Hollywood Is A Mickey Mouse Operation

“What did the fingers say to the face? SLAP!” Dave Chappelle as Rick James  

It was the slap heard round the world. (Okay, that part of the world that isn’t invading its neighbour and killing children.) In the middle of the 2022 Oscars presentation Will Smith, 6-foot-1 1/2, 200 pounds, assaulted Chris Rock 5-foot-9, 165 pounds, with an open-handed slap live on stage.

But you already know that.

The stated reason was a joke Rock made about the bald head of Smjth’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith— who suffers from alopecia. But like the guy who kicks his dog after the boss fires him, there is a litany of underlying reasons behind the Smith slap. They range from Smith being openly cuckolded by his wife to his cred as a black man in today’s America.. 

Clearly the Academy of Screen Arts and Motion Pictures had no idea how to respond. Despite efforts to remove Smith they let the King Richard star remain in the auditorium long enough to perform a tear-flecked acceptance speech for Best Actor in which he referenced the family values of his character Richard Williams, father of Venus and Serena. (Williams has been married three times and has children by four women.) 

Thus chastened, family-man Smith then went to the after-parties to rap with Oscar in hand. Leading NBA legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar to write on Substack, “Those who protect don’t brag about it in front of 15 million people. They just do it and shut up.” {UPDATE: An apoiogetic Smith announced Friday he has given up his membership in the Academy.}

If Smith were being truthful about family values it would be the first evidence of such values in Hollywood in many moons. To say Hollywood is a moral sewer is to do a disservice to sewers. Even as it lines up behind Smith’s “gallantry”, Tinseltown is actively campaigning against the state of Florida’s new law banning the promotion of sexual themes to children from JK to Grade 3. 

Taking on the state of Florida is no small thing as Disney’s investment in its Orlando theme park is massive. But if we are to understand Disney and the teachers unions joining them in common cause, teachers not being able to speak their truth to six-year-olds is an assault on LGBTQ rights. And that must be stopped— despite overwhelming public support for the bill. 

Video from the Disney spin strategy session has been leaked, and it shows pretty much what you’d expect. Here’s the corporate president of Disney proudly listing her counter-culture bonafides as she pushes the LGBTQ agenda. Karey Burke is “the mother [of] one transgender child and one pansexual child," (and)  she supports having "many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories" and wants a minimum of 50 percent of characters to be LGBTQIA and racial minorities.

Disney executive producer Latoya Raveneau is similarly bullish on the family-oriented company going queer. She lauds the acceptance of her "not-at-all-secret gay agenda” and gushes that “where ever I could I was adding queerness… no one would try to stop me.” Her tone is incredulous at how easy it all is.

Disney stretches its “family entertainment” definition in other venues. The people who brought you Mulan, Aladdin, Snow White and Mickey Mouse also have a TV series “Pam and Tommy Lee” featuring a full-frontal erect talking penis. And while they’re battling Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ legally approved bill they have no problem working in the region of China currently hosting Uyghur concentration camps or docking their cruise boats at islands like Dominica, where homosexuality is a crime. 

Or telling their theme park employees to eliminate the words "ladies," "gentlemen," "boys," and “girls” in place of “dreamers”.

Conservative Disney employees feel under fire. They wrote, “Employees who want TWDC to make left-wing political statements are encouraged, while those of us who want the company to remain neutral can say so only in a whisper out of fear of professional retaliation… This politicization of our corporate culture is damaging morale and causing many of us to feel our days with TWDC might be numbered”.

So you understand, this Woke behaviour is as far as you could get from the company’s arch-conservatives founder Walt Disney. Were he here the old union buster would likely point out that in the last American census gays represent about three percent of the population while trans people are well under one percent of the population. But Disney wants 50 percent representation of LGBTQ in its productions.

Translation: If you want to work in corporate Hollywood shut up and pass the trans ammunition. This includes Disney outlets such as ESPN, where stern-faced announcers now demand a moment of silence during games to lament the dreaded Florida bill.  Or National Geographic which preaches LGBTQ with trans figures on its cover. 

Clearly re-educating the saps of America is now Hollywood’s stated goal. Whether the public keeps buying what they’re selling is another issue. The ratings on ABC for the show are in steep decline, in part because the movies churned out by the Hollywood factories are agitprop nothings that have the staying power of cotton candy. One person who’s just about done with it is legendary Muppets performer and director Frank Oz. The voice of Miss Piggy and Master Yoda has had it with mission creep in the Oscars. 

“After being a member for 30 years I’m embarrassed to be associated with the Oscars telecast. Not because of “The Slap” but because of the phoniness of the show. All I sense is a desperate attempt to get more viewers by any means possible, not a show about the love of making movies.”

Canadian comedian Jim Carrey was also less than impressed with the support for Smith. “I felt like Hollywood is just spineless en masse, and it just — it really felt like, ‘Oh, this is a really clear indication that we’re not the cool club anymore”.

This just in: It hasn’t been about cool in Hollywood for decades, Jim. It’s now Coercion City. Get used to it. 

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author was nominated for the BBN Business Book award of 2020 for Personal Account with Tony Comper. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book with his son Evan Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx