Billionaire businessman Ike Perlmutter is the former chairman of Marvel Entertainment and thank God for that “former.” He is racist—allegedly once saying that all Black people “looked the same”—and sexist. He’s the reason there wasn’t a Black Panther or Captain Marvel movie earlier. Basically, he’s an awful person—so of course, Donald Trump loves him.
The president-elect and convicted felon talked about Perlmutter during a speech at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Eve. “The guy went from stone-cold broke to owning Disney,” he told his supporters as Perlmutter stood by him. “Then he got out of Disney because they went woke. He didn’t want woke Donald Duck.”
As with many things Donald Trump says, this is not true. Perlmutter didn’t leave Disney “because they went woke”, he was sidelined because of restructuring and costs. However, his views were also an issue. MCU head Kevin Feige reportedly disliked working with Perlmutter because of the latter’s attitude towards diversity.
After Perlmutter stopped being head of Marvel Studios in 2015, the MCU went on to much greater heights. In 2018 Disney released Black Panther, the first Marvel Cinematic Universe film with a Black main character, and it was a colossal success, pulling in billions. Since then, the MCU has pushed the boat out on diversity and more POC-lead and women-lead films have followed. And yep, the worst people on the internet frequently line up to call them “woke.”
Perlmutter was then laid off in 2023, and used his shares in the company to back fellow billionaire Republican Nelson Peltz in getting a seat on the Disney board. He didn’t succeed, and sold his shares. A far cry from leaving because of “woke”, but of course Donald Trump would only see things that way, because he sees Disney as an enemy.
Disney’s ABC network is often critical of Trump and the thin-skinned orange-skinned man can’t take it. Recently, he launched a defamation lawsuit against ABC over a statement made by George Stephanopoulos about Trump being found “liable for rape.” Under New York law, Trump was “only” found liable for sexual assault, not rape. ABC paid a $15 million settlement and issued an apology. But some thought that Disney should have fought harder, and had “bent the knee” to Trump out of fear.
And that’s not all. According to the Hollywood Reporter, some members of Pixar believe that Disney is having storylines tweaked—most notably, removing trans characters and storylines from Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur and the upcoming Win or Lose—to appease conservatives. “It’s 100 percent political,” said a former Pixar staffer who is themselves transgender. “Disney just had the settlement with Trump. We saw it recently with the Devil Dinosaur and Moon Girl episode that was cut. All of us who knew about Win or Lose and this [trans] character were all just clenching: ‘Please don’t hit us next.’” The “woke” wars, stirred up by Trump and MAGA, are having a terrible affect on marginalized groups.
And the ironic thing about Trump’s statement regarding Donald Duck in particular? Donald Duck, an amicable waterfowl unfortunate enough to share a first name with a tyrannical felon, was already “woke”. During World War II, Donald was used in propaganda and imagined as an anti-Nazi figure. And in the eyes of certain fascistic members of MAGA, fighting Nazis can only ever be bad and thus “woke.”
Published: Jan 3, 2025 01:22 am