Disney drops planned transgender storyline from cartoon series

[Hairyesterdaygonetoday]

Leading movie news source The Hollywood Reporter yesterday (17 December) revealed that the Disney company Pixar is dropping a transgender storyline from its Win or Lose series.

The animated series, to be shown next year, follows a middle-school softball team in the week leading up to their championship game. Each episode focuses on one character and shown from their point of view. A character who was intended to be transgender will remain, but a few lines of dialogue revealing that they identify as trans have been removed.

The Hollywood Reporter says: "A spokesperson for Disney confirmed that the story arc was removed and provided the following statement to THR: “When it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline."

Last month, says The Hollywood Reporter, "Disney Channel’s animated series ^Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur^ made headlines after some who worked on the show took to social media to say Disney banned the release of an episode focused on a recurring transgender character. The company denied that the episode was “banned” and said the decision to hold on releasing the episode was made more than a year ago and was not because of the transgender character inclusion."

This isn't about homophobia. Though gay and lesbian themes also arouse controversy in the United States, Disney has ignored homophobic opposition and presented gay storylines and characters in recent years.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/disney-pulls-transgender-storyline-win-or-lose-1236088172/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR1YLZm-yWJ3MBIRsv3V0bPKxoYPwbFhT4Dj7M1kJjuFhHNsEviKBoDJfug_aem_g5cU3YZzNrj9S0nel0B4AA

I found this link at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/683564403501236/?multi_permalinks=1088509139673425

via a page called 'Kick-ass women who take no sh!t from Left or Right'.

Yes. I never expected to be grateful for Elon Musk. It's a very weird set of circumstances that have led us to this point.

Back in April 2021, members of the production team at Pixar contacted trans activists on social media to advertise that Pixar was looking for a child to play a "transgender girl" in an unnamed project.

I wonder if this was the project.

It's possible. I think I read that the voice actor saw an ad in 2020, but it is likely that ads ran for a few months before the role was firmly cast.

Is the character in 'Win or lose' called Jess? I can't remember that detail.

This was my first thought too. It seemed like bandwagon jumping at the time and I think Disney's eventual rejection of it shows it up for the fad that it is.

That said, if I were part of that 'community' I'd feel a bit used.

As a parent I find Disney's comment on it thoughtful and reassuring (good post from pp above about their need to consider 'evergreen' content), if I wasn't a parent I'd find it a bit twee, but ultimately that's not the bottom line, is it? Money talks. This one episode of one show would have caused a lot of online culture war discourse, completely out of their control, and that would have overshadowed the critical reception, legacy, and profit of the whole project. It's all about corporate reputation at the end of the day, even though this decision was clearly for the best.

I wonder if the car crash of Disney's new Snow White film is also feeding in to this. Continual pushing of the progressive messages of that film has come at just the wrong time in terms of where the public seem to be moving to. The production cost so far on the film that no one seems to want and puts off more people each time there's an attempt made to fix it is apparently over a quarter of a billion dollars and if Disney continue to ride into the Valley of Death over this one the total costs including marketing might finally end up approaching half a billion.

Well... that's Hollywood, baby.

Their Star Wars shows haven't been doing brilliantly and this year's show The Acolyte doubled down on The Message and went mega woke. It bombed massively and drew LOTS of negative attention. They had to scratch the merchandise for the show and that's a sign that something is going wrong if Star Wars fans don't want to buy merchandise.

Their other Lucasfilms output was poorly received too, the recent Indiana Jones film was lambasted for being awful.

Their involvement in the new Doctor Who hasn't gone well for them either with lots of episodes attracting low ratings and complaints about crap plots and poorly written characters that didn't make much sense because they were trying too hard to be woke.

Their MCU films did badly this year too apart from Deadpool & Wolverine which largely avoided woke and gained a hugely popular public reception.

I mean, large corporations are like tankers and take ages to turn around but I think even Disney must be gaining an inkling that the public are not happy with the quality of their recent output.

Who could have possibly guessed that when people watch a film or TV show during their recreation time, that they want a good story with characters that they get invested in? Not many people watch TV/films to be talked down to, lectured at and re-educated.

There has also been far too many sequels where the original heros are deconstructed and not enough original ideas. There is a creative vacuum that needs filling.

So much rides on 'Superman'. If they (Hollywood in general, rather than Disney specifically) cannot get a simple good Vs evil (with hope, family, romance, overcoming obstacles, etc.) story right, it could actually get even worse before the tanker turns.

Excellent point @FlowchartRequired Other studios like Warner Brothers and Sony have also been suffering, like Disney, a downturn in profits and an upturn in both apathy and criticism from audiences.

As you say, people want escapism and entertainment not being preached at. You can have entertaining plots that address sensitive issues and ethical questions (Star Trek pre Bad Robot involvement and Doctor Who of previous generations were both shows famous for that type of storyline).

These days, writers and directors seem to think that subverting and deconstructing, or sex and race swapping, established characters is the coolest creative decision possible whereas audiences want to watch characters having daring adventures rather than watch them angst about their privilege. And I’m not saying antiheroes can’t exist, they definitely can (I’m thinking about Batman or Blade) and their stories can be darker in tone but they still need to well-written rather than preachy.

My pet theory is that I’m not sure enough film and telly writers these days have sufficient life experience or breadth of thought to construct entertaining and emotionally/intellectually satisfying stories/characters. So much media produced in recent years relies on rebooting series from the past with current year messaging or viewing everything through the ideological lens of power structures. I’m not convinced a lot of creatives involved in modern media want to tell good stories so much as signal to their peers that they hold the right opinions. I also think that’s why a lot of media creatives don’t seem to want to create much that is new, they seem to be more interested in ‘correcting’ what already exists because if it was made in the past it must be faulty according to modern mores.

There was a letter a law firm sent to the Disney board earlier this year that accused Disney of failing to deliver value for money to shareholders by pushing its extreme DEI agenda and failing to address the risks of promoting DEI in their investor documentation, among other things.

IIRC, the letter had a lot to say about the gender agenda pushed in Disney content and how Disney failed to acknowledge that its extreme DEI agenda is at odds with what its core customer base actually wants. It letter also blasted the whole Snow White fiasco, among many other issues.

While the Disney board might feel able to dismiss individual customers as bigots, it's far harder to ignore their shareholders' views, or the fact they might have fucked up on their legal documentation and misled their investors or negligently devalued the company.

everyone bends over for trans as if it is going out of style tomorrow.
We can but hope that last bit is true!!

If they wanted to act in a rational business sense, Disney could withdraw the new Snow White film completely, make no release of it, write off the production costs as a business loss, and use that to offset against profits in the coming years.

As many of you say, if it's hitting them in the pocket, their shareholders will have put pressure on them. Sucking up to a vocal and highly unpleasant minority was never likely to be a good idea, especially in a county with many social and religious conservatives.

They have sure seen the light of Bud Lite and acted accordingly. If the activists on the payroll make a fuss, I can't see them staying.

What a difference to Walt Disney, the racist, misogynistic anti-Semite; it's gone from one extreme to another.

I don't get this. The screenshot doesn't get quoted in my post, but it refers to wanting "actresses" who can "authentically play a transgender girl", they are looking for the wrong thing. Either they need actual "transgender girls", or they need boys. They shouldn't be looking for girls who can pretend to be boys who are pretending to be girls.

Using girls and women to play male people who are trans is done to fool the viewer into believing magical sex change transformations are the norm.

Target tried to Bud Lite themselves this year as well and now they are also being sued by shareholders:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/target-must-face-shareholder-lawsuit-over-pride-backlash-us-judge-rules-2024-12-04/

Gray's Anatomy is so preachy now that I am barely hanging on. It seems that everything has to be a message, simply being entertaining is not enough

Of course an actual female actress is an actor as it is sexist to call them an actress due to past associations with prostitution. Therefore, the only people that you can call an actress (without getting into trouble from TRSOH) are male people who want validation.

It's progress innit.

You're so right @TWETMIRF it doesn't matter what type of telly or film it is, The Message will get snuck in somewhere. I enjoyed Ted Lasso but the final series was so preachy on social issues that it was interfering with the storytelling and I was struggling to enjoy it.

How is the word “actress” associated with prostitution?
Is that really why it’s not used any more?

It goes back a long time. 100s of years.

EG. Nell Gwyne: "Pray good people be civil, I am the Protestant whore"

I missed the chance to edit, so sorry about the double post.

I wanted to add the 'casting couch' and all that that involved. That was all still going on when the Weinsteins were riding high in Hollywood.

I don't get this. The screenshot doesn't get quoted in my post, but it refers to wanting "actresses" who can "authentically play a transgender girl", they are looking for the wrong thing. Either they need actual "transgender girls", or they need boys. They shouldn't be looking for girls who can pretend to be boys who are pretending to be girls.

Yes, that's why they worded it to say they need to be able to "authentically portray" a trans girl - so that people read between the lines but Pixar can't be accused of insulting (or harming) the trans community - it's a voice acting role, so they need someone who sounds like they could realistically be male-bodied.

They can't say they want a transgender girl specifically as that implies that they know there's a difference between girls and transgender girls. So they need to put the call out to girls, but obviously they only want the transgender variety to apply.

And they can't say they want a boy as TRAs would be up in arms about cis-washing or whatever they'd call it.

So they dance around it and then if any girls apply who aren't trans, they can just say they simply aren't convincing as a trans girl, weren't right for the part, etc.

Of course it would be. Lesbians and transmen are ignored. A bit like all women really.

https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/12/20/petition-reinstate-transgender-storyline-disney-pixar-win-or-lose/

A petition to reinstate said storyline received thousands of signatures in the first couple of days.