What the hell is wrong with Disney?
The House of the Mouse raised more than a few eyebrows and left more than a few jaws hanging when it re-opened Disney World and a handful of other parks last month. Disney has been re-opening its premier American park experience-which closed last March in an attempt to help control the novel Coronavirus-in phases to help manage park attendance and enforce a mandatory mask policy as well as social distancing. Or trying to because the Magic Kingdom has already been having a bit of a bumpy ride with the logistics necessary to pull off such Herculean tasks.Â
And that doesn’t say anything of the political strife smearing America across the world’s headlines every night.
So what is Disney thinking?
Obviously it’s thinking strictly with it’s bottom line. Disney’s theme parks and cruise lines still constitute the majority of the corporate juggernaut’s annual revenue. And since they won’t be releasing any movies in the foreseeable future, most of their retail stores remain closed and all their other cash cows are currently locked in the barn, opening their biggest park to a public desperate to get back to normal probably seemed like the best way to staunch the economic bleeding.
But there is a far greater picture here and frankly Disney should know better.
You would need the Encyclopedia Brittanica to list all the reasons Disney World shouldn’t have opened in the first place. The plain truth is both the United States as a whole and the state of Florida in particular are in far worse shape now than when Disney World (and everything else) closed last March. In fact the park wouldn’t have been able to open if Florida’s Governor wasn’t both willingly blind and stupid (seriously, if you thought your head of state was dumb, just google any of Ron DeSantis’ recent speeches or press conferences).
And while Mickey has dodged a bullet so far and has even reduced attendance guidelines based on lower than anticipated attendance so far, Disney World is is pretty much a disaster waiting to happen. It’s only a matter of time until Mickey gets the (well deserved) blame for making people-guests or employees-sick.
The rest of the world has currently written off the United States as a modern day leper colony, with most preventing Americans from entering their borders. No one is going to the U.S. unless they absolutely have to or they have a gun to their head. And Florida is one of the worst places in the U.S. right now, making it one of the worst places in the world.
It doesn’t matter how many precautions are taken, how much they clean or how much they insist guests wear masks, people will still get sick as a result of Disney World being open. It wouldn’t be surprising in the least if a lot of Florida’s record breaking new cases over the past few weeks are traced back to Disney World and its associated parks. And then it will only be a matter of time before Mickey has blood on his hands.
But we know all that, and quite frankly so should Disney. Disney was already facing public pressure over the way it has treated park employees, particularly how poorly it has paid them. Then for some reason only the gods know, it made the guy responsible for that bad press their new CEO. But if they thought their parks were earning them negative publicity before, they have no idea what’s coming.
As stated previously, people will get sick because of Disney World. And while we can lay a healthy amount of responsibility at the feet of the guests (a valid point), Disney is responsible for their employees safety as well. And said employees have already expressed serious concerns. And why shouldn’t they? Every time a school has tried to re-open during the age of COVID 19, students and teachers alike have immediately become sick. Now magnify that scenario by a thousand and you have an idea of the possible health fallout of an open Disney World.
Whether it’s the far-right burning Colin Kaepernick jerseys or Twitter trying to cancel J.K. Rowing, the west is having a pretty divisive conversation about cancel culture right now. And that conversation currently includes some massive corporations. A lot of people are going out of their way to avoid Amazon following the way the online mega-retailer treated employees during the early days of the pandemic. Other consumers are compiling lists of other companies to avoid as well, all because of their bad behaviour during trying times. Â
Does Disney really want to be added to that list?
Even if Disney keeps Disney World (and other related Florida parks) open, it can’t be making all that much. It costs a lot to run those parks, even after paying the employees less than they’re worth. And now they have to limit the amount of paying customers AND invest a lot of extra money in cleaning protocols (or at least they should be). Then you have to wonder how much more they’re paying for insurance.
So how much can they be making? Especially since every other park in the world remains closed by law (including California’s Disneyland).
If Disney World finds itself the subject of unfriendly and downright hostile headlines as a result of its opening, there are plenty of ways for an upset public to hurt the company.
How many people may choose not to subscribe to DisneyPlus as a result? How many people will chose not to renew? How many will cancel their subscription altogether? How many potential customers may decide to exercise their right to protest by not purchasing a ticket to Black Widow or Soul when (and if) they are released to theatres? How many people might skip that trip to their local Disney Store during the all important Christmas shopping season?Â
Worse yet, how many people will skip making any Disney park a part of their vacation plans in a post COVID-19 world? How much will all that lost trust hurt Disney’s bottom line, especially if the company needs to depend on Americans to be their primary visitors in the face of continued travel restrictions?
Disney has been to this dance before. They know how valuable public perception and good press is. And they know how damaging bad headlines can be. It’s why it sent Roseanne Barr and John Lasseter packing and why it fired James Gunn. Toxic brand recognition is why Mickey ultimately decided against buying Twitter and kept Song of the South locked firmly in their vault. Sure, many of these decision provoked backlash on social media, but Disney weighed the pros against the cons and made the respective call. And in pretty much every case it turned out to be the right decision.
So why are they being so cavalier now?
How will they spin it when an employee gets sick? How will spin it when a dozen get sick? Or a hundred? What happens when the first headline pops up blaming Disney World for the death of a customer? What happens when the first lawsuit is filed? What happens when it becomes a class action one, composed of dozens or maybe hundreds of victims and employees alike? Worse yet, how will Disney deal with the inevitable product boycotts that will follow?Â
Disney has proven both agile and resourceful enough to meet past challenges-including bad press. It practically reinvented itself over the past fifteen years, becoming the world’s largest entertainment company along the way. But it’s demonstrating an alarming lack of awareness and profit driven recklessness during one of the most uncertain and turbulent times in modern history.
And while they will likely find a way to navigate their way through the current turbulent waters, they may just wind up self destructing further downstream. Seeing Mickey responsible for preventable suffering and possible death would be bad enough; seeing him cancelled because of his corporate selfishness would destroy the childhood memories of entire generations.
Image via CTV News
