The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 83 - Disney Will Feature An Openly Gay Character

00:00:00.000 So for the first time ever, Disney is going to feature an openly gay character in a movie.

00:00:06.820 The upcoming film titled The Jungle Cruise, which will be based on a theme park ride, presumably a theme park ride called The Jungle Cruise.

00:00:17.660 I don't know, just my deductive reasoning there.

00:00:20.580 And of course, all great films have been based on theme park rides.

00:00:24.640 But this one is being billed as a turning point for the company.

00:00:29.220 And it will be different from the, you might say, the more subtle homosexuality that has appeared in other Disney movies.

00:00:37.740 For instance, the recent Beauty and the Beast remake.

00:00:40.600 There was a great deal made ahead of time, before the movie came out, while it was being marketed.

00:00:46.140 We heard a lot about the gay elements in this movie.

00:00:48.880 And that was supposed to be a turning point, this big deal.

00:00:51.600 But in that case, it turns out that it was merely implied that a male character had an erotic obsession with another male character.

00:01:01.060 Which, to me, at a minimum, seems like an extremely unnecessary plot point to put into a children's movie.

00:01:10.100 That's just me.

00:01:10.940 If I were producing a children's movie, there isn't any point where I would stop and say, now, hold on a second, everybody.

00:01:18.060 Maybe this male character should have an erotic obsession with that one.

00:01:21.500 Maybe we should include that into it.

00:01:23.000 Because it's a children's movie, and I would just think, why do we need erotic obsessions, really, of any kind, in a children's movie?

00:01:30.480 But that's, again, that's just, I guess, I don't know, maybe I'm the crazy one.

00:01:35.400 So, now, in this case, it will be different.

00:01:39.660 It will be made, apparently, very clear, explicitly so, that the hugely a-fet character, and that's the quote, it's a quote from an article, the character is going to be hugely a-fet. 0.65

00:01:53.020 It will be made clear that he is gay and that he is not interested in women. 0.69

00:01:56.960 And if that is how the film goes, then, now, when I say it's going to be made explicitly clear, let's hope not too explicit, but I don't really know where they're going with this.

00:02:11.220 And if that is what happens in the film, if it is, to any extent, made clear, okay, this is an openly gay character, then it will be a turning point, I think,

00:02:19.460 because hugely a-fet gay characters are quite common these days in film and television, and it seems like they include them in every TV show and every movie that is not for kids.

00:02:31.620 But that's not usually how it goes in Disney movies.

00:02:35.220 It's not usually how it goes in mainstream family films.

00:02:38.580 So, this would represent Disney really crossing a threshold and entering into a realm that would have seemed unthinkable and unbelievable, even just 10 years ago.

00:02:53.660 Now, as you might expect, there has been some blowback over this news, but not from religious conservatives.

00:03:01.380 Again, if this was 10 years ago or 15 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, there would have been quite a bit of blowback from religious conservatives, but not now.

00:03:10.420 The outrage in this case is coming from the left.

00:03:14.240 It's liberals who are upset about this, because we have been told it is, quote, problematic that Jack Whitehall, the actor hired to play the gay man, is not himself a gay man.

00:03:26.540 And so, that's a problem.

00:03:28.500 So, he has been hired to pretend to be something that he isn't, and that we're not allowed to do that anymore.

00:03:38.120 Now, bear this in mind.

00:03:40.420 Jack Whitehall is apparently completely straight.

00:03:43.000 He's not even a little bit gay. 0.57

00:03:45.100 So, that just makes it all the worse. 0.91

00:03:47.300 Because even if he were a little bit gay or partially gay, somewhat gay, that still would not be good enough. 0.96

00:03:54.080 Because consider the fact that the actress Ruby Rose is facing criticism because of her casting as a lesbian Batwoman. 0.66

00:04:03.400 There's a Batwoman series coming out on, I believe, the CW about a lesbian Batwoman.

00:04:08.400 Now, Rose herself is a lesbian, but apparently she's not lesbian enough. 1.00

00:04:15.300 I'm not making this up.

00:04:16.120 That's actually what the left is saying.

00:04:17.900 She's getting criticism from liberals because her personal lesbianism is not of a kind and to a degree that would justify casting her as a lesbian Batwoman. 1.00

00:04:29.460 And that's, I mean, this is, this is just crazy.

00:04:36.880 And you know what?

00:04:37.780 I won't even get into the blatant double standards here.

00:04:40.680 I won't focus especially on that.

00:04:43.800 That's a different topic.

00:04:45.400 But there is obviously a huge double standard when you whine about a straight guy being cast as a gay character or even a mostly gay woman being cast as a completely gay character.

00:04:57.480 When you whine about that, yet, yet at the same time you celebrate when women are cast in traditionally male roles or when a black person is cast in a traditionally white role. 0.54

00:05:07.820 You know, or even when a gay actor is cast in a straight role.

00:05:13.180 And I think it stands to reason that there have been dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of straight characters portrayed by gay actors in Hollywood over, you know, the course of Hollywood's history.

00:05:25.540 But we're not allowed to complain about that.

00:05:27.840 You can never complain about that. 0.99

00:05:29.340 So the left, anytime you've got, they, they do this stupid stunt where they, uh, they take a, you know, a male character and they say, we're going to do this movie again, but with women, you know, um, anytime they do that, if, if any man breathes even a word of criticism or even rolls their eyes at it, the left will pounce on them and say, oh, you sexist, you just hate women. 0.99

00:05:56.360 Look at you. 0.96

00:05:58.280 Um, when usually, by the way, usually when, when people complain, like if they're doing a, a female Ghostbusters type of thing, the complaint there isn't that, uh, they're stealing, they're stealing characters from men. 0.98

00:06:10.880 It's like, no, it's just, it's just a stupid, childish thing to do.

00:06:16.040 Like, it's just this really childish mentality of, oh, well, men had that character. 1.00

00:06:20.720 Now women have to have it. 1.00

00:06:21.920 Okay.

00:06:22.120 Everything equal.

00:06:23.340 No, go, just go make your own characters.

00:06:25.140 That's, that's our only place. 0.98

00:06:26.300 It's just, it's just a dumb childish thing. 0.92

00:06:28.000 We're not that upset about it. 0.98

00:06:29.060 We're just rolling our eyes.

00:06:30.200 Now, in this case, there are people who are really upset about it saying that it's problematic that Jack Whitehall is not gay.

00:06:38.000 Um, and objectively, you know, of course, objectively, all things be, none, none of this should matter.

00:06:49.260 Whether you cast women in male roles, gay people or straight people, other way around, whatever, that doesn't, it doesn't matter because acting by definition means pretending to be something you are not. 0.52

00:07:04.760 But if an actor must now actually be whatever he is pretending to be, then he's not pretending anymore and it is no longer acting.

00:07:15.640 At most, what you would have then are reenactments.

00:07:21.460 You would have actors reenacting their everyday lives.

00:07:26.560 I guess that's the only kind of movie that's allowed to be made anymore.

00:07:29.060 Or certainly, we'd have to cease production on all sci-fi films, um, on all fantasy films, on all historical films.

00:07:39.240 You can't very well have Daniel Day-Lewis acting like Abe Lincoln if he isn't Abe Lincoln.

00:07:45.840 Only actors who are Abe Lincoln can be Abe Lincoln.

00:07:49.360 So I think it's fair to say to Daniel Day-Lewis, are you really Abe Lincoln?

00:07:53.900 And, of course, we'll give him a chance to respond, but if it turns out that he's not Abe Lincoln, which I think there's at least a 90% chance that he isn't, then he has just committed a great offense against Abe Lincoln.

00:08:07.040 I think what we're seeing here is what happens when identity politics invades even the fictional realm.

00:08:15.540 That's how bad it's gotten, that I guess the identity, the warriors for identity politics, they have, they have invaded every realm in the real world, and now they are, now they are trying to commandeer even the fictional realm.

00:08:32.680 And it does to the fictional realm what it does everywhere else, which is it destroys.

00:08:36.760 But I think, actually, that is, that's not even the real point here.

00:08:44.780 That's not the real takeaway from this whole story.

00:08:48.040 The real point, the real takeaway is that leftists are once again dissatisfied with their own success.

00:08:55.260 They have been handed another significant, really, I would say, incredible cultural victory, which is the injection of explicit homosexuality into a mainstream family film. 0.71

00:09:11.220 That really is a big thing.

00:09:14.180 So that is a big deal.

00:09:15.480 It's easy for us to say, ah, it's just a movie.

00:09:17.160 No, this is something, as I've said now a few times, this would have been unthinkable, even in recent history.

00:09:26.820 But that's what they've been given. 0.96

00:09:28.700 And they still find some ridiculous, pedantic reason to turn up their noses at it. 0.66

00:09:35.960 As I wrote yesterday, they're like a football team that wins 70-3 and then cries after the game that it was rigged against them because the other team managed to put up a field goal. 0.84

00:09:47.720 That's what it feels like.

00:09:50.020 And on the other hand, as you think about how the left has reacted, being given this huge victory, but it's not enough.

00:09:59.500 They've been given almost everything.

00:10:01.700 It's not enough.

00:10:02.840 They want more.

00:10:03.680 They're always looking.

00:10:04.880 You can cede all the ground in the world to them, but then they're going to look at that little sliver of ground that you have not yet ceded, and they're going to say, I want that too.

00:10:14.060 I won't be satisfied with all this until I have that as well.

00:10:17.820 That's what I want.

00:10:20.020 So they're always looking to conquer the next thing.

00:10:24.280 Compare that to cultural conservatives.

00:10:30.040 And I'm speaking now about cultural conservatives.

00:10:34.880 Because if you're a libertarian or whatever, then that's not, that's, you're in a separate camp here.

00:10:41.300 There has been very little complaint from the right, from cultural conservatives, about this move by Disney.

00:10:53.280 There's been very little complaint.

00:10:54.600 You know, religious conservatives, cultural conservatives seem to have simply accepted that the left's sexual agenda will be infused into everything.

00:11:03.440 In fact, many of them will probably take their kids to watch the film.

00:11:10.700 So for all the complaining conservatives do about Disney, for all the complaining they do about bias in the media, notice what happens.

00:11:20.740 They just continue going along with it, especially when it comes to Disney.

00:11:25.260 Because if you ever suggest that perhaps we should stop letting our kids watch Disney films, most conservatives, Christians will just recoil in horror.

00:11:37.740 I remember when, when Beauty and the Beast was coming out and they were making this big deal about the gay element of the film, which ended up being, from what I never even, I never watched the movie.

00:11:48.580 But from what I understand, from what I read, from sources I trust, it ended up being kind of a, essentially a non, a non-event.

00:11:55.920 And so they made a bigger deal of it than it actually was.

00:11:58.380 But before we knew that, I remember talking, I think I wrote on Facebook, and I said,

00:12:03.240 are we at the point where we should consider not watching Disney movies anymore?

00:12:08.800 And all of these Christians were saying, well, no, we can't do that. 0.99

00:12:12.260 Stop watching Disney.

00:12:13.140 What are you talking about?

00:12:13.820 No, I grew up with Disney.

00:12:14.780 I'm not going to stop watching it.

00:12:16.020 What are you talking about?

00:12:17.020 They were mad at me for even suggesting it.

00:12:19.980 They're more attached to Disney than they are to their, to their principles and their convictions.

00:12:24.660 In fact, it seems that their number one conviction in life is that I need to be able to keep watching Disney and all the other entertainment that I like.

00:12:34.880 So we can complain about the entertainment industry all we want, but when it comes down to it, very few of us are willing to actually adjust our entertainment consumption habits.

00:12:47.280 Very few of us are willing to do that.

00:12:49.560 We will just keep on ingesting it, and we'll let our kids continue to keep ingesting it.

00:12:54.660 And we act like we have no choice.

00:12:58.740 There's this kind of helpless, this sick, helpless attitude that's permeated the ranks of conservatives and Christians. 0.99

00:13:06.580 We act like we have, like there's no other option.

00:13:09.160 We act like we have to just float along with the tide, because to resist is too much effort or something.

00:13:15.480 Even the slightest resistance is too much.

00:13:17.360 Even to resist to the extent of changing the channel or not watching a certain movie, even that's too much.

00:13:27.660 This, I think, is the crucial difference between the right and left.

00:13:30.520 One side, the right, has basically surrendered the culture, and they have willingly handed their children over to it.

00:13:41.160 Most of what we call the culture war, we say where we're fighting for the culture, most of that stuff is not relevant.

00:13:47.320 The things that really matter, I think many conservatives have just given up, especially when it comes to the sexual stuff.

00:13:59.560 We say the left can do whatever it wants there.

00:14:01.660 They can normalize.

00:14:04.300 They can put it in the mainstream.

00:14:05.600 They can do whatever they want.

00:14:06.380 We're not going to stand in the way, because if we stand in the way of that, then we look like prudes.

00:14:10.980 We look like we're intolerant, and we don't want to deal with those accusations.

00:14:14.580 Now, listen, if you aren't a religious conservative, if you aren't someone who believes in the or adheres to Judeo-Christian morality,

00:14:26.460 then I don't expect you to have any problem, necessarily, with Disney using their films as a means to promote homosexuality. 0.72

00:14:35.340 Although I think even if you were in that camp and you're a libertarian or something,

00:14:39.100 I would think maybe you'd still be fed up with this need to turn every movie into an opportunity for a leftist sermon.

00:14:46.600 But that aside, I'm speaking now about and to those who do believe in Judeo-Christian morality.

00:14:57.040 Those of us in that category, we have to ask ourselves,

00:15:01.380 at what point do we stop giving our money to these companies whose primary mission is to undermine our morality

00:15:14.040 and to indoctrinate our kids into a morality that is opposite of our own?

00:15:21.340 It's no good to try and pretend that, well, this doesn't matter.

00:15:25.000 It's just a small thing.

00:15:26.400 It has no effect on anything.

00:15:28.140 We know that isn't true.

00:15:29.680 Hollywood has an immense amount of power to normalize things.

00:15:38.780 And that is precisely what it's trying to do.

00:15:42.980 And those who advocate for sin, that's what you do.

00:15:46.760 You normalize it.

00:15:48.360 It's not even a matter of saying, of arguing, getting into a moral argument and saying,

00:15:53.220 well, here's my arguments for why this is okay.

00:15:55.440 It's just a matter of making it normal.

00:15:57.740 Like, this is just what people do.

00:15:59.080 It's fine.

00:15:59.680 Um, that's the game.

00:16:03.760 That's precisely why Disney would put a character like that into a children's movie.

00:16:08.400 That is, that's why they're doing it.

00:16:11.540 Now, it used to be that churches were the normalizing agent in a culture.

00:16:17.540 That is, it used to be that churches kind of decided what was considered normal for a culture, what was considered mainstream, what was considered acceptable.

00:16:27.120 That used to be the case.

00:16:27.960 But those days are long gone.

00:16:29.540 And now Hollywood has filled that void.

00:16:31.980 Hollywood is the new church, whether you like it or not.

00:16:35.920 Hollywood has the power to normalize it or not.

00:16:38.440 Hollywood has the power to normalize.

00:16:40.100 They're the ones who decided.

00:16:43.240 And if they decide to take something and start putting it in all their shows and in all their movies, then that's how they normalize.

00:16:48.940 And as long as our kids are overly exposed to those things, they are inevitably going to begin to be indoctrinated into that view.

00:17:06.280 So, at what point do we resist?

00:17:10.740 That's my only, I'll leave you with that question.

00:17:12.520 At what point do we say, you know, we're done with this.

00:17:15.080 I'm done with Disney.

00:17:16.280 I'm done with all this. 0.99

00:17:17.140 I'm done with all this garbage. 0.84

00:17:19.100 And if that means that my kids can't watch hardly any movies or shows at all, then fine. 0.61

00:17:23.920 Because they'll read a book or they'll go outside and, you know, they'll climb a tree or play hopscotch or something.

00:17:29.860 They can do that.

00:17:32.640 At what point do we make that decision?

00:17:36.280 I think that point is upon us, personally.

00:17:41.640 Thanks for watching, everybody.

00:17:42.740 Thanks for listening.

00:17:44.140 Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - August 14, 2018

Ep. 83 - Disney Will Feature An Openly Gay Character

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