4 ms·

'To date, Pixar has only included a tiny handful of LGBTQ characters in its feature films, most prominently in the 2020 fantasy film “Onward,” which features a

'To date, Pixar has only included a tiny handful of LGBTQ characters in its feature films, most prominently in the 2020 fantasy film “Onward,” which features a cyclops police officer named Specter, voiced by Lena Waithe. The character’s sexuality is only acknowledged in passing, when Specter says, “It’s not easy being a new parent – my girlfriend’s daughter got me pulling my hair out, okay?” But the movie was still banned in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia due to the scene, and in the version released in Russia, the word “girlfriend” was changed to “partner.”' They are following the profit like any corporation that wants to make money would do. Telling LGBTQ+ stories would be welcome in some places, but would trigger bans and boycotts in other places. Bans and boycotts are bad for business, hence those stories are not being told under the Disney brand.

falcolas 5y ago
> They are following the profit like any corporation that wants to make money would do. I hate how this trope is pulled out all the time, as if being a for-profit company requires them to abandon their morals. Which is patently false. A corporation can both have morals and make profit. Even public companies.
- thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
  >> I hate how this trope is pulled out all the time, as if being a for-profit company requires them to abandon their morals. >> Which is patently false. A corporation can both have morals and make profit. Even public companies. You are correct, but which one is more profitable? Would they make more money boldly telling LGBTQ+ stories or not? Similarly, why do so many companies do what China asks? See https://mashable.com/article/china-censorship-companies-hong-kong-protests-nba https://mashable.com/article/china-censorship-companies-hong... It's because they want to make MORE money than they could if they did otherwise.
- bitshiftfaced 5y ago
  > as if being a for-profit company requires them to abandon their morals. Agreed. To maximize profit, you must not only consider first order consequences like being banned in certain countries, but also second order consequences (and beyond) like being perceived as immoral in most countries. Disney is walking a fine line here.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    I don't think you agree with the GP. The point is that companies are responsible for more than maximizing profit, just like all of us. We all live in the world and our communities and are responsible for far more than maximising our own lives. It's partly enlightended self-interest - if we don't take care of the communities, we lose out - and partly just not being sociopaths. The claim that companies should be sociopaths with no enlightened self-interest is commonly repeated, by companies and investors themselves, but has no ground to stand on. Why they heck should they get to do that?
    - falcolas 5y ago
      Yes, this. Once upon a time (a few dozen years ago at most) a company was expected to not only provide for its own longevity, but to provide tangible benefits to its community (good paying jobs that allowed their employees to support their families being one such benefit). We look back on the historical exceptions (AT&T, Standard Oil Co., etc.) because they were exceptions (and because of how they were dismantled by the government - another lesson companies should take).
      - wolverine876 5y ago
        People now assume that 'maximizing shareholder value' is the natural and only law of corporations, that to act otherwise is unnatural perversion, and should be suppressed. But it is just a philosophy, mostly in the US and UK, developed in the 1970s primarily by Milton Friedman in this famous essay, https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctrine-the-social-responsibility-of-business-is-to.html https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctr... and by Michael Jensen and William Meckling in their paper, "Theory of the Firm". These days it is widely rejected afaik. First, anything taken to an extreme is absurd on its face; of course shareholder value is important, but it's not the only priority. Second, it's not hard to see how conveniently self-serving the idea is to powerful, wealthy, sometimes egocentric individuals who own a lot of shares - 'yes, the purpose of the world is to maximise my value! Milton Friedman said so!' Third, there are many other models that work very well, such as the German one.
wolverine876 5y ago
That conflates why they might have done it with whether they should, and often implies, by ignoring morals, that there is no 'should'. I think we all can guess why, but the issue is, how can Disney navigate this and do the right thing?

falcolas 5y ago

> They are following the profit like any corporation that wants to make money would do. I hate how this trope is pulled out all the time, as if being a for-profit company requires them to abandon their morals. Which is patently false. A corporation can both have morals and make profit. Even public companies.

thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
>> I hate how this trope is pulled out all the time, as if being a for-profit company requires them to abandon their morals. >> Which is patently false. A corporation can both have morals and make profit. Even public companies. You are correct, but which one is more profitable? Would they make more money boldly telling LGBTQ+ stories or not? Similarly, why do so many companies do what China asks? See https://mashable.com/article/china-censorship-companies-hong-kong-protests-nba https://mashable.com/article/china-censorship-companies-hong... It's because they want to make MORE money than they could if they did otherwise.
bitshiftfaced 5y ago
> as if being a for-profit company requires them to abandon their morals. Agreed. To maximize profit, you must not only consider first order consequences like being banned in certain countries, but also second order consequences (and beyond) like being perceived as immoral in most countries. Disney is walking a fine line here.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  I don't think you agree with the GP. The point is that companies are responsible for more than maximizing profit, just like all of us. We all live in the world and our communities and are responsible for far more than maximising our own lives. It's partly enlightended self-interest - if we don't take care of the communities, we lose out - and partly just not being sociopaths. The claim that companies should be sociopaths with no enlightened self-interest is commonly repeated, by companies and investors themselves, but has no ground to stand on. Why they heck should they get to do that?
  - falcolas 5y ago
    Yes, this. Once upon a time (a few dozen years ago at most) a company was expected to not only provide for its own longevity, but to provide tangible benefits to its community (good paying jobs that allowed their employees to support their families being one such benefit). We look back on the historical exceptions (AT&T, Standard Oil Co., etc.) because they were exceptions (and because of how they were dismantled by the government - another lesson companies should take).
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      People now assume that 'maximizing shareholder value' is the natural and only law of corporations, that to act otherwise is unnatural perversion, and should be suppressed. But it is just a philosophy, mostly in the US and UK, developed in the 1970s primarily by Milton Friedman in this famous essay, https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctrine-the-social-responsibility-of-business-is-to.html https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctr... and by Michael Jensen and William Meckling in their paper, "Theory of the Firm". These days it is widely rejected afaik. First, anything taken to an extreme is absurd on its face; of course shareholder value is important, but it's not the only priority. Second, it's not hard to see how conveniently self-serving the idea is to powerful, wealthy, sometimes egocentric individuals who own a lot of shares - 'yes, the purpose of the world is to maximise my value! Milton Friedman said so!' Third, there are many other models that work very well, such as the German one.

wolverine876 5y ago

That conflates why they might have done it with whether they should, and often implies, by ignoring morals, that there is no 'should'. I think we all can guess why, but the issue is, how can Disney navigate this and do the right thing?