Front Burner - Trouble in the Magic Kingdom: Florida vs. Disney

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

Disney got into a battle with Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis over a recently passed education bill that critics call the "Don't Say Gay" law. After Disney's CEO spoke out against it, state lawmakers revoked the theme park's special tax status that it has held for more than half a century. Today on Front Burner, New York Times reporter Brooks Barnes explains how this became the latest flash point in America's ongoing culture wars.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. The Disney brand is all about wishing on a star and living happily ever after. Its theme parks offer this escape from the real world and its struggles.

But now the real world of politics is seeping into the magic kingdom. Disney has gotten itself into this battle with the Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis. The governor making it official during a visit to South Florida, punishing Walt Disney World for opposing his law limiting education on sexual orientation or gender identity, essentially stripping the ability for Disney to self-govern. It started with this dispute over a recently passed bill around education in Florida. Parents have a fundamental role in the education, health care and well-being of their children. I don't care what corporate media outlets say.

I don't care what... This is not the first time that we've seen politicians like Governor Ron DeSantis join forces with the far right to whip up sort of fear and fervor against LGBTQ people to help further his political careers. And then last week, Florida lawmakers revoked a 55-year-old arrangement that gave Disney special tax status and allowed it to basically self-govern the Disney World complex over the loud objections of some Democrats. How did it get to this point and what

does it say about the GOP's relationship with corporate America and where we're at in the culture wars? Brooks Barnes reports on Hollywood for the New York Times, and he's been covering Disney for more than a decade. Hey, Brooks. Hi. So all this started with the, quote, parental rights in education law just passed in Florida. This has become referred to by critics as the don't say gay bill. And I just wonder if you could lay out the basics for people who might not have been following this. Yes. Yes. So it's among many things, the parental rights and education law. The part that's controversial is that it prohibits teachers from talking about sexual orientation and gender identity in up to third grade.

So kindergarten to third grade. The bill is designed to keep school districts from talking about these topics before kids are ready to process them. I don't think it's controversial to empower parents. But beyond that, it also limits discussion on those topics for older students and it gives parents the ability to sue over perceived violations. So LGBT groups, you know, see it as limiting the anti LGBT bill. I it scares me that I'm not going to be able to have these conversations with my children, because they're going to ask me what I did on the weekend. I don't want to have to hide that my partner and I went paddleboarding this weekend. Because then they ask, well, what does partner mean, Mr. Bernard? And you know, I'm worried, can I tell them what it means? Talk to me a little bit about how Disney became

embroiled in this. Obviously, this is a controversial bill, but where does Disney enter? Sure. So Disney has occasionally weighed in on hot button topics, state laws, as they have made their way through legislatures over the last decade. But in this case, even though it is the largest employer in Florida, and it has a pretty liberal employee base, certainly in California, at the movie side, it did not say anything publicly about this legislation as it was going through. And so people kept sort of noticing, like, where's Disney's voice? And then the former CEO tweeted his opposition to it. And that added sort of, okay, well, you know, why is Disney being quiet about this? And what was the reaction inside Disney? I understand it

was super heated. Yes. So the longer the company was silent, the more pressure from employees that kept bubbling up. Groups of employees sent letters internally. And at this point, the CEO, Bob Chapek, decided to put out an internal memo to staff saying, look, the reason that we're not, you know, some people have wondered, why are we silent? You know, we, I really don't want Disney to become what he called a political football. Basically, he was saying, we want to try to stay neutral in these in these state battles. That landed like a lead balloon that memo. And it basically enraged employees to the point that there was a walkout. Today, dozens of Disney employees walked off the job.

You know, I'm here just in support of all of our here employees and their families. Now, inside the happiest place on earth, growing frustration over Disney CEO Bob Chapek's handling of the legislation, with critics saying he did not do enough to speak out against it. And it sort of snowballed to the point that Disney had to come and made a decision to aggressively denounce the legislation. Yeah. And Chaypak, he walked it back big time, right? Like, what did he say exactly? Yeah, it was interesting because it was in some people's minds having stayed silent,

then he overcorrected to the opposite, which was to say, we're not only against this legislation, but now that it's signed into law, we will fight it in courts and we hope we will fight it elsewhere. I pledge to be a better ally for the LGBTQ plus community. Apologize for not being the ally that you needed me to be, and committed to ensuring that our company lives up to its values. He also specifically invoked the name of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. And this was at Disney's shareholder meeting. He said, I called the governor and we spoke and he heard our concerns and we're going to sit down, you know, and talk about our differences. And that seemed to not land well with the governor, or at least he seized on that as an opportunity

and immediately started blasting, punching back at Disney as what he called a woke Disney. You know, we're going to make sure we're fighting back when people are threatening our parents and threatening our kids. Tell me more about how he punched back here. So he immediately sent a, he's up for reelection this year in Florida, but he also has made no secret about having presidential aspirations. And so he sent a fundraising email to supporters saying, if Disney wants to pick a fight, they chose the wrong guy. Sort of, you know, very John Wayne. I will not allow a woke corporation based in California to run our state. Disney has gotten away with special deals from the state of Florida for far too long. And then the part that sort of, you know, really drew my attention was Disney thought

they ruled Florida. They even tried to attack me to advance their woke agenda. Like, not really. They didn't attack you. They did speak up against the legislation, but it shows how that's sort of what really drew eyeballs to this was, whoa, anyone of power speaking up to power, right, is suddenly drawing fire. And I want to talk about how this has snowballed a little bit more in just a minute. But first, you mentioned the media, like Fox News had a real heyday with this.

But first, you mentioned the media, like Fox News had a real heyday with this. This is oligarchy. Corporate CEOs deciding what the laws should be. Yeah, that's their new position. They did. And not just Fox News, but the more extreme far right media also, and certainly on platforms like Twitter. on platforms like Twitter. And that was being fueled by sort of not only Disney speaking up against what critics call the don't say gay bill, but simultaneously as an effort to calm the internal uprising at Disney,

there were a series of internal panels. For example, there was one on zoom where people, diversity and inclusion officials inside Disney spoke about efforts to incorporate more LGBTQ characters into animated content, for example, and that was leaked. Video snippets of that were leaked to Fox News and elsewhere. And that sort of simultaneously converged to create one big fire. And conservative parents and families all over this country are in revolt against the mouse

because they don't want their kids to be an experimental ground for the kind of sexual engineering of children that is clearly disney's gambit we yeah yeah and i know this isn't like the first time that disney's been accused of of um going too far by the right right like i remember last summer uh they decided to make loudspeaker announcements at the theme park's firework show, gender neutral. Yeah, so there's a sort of the famous disembodied voice at Disney parks is a long been this booming loudspeaker voice, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. And I don't know if I did that well. No, I think you did that very well. Yeah. And, you know, that would announce the start of a parade or the start of the fireworks, you know.

And so they changed that to be general neutral. And so now it says dreamers of all ages. And a lot of people on the right felt like that was an example of political correctness run amok. They're also, Disney's also made changes. It's making changes to Splash Mountain, one of its big, most famous attractions, which was based on Song of the South, which is a racist movie, just to be blunt about it. And I don't know if you remember a few years ago, they changed some of the, one of the scenes in Pirates of the Caribbean where there were pirates chasing women, you know,

around as they looted the town and instead now they have women chasing the men. And, you you know this all ties into conservatism yes but also it's it's sort of hits at the heart of what disney sells which is nostalgia right like people some people just want no change they want disney as they experienced it when they were 10 years old and any any effort to change that is met with resistance. Yeah, although, like, it's interesting, because is Disney widely considered woke? Barring some of these changes, I know it's been criticized for portraying all sorts of racist, sexist stereotypes.

Yeah, I mean, the answer to that is no. Disney is not known. But some of these examples do add up to a point of view for some people, the conservative side for sure. And if you look at it in sort of more holistically in Disney history, you know, Disney has been among the more conservative, by some cases, the most conservative Hollywood studio because of its emphasis on family and children. So, you know, LGBTQ content characters have been very, very slight. You know, it took until 2009 for Disney to have a black princess. And so traditionally they have been sort of you know a safe space for conservatives or at least that audience has viewed it that way so i guess this brings us back to to the fight with governor desantis uh and last week and and he decides to really uh take some action here

and you know you talked before about how he was accusing Disney of having too much power. And so he moves fast to revoke the special status that they've had for the past 50 plus years. But they also will be considering termination of all special districts that were enacted in Florida prior to 1968. And that includes the Reedy Creek Improvement District. I wonder if you could just explain to me how they got this special status in the first place and what the status actually is. Sure. So he took advantage of the fact that it's confusing and it boils down to a really provocative headline, which is Disney gets to govern itself, which is true with a bunch of asterisks. So essentially what it is, it was enacted in 1967. And it's called the Reedy Creek Improvement District is the official name. Very innocuous sounding.

Don't look over here. It really is. Like, so boring. Yeah. Very innocuous sounding. Don't look over here. It really is like so boring. Yeah. So boring. Nothing's that, you know, and so, but what it does is so Disney world is a huge complex, 25,000 acres. And that property saddles two counties in Florida, Orange and Osceola counties. So under a traditional setup, those counties and the taxpayers, people that live in them, would need to, their taxes would have to go to provide, you know, emergency responding at the theme parks, and they would have to build the roads that serve

the theme parks. So what Reedy Creek does is puts that burden on Disney, but it also gives Disney a lot of control. So think of it sort of as an extra county, a special county that just covers those 25,000 acres of Disney World. So in essence, Disney is taxing itself to pay. And this is more than $100 million a year in addition to the property taxes that they pay locally to the other counties. locally to the other counties. So for that money that they pay to Reedy Creek, they get to provide their own medical and fire service. It treats their own wastewater.

They build their own roads and maintain their own roads. And most importantly, in terms of the development of the resort, they have their own zoning and planning commission. They can like build whatever they want. Basically, yes. So they can, they don't have to, for example, if they want to build a fake mountain or, you know, fairytale castle, they don't have to go to the local planning commission that is used to approving, you know, four bedroom homes and mini malls. Yeah. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization.

Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. Fifty percent. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Is there a legitimate argument to take some of this power away from this corporation? This power that was given to them in 1967?

Like, maybe it's not as relevant in 2022 to be able to function like an elected government? So, yeah, there are definitely people who think that. And sort of core to that point of view would be that in 1967, it was just Swampland. And Disney World opened in 1971 as a single theme park, right? Then if you flash forward to now, it's six different theme parks. If you include their two water parks, it's Disney-owned hotels. It's a huge shopping area. I mean, that just sort of touches the surface. And Reedy Creek and the controls that it gave Disney certainly allowed, it greased the wheels of that development. And so now you

could say, well, wait, this complex is attracting 50 million people a year. That's a lot of power. So the lawmakers, they did vote to take this special status away, particularly the Republican lawmakers voted to do that. And so how has Disney responded? so disney after sort of you know talking a lot um decided to say nothing uh officially the company has not responded at all to any of the that effort which really like went through with startling speed all all in one week with the exception of a sort of notice that went to bondholders of Reedy Creek. And that basically said, we don't think that the legislature in Florida had the right to do this. They don't even think it's legal? Yeah, correct.'s some there's some debate now as to did they have

the right to do this and that involved you know their sort of minutiae um and so uh disney is now looking at its options right so it may ultimately just be uh reinst. They could sue. The prevailing thought is that something, by the time that the Reedy Creek goes away under what the legislature just voted on, that's June of next year. So they have a year basically to figure out, you know, what the hell happens and and and so a big voice in that which was not part of the debate yeah a big a big voice are is the county government and the citizens of the counties orange and osceola that now have to take on the responsibility of all of all of the things that reedy creek was providing yeah maybe they're not so jazzed about that they're not because that means that property taxes you know just for regular residents are probably going to have to go up 15 to 20 percent to pay for that

and and so i mean it's important to say that the counties, you know, they liked this setup because Disney still paid a lot of taxes to them, but they did not have any responsibility for the, you know, inspecting the roads and maintaining the roads and building them and the building codes. So there's a lot of misinformation and posturing that has, has gone in. It's sort of, it sounds like the, the Republicans pushing this and DeSantis are making some sort of political calculation here. Yes.

It reflects this sort of larger benefit, I guess, on the, larger um benefit i guess on the on the right wing of the republican party to attack companies um that are you know it was once anathema it would never happen for um republicans to attack corporate america like this yeah there'd be no political benefit. But over the last decade, in particular, with the rise of Trumpism, that has changed. And some actually see political incentives to do that now. Yeah. It might be worth noting, I don't know if you think this plays a big role in it, but I read that the legislature acted after the company announced it would no longer make political contributions.

I'm so glad you pointed that out because that has been lost in a lot of this also. And they didn't say stop. They said paused. So, you know, the likelihood that Disney will no longer sort of grease the wheels of the Florida legislature with campaign donations is probably zero. But for the moment, the cash has stopped flowing. You know, it's interesting to me, you know, in addition to this being an example of a pattern that we've seen where Republicans are more interested in taking on corporations, it also seems to be an example of how much pressure is on companies to take a stand on these kind of issues. And how do you see that changing Disney? I know you touched on this earlier, but I wonder if it's

worth asking the question outright. It reflects a huge sea change in how companies have to think about their public statements, right? At a certain time, I don't know, even five years ago, employees worked for the brand and were less, you know, they might grumble, but they felt less able to, you know, demand a company behave in one way or the other. Social media changed that. And the workforce,

the changing makeup of the workforce has changed that, meaning younger employees, millennials, and from there they're down, really want and expect and are demanding companies to take stands that are in alignment with their own political values. And Disney, you know, has has employees of all political stripe working for them. But certainly the bulk of employees at Disney, certainly in California, lean towards the left. Brooks, thank you so much for this. This was great. Really appreciate it.

Of course. I'll keep watching it. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.