Wholly unsurprising to anyone paying attention, the backlash over the abrupt cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel Live! is only continuing to grow and spread, and Disney is now scrambling to fix a situation quickly spiraling out of its control. After far-right podcaster Charlie Kirk was shot and killed, reactions have been intense, but it’s Disney’s knee-jerk reaction that has drawn the most ire.
There has been considerable pressure from the right to crack down on anyone saying anything even remotely controversial about Kirk, and media companies have acquiesced to this pressure. Earlier this week, on Wednesday, Disney announced that it was pulling Jimmy Kimmel from the air indefinitely after a monologue in which he didn’t hold back about Trump’s seeming indifference to Kirk’s murder:
The media is generally framing it as Kimmel being indefinitely suspended for his comments about Charlie Kirk. If you just watched the above, however, and are now wondering why, as Kimmel’s jabs weren’t aimed at Kirk, but Trump, then you’ve hit on precisely why the backlash against Disney’s Jimmy Kimmel decision is growing – and why it’s not likely to stop any time soon.
Disney Is Now Trying To Quell Enormous Backlash From Within Its Own Ranks
The fallout from the decision to pull Kimmel off the air was immediate; the Jimmy Kimmel suspension is already so much worse than Stephen Colbert’s cancellation. On Thursday, hundreds of union writers and actors protested Kimmel’s suspension outside Disney’s Burbank studios (via Deadline). On-air and off-air talent have made their anger clear; mega-successful producer Damon Lindelof, for example, has stated he will not work with Disney unless it reinstates Kimmel.
Kimmel’s own staff, who learned the show was being suspended just before taping on Wednesday, has also been up in arms. In-person and Zoom negotiations between Disney, Jimmy Kimmel, and his staff, aimed at carving a pathway to getting Kimmel back on air, have gone nowhere. Reportedly, Disney wants Kimmel to tone down his rhetoric, as well as provide an apology to Charlie Kirk’s family and donate to his right-wing organization, Turning Point USA, suggestions that have only served to increase the backlash.
Interestingly, some of the hottest anger over the decision to cave to Trump and Carr is reportedly coming from Disney studio executives and corporate management. The feeling is that CEO Bob Iger and Disney Entertainment Co-Chairman Dana Walden caved too easily to MAGA pressure and manufactured outrage once again.
“This is not how we thought Bob [Iger] would handle this. Senior people told him this is not what we should be doing,” said one senior executive. “It’s such a betrayal.” As another anonymous executive told Deadline, “The reaction is like ‘Don’t Say Gay’ on steroids.”
For those who don’t recall, the “Don’t Say Gay” debacle happened in 2022, on previous CEO Bob Chapek’s watch. Florida Republicans passed the controversial Parental Rights in Education Act, which was derisively nicknamed the Don’t Say Gay bill, as it banned discussion of gender orientation and sexual identity in schools and the use of particular words.
Chapek declined to weigh in on behalf of Disney, and the company’s many LGBTQ+ staffers, including those in Florida’s Disney World, walked out. The outrage at Disney refusing to take a stand against censorship and a stand for the LGBTQ+ community it claims to support caused a firestorm that led to Chapek’s blunder-filled tenure as CEO being a short one.
It’s not just employees who are furious at Disney’s decision to cave to pressure from the Trump administration. Equally as great a problem is that Disney customers across multiple areas are deciding to part ways with Disney, and taking their pocketbooks with them.
Disney+ She-Hulk star Tatiana Maslany publicly canceled her Disney+ subscription and encouraged others to do the same, but she’s not alone in her decision to boycott Disney media and products, including Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN (via Deadline). Subscribers are reportedly canceling their subscriptions to Disney+ and other streaming platforms in droves, and longtime Disney parkgoers and fans are canceling their park trips and vacation bookings (via Inside the Magic).
It’s not just a few people canceling their Disney+ subscriptions, either: the Disney+ cancel subscription page reportedly kept crashing this week, suggesting heavy traffic to the site. Meanwhile, calls for a full-scale boycott of Disney in response to Kimmel’s cancellation are gaining momentum. If the boycott picks up enough steam, it could be a legitimate problem for Disney, not just from an optics and PR standpoint, but from a financial one.
The sheer speed and scale of the backlash are an indication of just how badly Disney’s public image has been tarnished over the past few years. The fervor has reportedly staggered Disney, which is now scrambling to chart a course through the growing fallout. There is one way the situation can be salvaged – but it’s unlikely to.
There’s Only One Way Disney Can Salvage This – But It’s Unrealistic
Among the growing chorus of people calling for a full Disney boycott, a quieter question arises: whether Disney could simply choose to move Jimmy Kimmel Live! to its Disney+ streaming platform and thus reinstate him. On the surface, it seems logical. If the pressure is coming from Nexstar and Sinclair regarding their ABC affiliate stations, then moving Kimmel to a platform other than ABC would satisfy their concerns.
In reality, though, moving Kimmel to a new platform won’t resolve the issue, as it doesn’t address the actual underlying motivation underpinning the entire mess: government censorship. The pressure isn’t actually coming through Nexstar and Sinclair, but from the FCC and Trump himself, and nothing short of Kimmel being canceled – or, at the very least, having to publicly apologize to Trump – will suffice.
Disney could move Kimmel to Disney+, and the minute the late-night host said something even remotely critical of the President, Disney would find itself right back in the same situation. Even if Jimmy Kimmel did do everything Disney has asked of him – apologize to Kirk’s family, donate to Turning Point, and tone down his rhetoric of Trump, which is almost certainly not going to happen – the damage is already done.