From Disney's War on Kids to Bretton Woods III

Around the Horn

Daniel Greenfield and Andrea Widburg have pointed out that Disney is no longer synonymous with children. In fact, two-thirds of the households that have Disney Plus do not have kids. Just under 40% of all visitors to Disney parks have children under 18. Now, we all know there are liars and there are statisticians. The latter number reflects, among other things, the fact that American families are shrinking and the days of a mother and father bringing six kids to Disneyland are long gone.

Heck, the price alone is daunting, with the cost of a stay at the Galactic Starcruiser Hotel listed at a whopping $4,800 just for two adults! Greenfield claims these new Disneyites are “dysfunctional adults” who never grew up. I beg to differ. I used to love Disney. I’m not a coaster freak like my son or brother-in-law who can jump on the tallest coaster, with the biggest drop, and sixteen inverted loops. No, give me Big Thunder Mountain any day. The Himalayan Express is really a stretch for me.

But there is no doubt that the Disney business model is what is deeply dysfunctional. It is made so in large part by the nature of many of its employees of the creative variety, who, as statistics show, are far more likely to be homosexuals or approve of non-traditional behaviors. I mean, come on. Just how many male dancers in “Chorus Line” do you think are straight. It’s not just the pressure these employees put on management either, but worse: over the long haul, management comes to see them as “normal” and tailors much of its entertainment with them specifically in mind. Maybe “overwhelmingly” in mind.

The same has already blemished the once noble Disney films and video entertainment. A new kids movie will never again have a boy/young man as the protagonist, let alone a straight boy.

Of course it’s not just Disney. I was told not long ago about two producers who had in the past developed a very successful kids’ show. They went to Amazon to pitch their new idea for a children’s show. The woman they met with was completely angry and belligerent, telling them, “we don’t take shows from white men anymore. The day of white male superiority are over.” She proceeded to show them their new lineup of several shows, all of which included a homosexual/lesbian character, and no leading character was white. (This despite the fact that whites still make up the majority population in the U.S.).

Disney’s seppaku will come. It may take a while, but as I argued in a previous substack “they kain’t hep themselves.” They will just get more and more radical.

This is extremely sad, especially for a one-time Disneyphile such as myself. Walt’s dream was to create a land where people could escape reality, politics, war, and frustration. His verbiage underscored this, as all ride attendants, janitors, soda jerks were “characters” and the customers were “guests.” To Walt Disney, these weren’t just words. It was the key to creating what used to be the most wonderful place on earth.

Even before the wokeism and the dominance of perverted sexual ideas at Disney, it was facing a major problem in that the parks had become a victim of their own popularity. Too many people wanted to go. As is typical with business, the response to heightened demand was to increase prices. But there is no substitute for the Disney experience. Yes, there are plenty of other amusement parks, but very few conceptually designed to enter the “guest” into a new world. So people paid up. And Disney raised prices more. And people paid up.

The limited space of the parks and limited ability of the rides to substantially increase the number of guests per hour led to a whackadoodle array of schemes, including the “fast pass,” reintroducing specific ride tickets, and on-line reservations. None of it has substantially fixed the problem. Because it’s not just Americans that other Americans are competing with (contrary to what had happened prior to, say, 2000) but now wealthier and even middle class travelers from around the globe can and do make an appearance at the parks. Creating Disney parks in China, Japan, and France has not reduced the appeal of the American parks in the least.

On top of that, Disney acquired specific properties that were unique. They have Star Wars, Marvel, and Indiana Jones, three conceptual products that make it nearly impossible for even Universal Studios to compete. For these reasons along, bringing down the Mouse won’t be easy.

However, the fact that the state of Florida allowed Disney through its Reedy Creek Improvement District to be in essence its own government—-including dodging license fees, levy taxes, write building codes, develop and maintain its own infrastructure and build whatever it wants, including an airport and nuke plant.

If the state of Florida determines that Reedy Creek needs to go, Disney would be in trouble there. In theory, all the Disney roads and highways there would have to be brought “up to code,” which is administrative-speak for “yes you are already within code but not our code.” It is instances like this that gave rise to the mob in big cities when government officials were shaking down businesses.

And I mentioned that park prices were skyrocketing, right? This will only get worse as as result of the Ukraine war. Because you see . . .

Meanwhile the sanctions on Russia are working . . . against Europe. As written in the Zubu Brothers report, Zoltan Poszar, former NY Fed and US Treasury guru, current Credit Suisse grand vizir, says we are in Bretton Woods III that is run by nations with the largest supplies of commodities. Here he includes China, and while I agree they have been stockpiling, China does not have vast natural commodities supplies and stockpiles have been shown to only last so long. Russia has already changed its logistics supply lines to China for gas, while the Euros are not going to be able to cut Russkie gas by much at all in the near term, while prices for that gas will go up.

Here in the US, energy prices and all prices will continue to rise until the Fed can do nothing else than raise rates a lot. So far the Fed’s nibbling hasn’t produced any constraint on inflation.

There will be a point when all of these separate storms collide. Biteme and the DemoKKKrats can’t dodge it; Disney can’t dodge it. The only remaining question is how bad it gets before anyone addresses any of these issues.

Larry Schweikart

Rock drummer

Film maker

NYTimes #1 bestselling author

Political pundit

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