Half of all Disney characters should represent a racial minority or the LGBTQ community in the future, the company’s president has said in a leaked video.
The plans were discussed in a company-wide Zoom call on Monday in which Karey Burke, Disney’s corporate president, promised to make the company more inclusive.
“We have many, many, many LGBTQIA [lesbian, bisexual transgender, queer, intersex and asexual] characters in our stories and yet we don’t have enough leads and narratives in which gay characters just get to be characters and not have to be about gay stories,” she said.
Ms Burke is the mother of one transgender child and one pansexual child.
She said she had “heard so much from so many of my colleagues over the course of the last couple of weeks”, adding: “I feel a responsibility to speak not just for myself, but for them.”
‘Reimagine tomorrow’
The pledge is contained in a strategy document called “Reimagine Tomorrow” and is set to be implemented by the end of the year.
In a leaked video of the meeting, Latoya Raveneau, an executive producer, said she had been pushing what she described as her “not at all secret gay agenda”.
Disney’s theme parks are also working to cater for non-binary visitors, Vivian Ware, the company’s head of diversity and inclusion, told staff.
“Last summer we removed all gendered greetings in relationship to our live spiels,” she said.
“We no longer say: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.’ We’ve provided training to all our cast members, so now they know it’s: ‘Hello, everyone,’ or: ‘Hello, friends.’”
These initiatives, which have led critics to accuse the company of becoming “woke”, underline the extent to which it has moved away from the beliefs of Walt Disney, its founder, who was an unrepentant conservative and opponent of liberal values.
They come as the company finds itself embroiled in a row with Ron DeSantis, Florida’s conservative governor and likely Republican presidential candidate, who recently signed a law banning the discussion of sexual orientation in primary schools.
