office, the worst showing to date for a Disney live-action update. The film had other issues, like Disney disavowing dwarfs as problematic before backpedaling and adding CGI little people.
Zegler’s comments made the most noise, to the film’s detriment.
It’s not enough that Zegler helped sink her own film. The industry called her out for doing just that. Variety ran an <a href="https://variety.com/2025/film/news/snow-white-death-threats-zegler-social-media-guru-1236347433/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">exhaustive autopsy</a> on the film’s failure, letting anonymous Disney sources trash the young star. An executive from a different studio also chimed in, “You can’t say that a live-action remake of the most iconic film in the vault that cost [$270] million and has been reshot multiple times opening to $50 million is OK. The math does not work.&#8221;
Media outlets couldn’t hide how damaging her comments had been to the film’s box office potential, even though reporters have yet to connect De Niro’s box office tailspin to his anti-Trump diatribes.
<div id="attachment_899055" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-899055" class="size-large wp-image-899055" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2206051478-864x576.jpg" alt="NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MARCH 20: Actress Rachel Zegler is seen leaving &quot;Good Morning America&quot; on March 20, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Raymond Hall/GC Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2206051478-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2206051478-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2206051478-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2206051478.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Raymond Hall/GC Images</div>
Even Jonah Platt, son of “Snow White” producer Marc Platt, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2025/03/27/rachel-zegler-snow-white-marc-platt-jonah/82686271007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">weighed in</a> against Zegler.
&#8220;My dad, the producer of (an) enormous piece of Disney IP with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, had to leave his family to fly across the country to reprimand his 20 year old employee for dragging her personal politics into the middle of promoting the movie for which she signed a multi-million dollar contract to get paid and do publicity for … This is called adult responsibility and accountability. And her actions clearly hurt the film&#8217;s box office.&#8221;
Those Platt quotes also got magnified by legacy media outlets.
Will the Zegler Effect change Hollywood? It could.
Hollywood can&#8217;t afford more “Snow White” debacles. The box office is down, again, this year, and 2024’s numbers suggest pre-pandemic levels of movie going may be gone with the wind.
We&#8217;ll never go back to the Golden Age of Hollywood where the studios controlled what the actors could and couldn&#8217;t say. No one wants or encourages that level of control.
Still, it doesn’t take years of media training to understand a simple policy. Don’t alienate potential audiences when promoting your film or TV show. That shouldn’t be complicated, but apparently it is for some stars.
The Zegler fallout may make some actors think twice before trashing their own films or the people they need to watch them.
* * *
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.

World Premiere Of Walt Disney Studios’ “Snow White”

The Real Cost Of The Rachel Zegler Fallout

actors

Celebrities

Disney

Rachel Zegler

Snow White

NPR chief exec. Katherine Maher is being likened to “the blonde version of Robin DiAngelo” after an exchange between her and a Texas Rep. went viral on Wednesday, revealing old tweets claiming that &#8220;America is addicted to white supremacy&#8221; and &#8220;How white of me.&#8221;
Maher appeared flustered as Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) confronted Maher with several tweets from before her tenure at NPR during a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/anti-american-airwaves-gop-lawmakers-grill-nprpbs-execs-over-institutional-bias">congressional hearing</a> on Wednesday, one of which where she claimed to have taken time off to read &#8220;The Case for Reparations,&#8221; a 2014 essay by woke activist, Ta-Nehisi Coates.
When pressed about the contents of the text, Maher appeared flustered and said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve ever read that book, sir.&#8221;
&#8220;You tweeted about it. You said you took a day off to fully read &#8216;The Case for Reparations.&#8217; You put that on Twitter in January of 2020,&#8221; Gill countered, to which Maher responded, &#8220;I apologize. I don&#8217;t recall that I did. Okay. I&#8217;d no doubt that your tweet there is correct, but I don&#8217;t recall that.&#8221;
The hearing revealed an extensive backlog of controversial tweets from Maher; when questioned about a tweet claiming &#8220;America is addicted to white supremacy,&#8221; Maher acknowledged making the statement but claimed, &#8220;much of my thinking has evolved over the last half-decade.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Catching a Liberal White Lady tweeting in 2020 that she took a day off to fully absorb a v. important book about reparations, and making her admit under oath she probably didn&#39;t read it after all is an all-timer of Liberal White Lady moments. <a href="https://t.co/ErGUfVVN23">https://t.co/ErGUfVVN23</a>
&mdash; Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) <a href="https://twitter.com/mkhammer/status/1904966542712000942?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Gill pressed on with Maher’s greatest hits, with Maher doing her best to deflect: &#8220;I grew up feeling superior. How white of me&#8221; and another supporting reparations that read: &#8220;Yes, the North, yes, all of us, yes, America, yes, our original collective sin and unpaid debt, yes, reparations, yes, on this day.&#8221;
The exchange intensified when Gill questioned Maher about her views on looting during the 2020 protests. Though she eventually acknowledged looting is &#8220;morally wrong,&#8221; Maher initially described it merely as &#8220;counterproductive&#8221; and had previously tweeted, &#8220;It&#8217;s hard to be mad about protests not prioritizing the private property of a system of oppression.&#8221;
NPR receives approximately $30 million annually in federal funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with taxpayers contributing to an organization now led by an executive whose past statements have raised questions about objectivity in public media.
The congressional hearing revealed Maher appeared unprepared for questions about her digital footprint despite her leadership role at a major media organization.
When confronted with her own words supporting the controversial concept of reparations, Maher attempted to reframe her past advocacy.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t believe that was a reference to fiscal reparations, sir,&#8221; Maher testified when presented with her tweet explicitly supporting reparations.
&#8220;What kind of reparations was it a reference to?&#8221; Gill pressed.
&#8220;I think it was just a reference to the idea that we all owe much to the people who came before us,&#8221; Maher responded, prompting Gill to call her explanation &#8220;a bizarre way to frame what you tweeted.&#8221;
Right-wing commentators praised Gill on X, with Megyn Kelly <a href="https://x.com/megynkelly/status/1904986433581969533">saying</a> that she “could not love this any more,” and Christopher Rufo <a href="https://x.com/realchrisrufo/status/1904933514635862132">dubbing</a> Maher the “the blonde version of Robin DiAngelo.”

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