Los Angeles, CA —
The nearly 102-year-old Walt Disney Company is no stranger to being catapulted into America’s culture wars. But the wrangling over “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” this month marked a new milestone in the entertainment behemoth’s frequent foray into culture-war flashpoints.
Just since 2020, Disney has dealt with political controversies including its response to Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, its theme park re-openings located in two states with polar opposite COVID safety protocols, its firing of Gina Carano from “The Mandalorian” over some of her social media posts and its re-theming of Splash Mountain in the wake of a nationwide racial justice reckoning after the killing of George Floyd.
But no matter what the company does – or doesn’t do – seemingly half of the country gets upset.
The continued controversies underscore just how big Disney has gotten, from the movies that helped define American animation to the theme parks that helped defined American childhoods, from Star Wars to late-night talk shows. And with an increasingly polarized country, that means those broad markers of American life will almost inevitably be seen very differently across the nation.
Disney has dealt with public scrutiny before, including animators going
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