Disney is preparing to downplay the content warnings on its streaming service that accompany classic movies that include racial stereotypes, altering their language and decreasing their visibility.
The content warning that currently autoplays on Disney+ before movies such as “Dumbo” (1941) and “Peter Pan” (1953) cautions of “negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures,” adding, “These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now.”
The new disclaimer will warn that the movie “may contain stereotypes or negative depictions” and will not appear as introductory text that plays before the beginning of a film, a company spokesman said. Instead, the language will now appear in the details section of certain films, where viewers will have to navigate to find it. (As of Wednesday morning, the original content warning still appeared on Disney+.)
Disney is also changing the diversity component of how it rates its executives and makes compensation decisions. Company leaders will now be graded on a “Talent Strategy” performance factor instead of a “Diversity & Inclusion” one, Sonia Coleman, Disney’s senior executive vice president and chief human resources officer, said on Tuesday in an email seen by The New York Times. The new factor will cover how executives “incorporate different perspectives,” “cultivate an environment where all employees can thrive” and “sustain a robust pipeline.”
The changes were earlier reported by Axios.
The evolution of Disney’s content warnings comes in the wake of other decisions the company has made that signal a shift in strategy on hot-button cultural issues.
Pixar, a division of Walt Disney Studios, removed a transgender story line from an upcoming animated series, a decision that became public in December, after the presidential election, though Disney said it was made last summer. Last year, the company also declined to release an episode of a different animated show, Disney Channel’s “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur,” that depicted a transgender character’s interest in sports.
In 2022, Disney’s chief executive, Robert A. Iger, said publicly that some of the company’s products had grown too political and ordered a review of upcoming projects.
In December, Disney decided to settle a defamation suit brought by President Trump for $15 million plus legal fees. The accusation concerned an on-air statement made by the ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos that Mr. Trump had been found “liable for rape” in a New York civil trial, when in fact the president had been found liable for sexual abuse (the judge in the case noted that New York has a narrow legal definition of rape).
Disney executives, including Mr. Iger, were motivated to settle primarily by the fear that the company could lose the case. But they were also worried about Mr. Trump’s treatment of ABC News should the suit continue and about the company’s reputation among the broad cross-section of consumers it wants to reach.
