If there’s one person who’s not losing sleep over what appears to be a mass exodus of diversity, equity and inclusion executives at Hollywood studios, it’s Megyn Kelly.
Following the news, as reported by The Daily Mail, that Disney has lost $900 million on a string of box office disappointments, and considering that recent weeks have seen DEI execs from Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix and the Academy be laid off or step down from their posts, Kelly concluded in Thursday’s episode of “The Megyn Kelly Show” that the Mouse House’s turn toward “wokeness” is to blame.
“Bit by bit, all these media companies and big tech companies are eliminating their heads of diversity because it’s just a wasted position where somebody just glorifies their wokeness and tries to lecture, so it’s failing,” Kelly said, in conversation with Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
The segment began with Kelly running through the Daily Mail report, published June 26, before listing the number of ways Disney has incorporated progressive representation into its animated and live action projects in recent years. Among them were creating an LGBTQ character for “Lightyear,” casting Halle Bailey as Ariel in “The Little Mermaid” remake, featuring a nonbinary character in “Elemental” and spotlighting a same-sex romance in “Strange World.”
“We could go down the list. But people are not buying this content, they don’t want this content,” Kelly said, noting particularly devastating opening weekends for “Elemental” and “Strange World.”
Kirk then jumped in to detail his own — quite gleeful — take on Disney’s woes after the studio recently rolled out a series of layoffs under CEO Bob Iger.
“I try not to make a habit, Megyn, of rejoicing in the suffering of people or companies. I have suspended that rule. I am loving this bloodbath,” Kirk said. “I love the misery, I love the suffering, because Disney used to be a wholesome, family-friendly company that made billions of dollars off of families like my own. And when I grew up, my parents trusted Disney. They violated that trust, and they deserve to suffer.”
“Yes, I’d love to see it too,” Kelly responded, later adding, “Hopefully they’ll learn their lesson.”
As TheWrap previously reported, Disney’s chief diversity officer and senior vice president Latondra Newton, a six-year veteran, became the first of the noted DEI leads to exit their posts last month. Vernā Myers at Netflix, Karen Horne at Warner Bros. Discovery and Jeanell English of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences followed suit over just a 10-day span.
TheWrap wrote at the time that it all gives the impression that the industry is placing DEI on the back-burner.
