A recent THR piece had Pixar removing a transgender character’s storyline from their upcoming “Win or Lose.” The character at the center of the show will also now “be portrayed as cisgender.”
This intel no doubt came from a few disgruntled Pixar creatives who must have been really irked by the decision, which came from the top of the Disney food chain, to remove the trans storyline. Now, more have come out, all anonymously, to slam Disney/Pixar’s decision. They’re going as far as to claim that Disney “decided not to save lives” with this decision.
THR has now published a follow-up piece. A former Pixar employee is telling the outlet that the “Win or Lose” episode that initially included a a storyline for a transgender character “was so beautiful — beautifully illustrated some of the experiences of being trans,” and that “it was literally going to save lives by showing those who feel alone and unloved, that there are people out there who understand”
It’s just very frustrating that Disney has decided to spend money to not save lives.
Is that the narrative being built up now? Disney has decided to kill people by removing a trans character from their show?
Sarah Ligatich, a former Pixar assistant editor who consulted on the episode, claims that during one of her meetings with [then] Disney CEO Bob Chapek, he made it clear that Disney views animation as a “conservative medium.” She confirms that some past and former Pixar staffers cried over the decision.
“I can’t tell you how much I cried yesterday thinking about that conversation that David had to have with [Chanel],” Ligatich says. “Not only are you asking someone to play someone they’re not, but to also get them to wrap their mind around a political conversation that is just so beyond them,” says Ligatich. “They had this story in the can for two years, so they could have released it in a Biden presidency, and they chose not to.”
It’s not just “Win or Lose” that’s being cleaned up of progressive politics — there seems to be a clear call over at Pixar to scrub off anything that might turn off a conservative audience. In the same THR piece, a former Pixar staffer claims that Disney told them to downplay “themes of environmentalism” from their upcoming movie “Hoppers.” The film follows a girl who transfers her mind into a robot beaver to infiltrate their animal kingdom.
These calls are all coming from the boss’ office. Disney CEO Bob Iger has blamed the creators at Disney for losing focus on what their jobs should be — “entertain first, not messages.” A few months later, Iger stated that he wanted to “quiet things down” at Disney “after years of culture wars.” This seemed to be in reference to the company having been accused, many times, by the conservative right of promoting a “woke agenda” in their movies.
Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.