The “Gutfeld!” gang held a Disney-themed party – if sustained dunking on recent poor box office performance qualifies as a party.
The Fox News late-night show devoted Tuesday’s opener to trashing recent Marvel, Walt Disney Studios and Pixar films that underperformed in movie theaters, suggesting their progressive narratives and characters were hurting business. To make his point, host Greg Gutfeld referenced a Breitbart article titled “Box Office Analyst Estimates Disney Lost $890 Million on Last Eight Theatrical Releases,” which is based solely on a post by “prominent YouTuber” Valliant Renegade.
“It’s gotten so bad, Cruella DeVille is selling dogs at Chipotle. Pocahontas had to open a casino. And Peter Pan had to cancel his gender-affirmation surgery,” Gutfeld cracked, drawing an iffy response from the studio audience – a nightly occurrence on the Fox show that pushes past the boundaries of crass, juvenile humor by design.
“What does this say about Disney?,” Gutfeld continued. “Once a cultural icon of American family values, it has gone to the siren song of wokeism, devolving into an out-of-touch and desperate divorced dad. We all liked Mickey Mouse before he started scolding us about people’s pronouns. But leftists can make you hate everything, from Disney to schoolteachers to sports … How can you make it so nobody likes Disney?”
Rotating guest panelist Jim Failla – who’s had his own experience silencing the “Gutfeld!” studio audience – suggested that a night at the movies has gotten too expensive for Disney to mess around with politics and culture wars.
“The wokeism is what’s hurting them, though,” Failla said. “Disney’s core customer is parents. And they’re lecturing parents about inclusion, they’re charging them $200 to get in, which is the most exclusionary thing you’ve ever heard in your life. They’re out of touch with the customer.”
Failla suggested that conservatives can celebrate Disney’s box office woes, because it means a change is coming.
“On some level, I like watching them tank,” Failla said, “because they’re going to be forced into a course-correction.”
