The story of Snow White’s performance at the Box Office was writing itself before ticket sales.
The Times said of Disney today, ‘The studio has been widely criticised by conservatives for the diversity of the casting and for including LGBT characters into films and television shows, with accusations it had attempted to spread a left-wing political agenda.’
But ‘polarised politics’ is what the commentary about the commentary gets wrong. It isn’t the criticism from conservatives that matters. And the criticism that does isn’t over including diversity characters in storylines, or about ‘a left-wing agenda.’
What you’ve got is a majority audience that can see straight through the naked cynicism of Instagram ethics. Stochastic algorithms have made certain ideas more prominent in the population of posts than they are among the populations posting. Disney, like others, have conflated a prevalence among the former with one among the latter. And optimised for it.
Some people are truly ecumenical; some aren’t; and some just shuffle around the criteria for high-status group membership. But most have a nose for virtue being marshalled for self-interest, and they don’t like the smell of it.
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