A Letter to Disney

Today, I'm putting a physical letter in the mail to Disney-ABC Home Entertainment & Television Distribution. It's Rosh Hashanah, the first day of a new year, and it feels like the right way to start 5786. I wrote an earlier draft of the letter to protest the suspension of the Jimmy Kimmel Show, despite the fact that I haven't watched a late night variety show in years and am not particularly a Kimmel fan. But I'm an unapologetic Disney Adult, and I've stood by my joy in spending time and money on Disney because so far, they've mostly shown that they will put their customers and business model before politics. The Kimmel incident felt like a crossroads moment, and I wanted the company to have written evidence of at least one Disney fan urging them toward the less evil path. Even with Kimmel resolved for now, I think that message is important. I've seen a number of influential people on the American Left celebrate Disney Adults for putting our money and our mouths in the right place, and it made me even prouder to be part of a community of dorks with a fun, uplifting hobby and the courage to speak up for ourselves. The Disney Company is an imperfect but powerful ally, and they listen to our community of dorks. So I'm adding my voice.

I've been told that someone, other than the intern at Disney-ABC who opens the mail, might be interested in reading this. So I'm sharing the letter here in my newsletter, exactly as I'm sending it to Disney. Consider it a blessing for a sweet new year, or a wish upon a star.

To whom it may concern:

I am writing to thank Disney-ABC for its recent actions, which show its willingness to put its fans and financial health ahead of politics. I originally wrote this letter to express my disappointment in Disney-ABC’s decision to indefinitely suspend Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Kimmel Live! I was extremely pleased to hear that Kimmel and the show have resumed production, and that Disney-ABC is working with local stations to ensure that the show will be broadcast in all markets. Nonetheless, I remain concerned about Disney-ABC and the The Disney Company’s ability and willingness to resist similar pressures in the future. Over the past year, I’ve seen Disney move away from elevating a wide variety of creative voices to removing or editing away content that celebrates diversity, especially diversity of sexual orientation and gender. As a lifelong fan of Disney, Pixar, Marvel Comics and film, The Muppets, and Star Wars, as well as a frequent visitor to Disney theme parks, I feel torn.  I want to continue to enjoy and spend money on media that give me joy and comfort, but I also want to ensure that my money and time are directed toward a company that places its fans and customers’ interests – which I believe are aligned with Disney’s business interests – ahead of its political fears.

 I hope Disney-ABC will use its victory in the Jimmy Kimmel Live! incident as motivation to continue defending its employees and products. Disney-ABC should communicate publicly that it will support and defend the right of all its performers and writers to express their opinions, especially opinions that may be controversial or critical of people in power. It should follow through on this pledge and should devote financial and legal resources, personnel, scheduling, and marketing to ensuring that it defends and protects the creative people that it employs and whose work it distributes. These actions will demonstrate a needed return to Disney-ABC’s prior corporate philosophy of amplifying many voices, embracing all fans, and defending the free expression that has enabled Disney-ABC to inform, unite, and entertain everyone who wishes to be part of the magic.

I’ve seen calls for boycotts of Disney and its subsidiaries before, from many parts of the political spectrum, and I’ve generally ignored them. This is the first time I’ve taken any financial action as part of a collective effort to influence Disney-ABC corporate policy. In the wake of the announcement that Kimmel and his show had been suspended, I canceled all of my subscriptions to Disney-owned streaming services as well as my Marvel Unlimited subscription. I am renewing those subscriptions with a mixture of excitement and caution: I’m looking forward to watching the new season of Only Murders in the Building and catching up on X-Men. My wife and I have reserved a hotel and park tickets for a trip to Walt Disney World in January, which we have no plans to cancel as long as we’re confident that we will feel safe and welcomed.

Both my wife and I are lifelong fans of Disney and its wide range of media properties. We both have fond memories of watching Disney animated films and shorts throughout our lives. In my case, that narrative runs from snowy days watching Dumbo and Bambi  on VHS, to a middle school obsession with Disney Renaissance films like Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, to my adult delight at newer films like Encanto and Inside Out that are magical for viewers of any age. My wife and I both bonded with our dads over the Star Wars franchise, watching the original trilogy countless times, and have enjoyed seeing the universe extended into TV series like The Mandalorian and Clone Wars. We’ve been reading Marvel Comics since long before Marvel became part of Disney, and we’ve both been impressed with the growing diversity of characters and perspectives in the comics since Disney took over. In the Marvel films, we love watching Captain America punch Nazis and Black Panther approach racial politics with nuance. Even when Disney properties express political or philosophical views that don’t resonate for us, we’re glad to see those views represented thoughtfully and without animus toward those who might disagree.

We’re also avid visitors of the Disney Parks with memories of magical Walt Disney World and Disneyland trips going back to both of our early childhoods. When we got married in November 2021, we celebrated with a two-week honeymoon at Walt Disney World. We had so much fun that we’ve marked each anniversary with a weeklong trip to either Walt Disney World or Disneyland. We hope to visit all of the parks worldwide someday and to sail together on a Disney Cruise. When we visit the Disney Parks, we stay in deluxe hotels, enjoy the high-end restaurants throughout the WDW Resorts, take advantage of add-on experiences like Disney After Hours, and spend a generous souvenir budget on treats for ourselves and gifts for friends and family. It’s our pleasure to devote this much money to Disney experiences and merchandise.

Unfortunately, the current political climate has made it more difficult for us to participate in many aspects of everyday American life, including our love for Disney Parks. My wife is a transgender woman, and I’m nonbinary. Both of us have received healthcare, including hormone replacement, so that we can feel more at home in our bodies, and this treatment has benefited our mental and physical health. We’re often reluctant to share this kind of personal medical information, but as misinformation about transgender and nonbinary people becomes more and more widespread, we feel it’s important to clarify that affirming healthcare is uniquely safe and effective. Claims to the contrary have no basis in medical research and serve only to increase people’s fear of a small minority. While it’s often fun to pretend to be a villain in the Disney universe, we feel like we’re being treated as real-life villains more and more often.

As visibly transgender and gender-nonconforming people, we’ve always felt welcome at Disney Parks. Even as Florida has passed statewide laws that threaten our freedom to use public spaces, Walt Disney World has quietly chosen not to enforce those laws on their property, ensuring that we feel safe using restrooms in the parks and dressing in park-appropriate gender-affirming ways. Many cast members have gone out of their way to make us feel welcome and at ease. While some changes have indicated that Disney’s support has become more muted – my wife, an avid pin trader, was disappointed to see that the 2025 Pride collection did not include trans flag pins as it has in the past – we’ve consistently felt certain that Disney Parks and the “Disney bubble” are safe places for us to travel.

Just as we believe it’s in Disney-ABC’s best financial and cultural interest to continue producing, airing, and promoting shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live! even if they sometimes feature opinions that make viewers uncomfortable, we believe it’s in the Disney Parks’ best interest to do everything it can to make magical experiences for every guest. Disney can’t stop guests from having prejudices toward other guests, but it can keep making clear that all guests are welcome and celebrated as long as they abide by park rules. On our honeymoon trip in January 2022, we saw excellent coordinated efforts to enforce COVID-19 safety rules while making sure everyone had a good time. When a handful of guests complained about the rules, we saw cast members gently but firmly explain that everyone in the park needed to abide by the same standards, whether they agreed with those standards or not.

This attitude should be applied in similar ways toward the production and distribution of media that contains controversial opinions. Disney has the power and reach to make it clear to everyone in the United States and throughout the world that it treasures the right to make controversial and thought-provoking statements, and that all perspectives should be encouraged as long as they do not incite harm. Kimmel’s criticism of the Trump administration and current events can be pointed, and it might hurt some feelings or provoke anger. However, Kimmel has never called for his viewers to harm politicians or public figures, and his writing team is careful to phrase jokes so that they aren’t defamatory. I am grateful to Disney-ABC for recognizing that censoring a comedian for expressing a point of view is more offensive to the American public than anything Kimmel has said about current affairs. I hope that Disney will use this incident as evidence that defending free expression and diverse perspectives is best for the company’s financial stability and reputation, in addition to benefiting its fans and employees.

Disney has a long and admirable history of telling stories about standing up to bullies and tyrants. Fictional Disney properties like Andor, WandaVision, and Wish have been far more pointedly critical of authoritarian politics than anything I can recall Kimmel saying on air. Disney shows and films that take strong stances against corruption and repression tend to be popular with critics as well as with viewers. Shying away from bold and thought-provoking stories will make Disney properties less attractive to audiences, which will in turn make those audiences less likely to spend money on merchandise or vacations featuring those properties. Media without a message makes no impact on its viewers, and no message is so universal that it won’t annoy somebody, somewhere. It is unquestionably more lucrative for Disney to risk offending a small number of viewers in order to draw in a larger number who will enjoy and appreciate what is being said. Although some people on the internet make a lot of noise when Disney media showcases diversity and anti-authoritarian sentiment, their numbers are relatively small. And as with guests at the Disney Parks, those small numbers of strident complainers are the only ones responsible for their discontent when Disney has made its own rules and boundaries clear.

I hope that Disney-ABC will recognize the widespread outrage at the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! as an opportunity. By resuming the show’s production, Disney-ABC can show that it puts its own values and the values of its audience ahead of political bullying. It can also reassure its shareholders and other financial stakeholders that it has the courage to act in its own best interests as a business. It can serve as an example for other corporations that want to hold to their values and maintain their profitability in uncertain times but lack Disney’s power and reach. Most importantly, it can reinforce to every Disney fan that everyone is ohana, and nobody gets left behind or forgotten – not for a business deal or in response to a political threat, and certainly not for showing bravery and humor when facing the challenges of the world.

Sincerely,

Dr. Sarah Daniel Rasher

Shana tova, and may the force be with you always. Here's a cat pic.