From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - A Look Back On Disney's Woke Failures

Episode Date: February 3, 2023

On this episode, Sean and Rachel revisit a conversation about Pixar's movie Lightyear and the controversy that surrounded its release. They weigh in on Disney's agenda of pushing woke ideology onto children, the success of anti-woke movies at the box office, and the replacement of Tim Allen as the voice of the beloved Buzz Lightyear. Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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but partner in life and partner in wife, Rachel Campos Duffy. Thank you, Sean. And it's so great to be back at the kitchen table. We have another wokeness story this time with Disney. We've done this before, but this time it's about lightyear the movie that just premiered this weekend yeah it's a prequel to um toy story to toy story right and again this should there should be no controversy around kids movies but yet again disney is in the news because the voiceover for buzz lightyear is tim Allen. And we both know that Tim Allen and all of you know, Tim Allen came out as a Republican in Hollywood.

And when he did that, there was some blowback and pushback on the kind of roles that he got. He was the star of Last Man Standing, a show on ABC, wildly successful. It was number one in its night and time slot and yet got canceled by abc around that this was when uh donald trump was in office that's right and then fox got it brought it back for three more seasons but tim allen the voice of of buzz lightyear um wasn't brought back to do um the the prequel which is now lightyear chris evans uh was the actor that came in and is now the voiceover for for buzz and obviously chris evans is uh a little bit on the woke side right he fits the narrative and the politics of disney really well in america you know and he was captain america but i think he was a little

ambivalent about america maybe he hates america too yeah so so it's interesting that he is the voice for that. But now the directors were asked about it and their answer was, listen, this is not about Buzz Lightyear, the toy, which was the voice that Tim Allen gave to the toy Buzz Lightyear. This is about the movie that the little boy Andy went to see Buzz, which was like Buzz Lightyear. This is about that movie, not the toy. And that's why we didn't use Buzz. That's why we didn't use Tim Allen, because we thought it would be confusing to use Tim Allen, the toys voice when we're talking about the actual character in the movie Lightyear.

So I know it's a little bit confusing, but it doesn't make sense in the sense that, you know, we just saw, we talked about the movie Maverick top gun and they brought back, you know, Val Kilmer to, to play Iceman. So if you're going to do a, a show, that's a prequel or a sequel, it's kind of makes sense to have that thread of commonality that people can relate to the original film. And in, in the case of Maverick, that was Iceman. That was Val Kilmer. And in this case, why wouldn't you have Tim Allen?

He's totally the most beloved figure. Can I use Disney's own past marketing endeavors against them? So Toy Story comes out. Buzz Lightyear is the star of the show. Tim Allen's a voiceover, right? But when you buy a Buzz Lightyear is the star of the show. Tim Allen's a voiceover, right? But when you buy a Buzz Lightyear toy, Buzz Lightyear's voice on the toy is the same as Buzz Lightyear in the movie because they're the same thing, right? That's what Disney did when they sold Buzz Lightyear toys. So

when they make a movie about Buzz Lightyear, the movie in the movie, why would they change the voice? Kids want to hear the same voice in the toy that they heard in the movie. So that's how dumb this is. They were trying to come up with an excuse as to why they were canceling Tim Allen. And they couldn't let the reason be that he's a Republican. They had to make some other cockamamie example of why they were kicking him out. And people aren't buying it. I mean, no one's by if

you go online and you look at all the comments about it people are like yeah sure disney sure that's the reason why everyone knows that tim allen was basically canceled you know i don't know if you guys remember patricia heaton from everybody loves raymond oh yeah um she's so funny she's so talented well after she got her first em, she came out as a pro lifer and she literally said, I waited till I got my first Emmy before I could let Hollywood know I was pro life. And anyway, she's famously pro life. And I'm sure she's friends with Tim Allen, but she tweeted out. Here's what she said.

Tim Allen, but she tweeted out. Here's what she said. She said, saw the trailer for Buzz Lightyear. And all I can say is Disney Pixar made a huge mistake in not casting my pal, Tim Allen, in the role that he originated, the role he owns. Tim is Buzz. Why would they completely castrate this iconic, beloved character?

And then the co-founder or the founder and chairman of Act for America, Brigitte Gabriel, tweeted, Tim Allen is always going to be Buzz Lightyear. Disney has destroyed another iconic character due to wokeness. I don't think the public is buying it. They know exactly what happened, but also the film's not doing well. And I don't know if it's only because of Tim Allen. As you know, there's controversially a gay kiss in this animated movie. And so many of these movies depend on international, you know, box office sales. And so 14 countries, I believe now China too has banned it. And that's an interesting situation, Sean, because on the one hand, we don't want our movie studios censoring themselves for foreign audiences. We want them to make movies for

Americans. But I don't think a lot of parents want to have to grapple with gay kisses when they take their um kids to the movies not because they're anti-gay but because they just they can we just talk about buzz lightyear and toys and why do we have to introduce all this stuff and why why does why is disney so hell-bent on indoctrinating um well i think i think it's interesting So you made an interesting point in that usually Hollywood will edit their movies so they'll fit foreign audiences, so they'll fit their values, whether it's a Muslim country or whether it's China, they'll edit them. So they'll get those box office sales and make more money off the movie. which was the problem for a lot of the Muslim countries and for China. And they didn't do it because of the fight they've been in with Ron DeSantis in Florida with the parental bill of rights bill that all these liberals call don't say gay, which doesn't mention they were.

So they were going to take it out for foreign audiences. And then this the Ron DeSantis controversy happened. And now they wanted to make a statement against Florida and they put it back in. Right. It's like I'm going to cut my nose off to spite my face. I'm not going to edit it. But I want to be clear, they're not they're not not editing this because they love America and we need to present American values. They're doing it because of an internal American fight between Disney and Florida. And the fact that they want to promote the LGBTQ children.

Right. And that's that's the premise behind this. And so I think what is interesting, this should have been a blockbuster. Oh, for sure. You know, we've all been through covid. You know, people haven't been back to the movies. We started to come back. We haven't been in years. We went back and saw Top Gun Maverick. But this was probably one of the first movies that kids could go see. Family film, real family for children and their box probably one of the first movies that kids could go see. Family film, real family film.

Driven for children. And their box office sales in the first weekend, I believe were $51 million. Lackluster. The movie cost $200 million to make. And so I think if you're a business that you're looking to maximize shareholder return, when shareholders invest in a company, they want to make sure that the company is making a profit. And it doesn't appear that that's Disney's objective here. Disney is about making sure that they have one ideological viewpoint, which is a liberal woke viewpoint, and that they promote LGBTQ principles. And I look at this and say, you know what? I want a company to say half of America, they're Republicans. Half of America supported Donald Trump.

Why don't they make movies that everybody can go see? That everybody can enjoy. Jurassic World Dominion blew the box office up. I mean, did fantastically well. As we talked about before, Top mean, did fantastically well, as you as we talked about before. Top Gun also did fantastically well, even in this. I don't know what weekend we are. It came out weeks ago, week four. It made forty four million dollars. So it's it's well on track to blow all kinds of records when you add up its international sales and its domestic sales.

It's really the public has spoken, Sean. The public is telling with their dollars, they're telling Hollywood what they want. But some people in these companies are so woke, they're willing, as you said, to turn their backs not just on the viewers, but on their own shareholders and take a loss in order to make these political points. And it comes back to, you know, you talked with Vivek Ramaswamy about the need for another way, another way for people to invest their money so that they know that the companies that their 401ks are invested in are actually care about the shareholders. Yeah. Or where you send your money in your retirement, as you mentioned, your 401k, that the people that take your money like black rock or fidelity or state street,

don't use your money to push their woke liberal New York ideas on the companies that they invest in with your money, right? They don't, they don't share your values, but use your, your money as a conservative to push this liberal agenda. But I, I think what's fascinating, and you and I have been to Disney world and Disneyland multiple times. When you walk through the park, um, you, you, there's, there's a homage to, to Walt Disney. And if you look at the things that Walt Disney said, some of his quotes, and I don't have them off the top of my head, but Walt Disney loved America and love main Street America, the core values of America. And to think that Walt Disney today is willing to destroy a brand that has been all about families and all about kids to say, you know what, we don't care about that anymore. The brand that made this company amazing.

It's a global brand that you think of Disney. I think of Mickey Mouse. I think of Disney. I think of Mickey Mouse. I think of families. I think of kids. And what they've done now is said, listen, we are not about that. We are about pushing an agenda that is very woke and it's going to it's LGBTQ. It's it's a leftist agenda. And we are going to use that brand to push this agenda. And I think what they're going to find, Rachel, is that there's going to be massive failure because to your point, I'm not going to spend my dollar, give it to Disney so I can get gender ideology, right? Or or I can see Tim Allen canceled. And I'm a big proponent of this. I use my money. I use my dollar to fit my values. And you can't do it every single day.

But I'll I don't buy Nike. I won't buy I don't buy Nike. I won't buy shoes. I won't buy a sweatshirt. I won't buy a tank top. I won't buy, I don't wear headbands, but if I had those little headbands that your dad wears when he works out like from the 1970s that said Nike on it, I wouldn't buy it because Nike is so woke. I won't give them one of my hard-earned dollars

because that is meaningful to me. And I think when we vote with our dollars, the companies all of a sudden get the message. And by the way, just one last point, Disney leadership has become woke. You have really loud voices. That's a minority in Disney. But I want to be fair to many of the employees within Disney.

They're not with them. This is not their value. This is not what they signed up for at Disney. They actually want to make great movies, great content for kids. And it's the leadership that's driving this agenda. And just the other employers just have to follow suit who actually don't agree with what Disney is doing in the direction the company is going. Yeah. When you go into the park now, they don't say, you know, ladies and gentlemen,

boys and girls, they have some gender neutral pronouns now. That's part of what they're doing. They're they're taking out old classics like Peter Pan and others that they think have controversially dated ideas in there that don't meet this agenda. And again, I think I think it's really important. Conservatives aren't anti-gay for the most part. There might be some extreme elements who are, but for the most part, conservatives just are like you live your life, we'll live ours. But when it comes to kids, I think they really want to protect children's innocence. force-fed a certain agenda or ideology or something as pernicious as this gender-neutral world that these woksters are trying to create. And we see the damage that that kind of stuff is doing on women's sports. It's literally erasing the beauty of femininity. It's erasing what women do in terms of their procreation and it's just there's so many there's just absolute destruction of what

women have gained through the feminist movement this gender neutral ideology is actually destroying that and a lot of parents are going look if I'm going to spend that money and it's not cheap when we went to go see Top Gun, it is not cheap when you have a lot of kids to go to the movies. The popcorn is so expensive. The candy is so expensive. The tickets are so expensive.

Now the gas to get there is so expensive. And we just want to escape. And and especially when you go with your kids to a movie, you just want something that, you know, edifies and, and, and enriches their innocence and their, the beauty of childhood. And it's like, just stop feeding us stuff. We're already fighting this on social media. We're already fighting in our school boards. Why are you doing this to us in the theater? And I think that the message is being sent. I'm really proud of the American people. I think a lot of them are saying, I'm not going to go now. Maybe it's easier to say no to the movies with inflation. So bad, Sean. That's a good point. But you know what I, as you're talking, I'm thinking about,

remember how easy parenting used to be when you didn't have your, your kids sucked into a cell phone and social media, where they're just looking at their screens all the time. And you have to, as a parent, try to pull them away and get them to engage you know with you or what they're seeing on the screen is being curated by some you know pajama boy out in silicon valley you know you used to go outside and see if your friends could come and play and you made up games you played a pickup game of soccer or baseball or tag or whatever the game was that you played in your neighborhood and it changed every day whatever the will the will of the kids of the neighborhood were. That's what it used to be.

And as a parent, too, you could say, you know what? I'm going to let my kids sit down and watch Nickelodeon or you can sit down and watch Disney. And there was no fear that they would be shovel fed any liberal, you know, woke garbage. It was just wholesome, good entertainment. And that's not the case anymore. As parents now, we're stuck saying, okay, I got to actually put some mind space into what are my kids watching? What message is being delivered? What studio put this together? And what are their politics? And what are they trying to feed my child? Because it is a concerted effort to separate our values from being passed on to our children.

They want their values fed to our kids in this surreptitious way. And again, I think it's become so much more complicated, which is why so often we'll go like, listen, we're not going to bring our kids to see Buzz Lightyear or Lightyear. I'm not going to do it because, again, we don't want to support a movie like this. We'll be back with much more after this. Oh, interrupting their playlist to talk about defying gravity. Are we?

That's right, Newton. With a Bronco and Bronco sport, gravity has met its match. Huh? Maybe that apple hit me a little harder than I thought. Yeah, you should get that checked out. With standard 4x4 capability, Broncos keep going up and up. Now get up to $6,000 in rebates on eligible 2024 Bronco family models. Visit your Toronto area Ford store or Ford.ca. Yeah, I agree. And I think that there was another, I was trying to remember the name of it, that a friend of mine sat down to watch with her kids and it was just came out this year. Do you remember?

And it was all, all about like this character. It was like an animal character. It was, I think it was Disney and, and, and she was getting her period and they're like, what is going on? Like, this is crazy. Like it was, it was so was so inappropriate but again it was animated which was so deceptive the mom thought oh it's animated it's fine and she's like by the way when i want to have puberty conversations with my kids i want to have those conversations i don't want them to come filtered through disney or or any of these things so i can't remember why i can't remember the name that movie that would not cross my radar i know my friend walked in and she was like i gotta turn this off so i think bottom line is you vote with your dollars can i just mention sean it's not just on movies i mean

we've we've made this shift in the way that we look at higher education um and we've talked about that a lot and i want us to get victor dav Hanson back on the show to, to go over some of the schools that he told us, um, were, were the best choices for our kids. But, you know, we, we kind of bought into the whole system before. And then we thought, why are we sending our hard earned money to universities who want to woke a fire kids much like Disney does? Why are we sending our money there? And now we've come up with a list of schools that we think, you know, provide a great classical education, protecting your kids where they go to school, but a lot of the content comes from California as well.

Joe Biden, he's still under 50%, but Joe Biden does fairly well in those two states because they're fine with this economy. They're fine with this agenda. But if you actually look in the states in the middle of the country where they want a lot of the viewers to come and watch their movie Lightyear, Joe Biden is far below below the 39 that he is in the national polls the only reason that 39 is a lot of californians and new yorkers actually love him you take those numbers out he's down in the mid 30s and again they don't they don't fit the value and the politics um uh of middle america who they want to buy their film. And, um, By the way, the name of that film that came back to me, Sean, it's called turning red. It's called turning red. And there's a,

there's a discussion about puberty and menstruation and all of that. And parents had no idea. Um, they just thought it's, it's on Disney plus it's on, it's in Disney. It's on, it's in the movies. They just thought it was a, you know, and, and that's the, that's kind of goes back to what you were saying, Sean. It's just not that easy to be a parent anymore. You can't assume because it's animated that it's, it's innocent and fun and, and, and not full of, you know, things that you don't expect as a parent.

And I think what you're going to see is more companies say, you know what? I don't want to be involved in politics. I want to be in the business of making good movies. I think it's going to come because I know this is another, I'm going to see is more companies say, you know what? I don't want to be involved in politics. I want to be in the business of making good movies. I think it's going to come because this is another, I'm going to make a final point here, but it's going to be, I want to sell a product. I want to sell shoes. I want to sell home goods. I want to sell movies. And when I separate the country in half because of my politics, that's bad business. You want to sell it to everybody. And so there is a space in a realm for politics. Let politics be politics. Let businesses run their businesses and sell products or goods or services

and leave politics to somebody else. I think that's important. And there's going to be companies who realize that and come back to the middle. But also, I think you're going to see this parallel economy be created. I look at Ben Shapiro and The Daily Wire. They started to make movies themselves to say, you know what, we're going to try to invest a lot of money. I believe they're doing kids movies and they've done some adult movies. I think that to subscribe to The Daily Wire, it's was it one hundred and forty dollars last summer. I'm like, you know what, I want to support Ben Shapiro and what they're trying to

do. We subscribed. There was a movie that they brought up. We also have Fox Nation, which is providing great content as well. Which we subscribe there too. We subscribe there as well. So I mean, you're right. We're starting to see alternatives out there. Yeah. I mean, I think that's an important thing to see that. And by by the way, in Florida, with the parental rights bill, if you look at the the polling on that and and and I mean, there were Democrats that wanted the parental rights bill. It is not a right and left thing when it comes to kids. Parents say, just leave my kids alone. I will be in charge of teaching them the values that match our family. We don't want that done at school.

We want you to teach them math, reading, you know, science, history. And we don't want you putting in your point of view or indoctrinating their kids or, you know, going around us and not telling us what you're teaching them because you're trying to turn them into little activists. And I think if you look at that Florida bill, Sean, that was you could see that there's a lot of Democrats who supported Ron DeSantis in that there were and which is why when you look at when when the leaked version of the Supreme Court case that would get rid of Roe v. Wade, you would have expected a lot of companies to come out and stand up for abortion

rights didn't happen because they were, they saw what happened to Disney on that. That's right. They saw, they saw what happened to Disney with the parental, the, the, the parents bill of rights and how crushed Disney got. And so these other companies, when this issue came up, they said, you know what, we're going to stay out of it. We're not going to make a statement. And again, it's because a lot of parents and a lot of conservatives have said, you will, you will pay the you will pay the price if you actually engage in these issues. Again, let the Supreme Court be the Supreme Court. You sell your goods and products and you sell them to all of America, not just half, which is good business. a shakeup happening right now. And I think if Disney could probably go back and not have the fight with Ron DeSantis, they probably see that it was a bad fight for them. They did a lot of damage to their brand. You're right. And you're right that this is a parent issue. Again, if I

want to talk about sex or sexual preference, I want to have that conversation with my child. I don't want Disney to have that conversation with my child. And again, to say that you can feed, you know, this transgenderism to a, to a kindergartner and first grader, because the bill was pretty, pretty tame. It was, you can't talk about these issues. Third grade. I mean, my problem with the bill was it didn't go far enough, but also you bring up such a good point because, you know, if you want to have a conversation about gender and sex, the kind of conversation you would have at puberty and all these, these kinds of conversations, what you would say to a 17

year old, a 12 year old, a five-year-old, a seven-year-old, it all differs. And it all, it's, it, it differs in their age. It differs in what your family values are, what your religion is. And it's just like, guys, just leave us alone. And yeah, I think people are definitely the Disney brand suffered from that. But but then they come out with this light year movie back for the beginning. And maybe this was already in the pipeline. There's nothing they could do. They had already filmed this movie probably long before this.

Don't say gay bill, whatever they wanted to rename it stop calling it that it's not i know that's what they call it it's the parental bill of right stop buying into their language you're right you're right right so anyway i'm giving a little jabs here to go stop saying that it's already in the it was already in the pipeline and so they had to defend it by the way this is what um i want to pull it up because before we go because i want to i want you to hear what the um director of this film said i know that you're pulling up can i just make one other point about how i've how i'm canceling the woke when i shave i get so annoyed that i have a harry's razor or a gillette razor and these companies shaving companies have gone so woke with their woke ads, but there's no other razors to actually shave with. And it just irks me that I have to shave my manly face with a woke

razor. And so when I saw the ad from it's Jeremy's razors, he's at, he's at the daily wire. I haven't got my razor yet, but when, when that came out the day after, I think it was seventy four dollars for a whole pack of razors and the handle. I ordered it because I'm like, I I want to shave with a razor of a company that fits my manly values, not my not my woke values. And so, again, I made that transition. Just another note of another. That's right. So the director of Lightyear is Angus McLean. This is what he told Vanity Fair. He said Tim's version of Buzz is a little goofier and is a little dumber. And so he is the comic relief in this film. Buzz is the action hero. He's serious and ambitious and funny, but not in a goofy way

that would undercut the drama. Chris Evans has the gravitas and that movie star quality that our character needed to separate him and the movie from Tim's version of the toy and toy story. And I will say, to be fair, Tim does have a deal with Disney. He, you know, he's famous for his Santa Claus movies, and he does have some sort of another sequel to this for Disney Plus. But clearly, you've got to know that Tim Allen wanted to be in the light of your film. There was a way to incorporate him, if not as the main character,

in some other way, the way that they did that with Val Kilmer and Maverick. And so I think people know exactly what's happening. Conservatives. You don't change the voice of Buzz. Buzz is Buzz.

And what you did in the first movies, you're stuck with you can't change it in the in the the the light year movie that andy loves to actually go out and buy the toy buzz light year it's the same voice and to think that this is now some kind of no no it's a different action hero it's just stupid and to think that we're going to buy into that to think that's right to think that this wasn't about politics that they don't have an that we're going to buy into that, to think that this was not about, that's right. To think that this wasn't about politics, that they don't have an agenda. We're not that dumb. We get it and we get what they're trying to do. And so again, we're not going to go see it. Hopefully you don't either vote with your dollar punish Disney. And you're right. This is a moment

to send a message. And it seems like people are waking up. This is the time to send the message. Maybe we'll see some change, but an interesting story. Yes. An interesting buzz light, your story. So sad, a sad end to a great kids movie from what go enjoy the original, go, go back and watch the original with your kids. Do you have to get on Netflix or Netflix? No one has blockbuster. I know what happened to Blockbuster. Family video.

I know. Who knows? Well, listen, thank you guys for joining us. And again, I think we bring up these issues because we talk about this around our kitchen table. We think it's important that we think about these issues that impact our kids and our families and how we impact our culture in the smallest ways with the dollars that we spend. Who do we choose? What companies do we choose to give our money to? Actually reflects our values.

And again, no one can be perfect because there's a stuff that happens, but a conscious choice to stay away from some of these radically woke companies, I think is a good sign that they're going to get the message that their company, their bottom line, and their stock prices will all be affected if they continue down this path. Yeah, and listen, money's tight right now for a lot of people. And so I think people are going to be pickier and choosier as they decide how they want to spend the little bit of disposable income that they have, given that so much of it is getting poured into their gas tanks and their food bills.

And so hopefully as we get pickier, Joe did that. He definitely did that. Maybe one of the, you know, silver linings of this is that we will also be pickier with our, you know, disposable dollars, make wise choices, think about it as a movement and know that we are making choices that can impact the way corporations see us, that we have more power than we think can do that just by acting individually in these ways. By the way, not a small bill when we go to the movies with our kids. So a big deal that we decide not to do that. Huh? That's what we don't. We don't go often. Um, anyway, we blew the bank at, uh, at Maverick before we go back again. So, yep. So anyway, great talking to everybody. Um, and have you joined us at the kitchen table? Yeah. By the way, we're doing this twice a week now. So we should actually announce that we are going to be around the kitchen table two times a week from now on

Tuesday and Wednesday, Tuesday and Wednesday. You don't get enough coffee and coffee talk on the kitchen table with us for one day. Now you get to so we're hoping to do like a guest one one episode and then, you know, have us, you know, rant and

riff riff the way we we love to do and the way we always do around our own our own kitchen table. So if you like it, you can rate, review our podcast, subscribe, wherever you get your podcast. We'd appreciate it. And again, we thank you for joining us around our kitchen table as we kind of go into the next couple of days before our daughter gets married on Friday.

Oh, my God. So we'll talk about that. Yeah, we'll talk about that in the next episode. All right. Bye. Listen for free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. From the Fox News Podcasts Network.

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