Former Walt Disney Television executive Monica Harris recently explained why Hollywood is collapsing and put the blame squarely on DEI initiatives.

 

(L-R): Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers, and Teyonah Parris as Captain Monica Rambeau in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo by Laura Radford. ©;observed how DEI initiatives have ravaged the corporate world.

She began by pointing to Target, “I think the reason we see no course correction is the same reason we see Target market items — and I think we know which items I’m talking about — that clearly don’t appeal to consumers. I think when you have like trans Cheerios and stuff like that you’re making a statement that has nothing to do with your audience [and] its tastes.”

Harris continued, “What we’ve seen in the corporate world — and I am going somewhere with this — what we’ve seen in the corporate world is this fastidious and slavish adherence to ESG (environmental social governance) principles, which are really just DEI in practice, in products, and in hiring in the corporate world.”

“So these corporations are pursuing these marketing tactics and sales tactics with products that are doomed to flop, and do flop, and that lower shareholder value, but they continue them nonetheless,” she shared. “And the deeper I’ve been digging and especially my work at FAIR (Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism), which I’ll talk about later, but the deeper I’ve been digging I’ve noticed this is happening because the same core group of companies are largely funding or have shareholder stakes, majority shareholder stakes in Fortune 500 companies and in the S&P 500. We’re talking about BlackRock. We’re talking about Vanguard. We’re talking about State Street.”

“When those three companies and their subsidiaries dominate Boards of Directors and dominate the ownership of stock then they literally are in the position to tell these companies to adhere to whatever guidelines they’d like,” she continued. “So if DEI is an initiative that these majority shareholders would like companies to pursue, that’s what they’ll pursue. Because if not then they’ll face the wrath of the people who can yank the money, yank the loans, yank the funding because it’s all about money.”

“So at the end of they day you’re in- if you’re a CEO, you’re like, ‘Do I piss off my consumer base and maybe hope I can massage them or do I piss off the people who are actually funding me?’ And they’re between a rock and a hard place,” Harris observed.

 Mae Aniseya (Amandla Stenberg with Pip [Jack Parker (performed by)] in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©.

She then stated, “And I think very much the same is true in Hollywood. DEI has swept through that place. The Academy Awards, the nominations are only available to films that hit certain quotas, right? You have to have a certain number of people who are black or bipoc, trans, non-binary, whatever. It’s totally the antithesis of what artistic work is about.” 

“But they have to do this because, I believe, I think Netflix was an example, If they don’t adhere to these guidelines those loans, that funding is going to be yanked,” she reiterated. “So again they are between a rock and a hard place. That’s the untold story in my opinion.”

(L-R): Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn), Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone), Mrs. Hart/Sharon Davis (Debra Jo Rupp), Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), Teen (Joe Locke) and Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata) in Marvel Television’s AGATHA ALL ALONG, exclusively on Disney +. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. © 2024 MARVEL.

Of note, Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock said during New York Times’ DealBook conference back in 2017, “Well, behaviors are going to have change. And this is one thing that we’re asking companies. You have to force behaviors. And at BlackRock we are forcing behaviors. 54% of the incoming class are women. We added four more points in terms of diverse employment this year. And what we are doing internally is if you don’t achieve these levels of impact your compensation could be impacted. You have to force behaviors. And if you don’t force behaviors whether it’s gender, or race, or just any way you want to say the composition of your team, you’re going to be impacted.”

He continued, “And that’s not just recruiting. It’s development as Ken said. And ultimately, it’s still gonna take time, but I am just as much shocked as Ken is that we have not seen more opportunities and we’re going to have force change.”

Fink had a very different explanation on these same initiatives just five years later in 2022 where he called it “stakeholder capitalism.”

He said, “Stakeholder capitalism [is] you were responding to the needs of your stakeholders and your doing it for the beneficial interests of your shareholders. Let’s be clear, the shareholders are the primary stakeholder. But to achieve the long-term interests of your shareholders and that’s what I’m focused on. Not any short-term thing, but the long-term thing. To create that durable profitability you have to be focused on all your stakeholders, your clients, your employees.”

Next, he stated, “You’re right, there’s a lot of noise and it really does fill the airwaves and it fills up the times on the airways about the attacks from some states to me specifically and to the firm. … The reality is the majority, the unheard, unspoken majority really like what we are doing, what we are saying. I’m not happy with the narrative because it fills the airwaves and we have to spend a lot of time-. To be clear I spend a lot more time in Washington and states. I’m trying to correct the narrative because in most cases the narrative is not based on facts, it’s based on somebody else’s view on the facts.”

What do you make of Harris’ analysis on why Hollywood is collapsing?