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Harvard University President Claudine Gay testifies before a House Education and The Workforce Committee hearing titled "Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., December 5, 2023.
Hard Numbers: Gay resigns, Danish Queen steps down, #FreeMickey, and a Calmer New Years’ Eve in Paris
2: Claudine Gay, Harvard’s first Black president, stepped down on Monday, almost a month after her counterpart at Penn, Elizabeth Magill, resigned in the wake of their Congressional testimony last month on campus antisemitism. Gay has also faced mounting allegations of plagiarism, and her departure means two of the three presidents who testified have now stepped down. That sound you hear? MIT President Sally Kornbluth counting her blessings.
52: In a surprise move, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark — the longest-serving monarch in Europe — has decided to abdicate the throne after 52 years in power. The 82-year-old royal says she wants to leave the responsibility to “the next generation.” (Who knows, maybe the final season of “The Crown” got her thinking?). She will be succeeded by her eldest son, the famously climate-friendly Crown Prince Frederik.
95: Oh Mickey, you’re so fine. And thanks to US copyright law, now you’re free. As of Jan. 1, early versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse from the 1928 short film “Steamboat Willie” are now public intellectual property. The reason: The US caps character copyrights at 95 years. Hollywood wasted no time in dropping the trailer for a new slasher film starring Mickey on a murderous rampage. Ron DeSantis has been trying to warn us …
10: The notoriously ... impassioned French public had a calmer New Year’s celebration than usual earlier this week. According to authorities, overnight arrests and vehicle fires in Paris were both down about 10% from the year before. This is good news for French law enforcement officers, who vowed to tighten security during a time of heightened terror threats in hopes of inspiring confidence in the country’s security apparatus ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris.
The Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse "Partners" statue outside Cinderella's Castle at Disney World's Magic Kingdom.
Disney, 100 years of magic, princesses, and politics
The Walt Disney Company turns 100 years old on Monday, and after a century of fairy tales and magic, our hyperpartisan reality is encroaching on the Magic Kingdom.
Founded on Oct. 16, 1923, by brothers Walt and Roy Disney, the company established itself as a leader in animation. Mickey Mouse debuted in “Steamboat Willie” five years later, in 1928. Since then, it has grown into an empire, amassing $67 billion in annual revenue and encompassing Pixar, Marvel, ABC, National Geographic, and ESPN – just to name some of its subsidiaries.
Walt Disney, the man, envisioned a “family entertainment” company focused on fantasy and free of politics. Nevertheless, Disney has always been political.
Walt himself was an anti-communist conservative who founded the Hollywood Republican Committee to counteract the influence of the Progressive Citizens of America in California. George Murphy, his cofounder of the group, would go on to become a Republican Senator from California with Disney’s backing.
During World War II, Disney went to war. The company established a unit devoted to producing propaganda and insignia for the military free of charge. The most requested character was Donald Duck.
Disney would be shocked to know that the GOP has turned on his company in recent years. Ahead of the launch of Disney Plus, Disney went back through its film catalog to flag potentially problematic content that includes “stereotypes that were wrong then and are wrong now” – as the disclaimers read. It also decided to make the loudspeaker announcement at its theme parks gender-neutral, removing “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.”
In Disney World’s hometown in the Sunshine State, this change dragged them into the crosshairs of a Florida law – dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill – that restricts classroom instruction through third grade on sexual orientation and gender identity. Disney denounced the bill under the pressure of employees, leading Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to send a fundraising email to his supporters denouncing “Woke Disney” and threatening to revoke the theme park’s ability to function as its own municipal government, as it has for the last 55 years.
Disney had previously crossed DeSantis when they issued a vaccine mandate for employees after the state restricted workplaces from making such requirements.
But Disney has angered its fair share of liberals as well. The brand has long been criticized for being too American, too traditional, and too white. After World War II, it was accused of spreading the notion of the post-war nuclear family around the world. In the 1990s, leftist radicals concerned about “cultural imperialism” detonated a bomb at the opening of Euro Disney in Paris. While the company is trying to tell more diverse stories today, it took until 2009 for Disney to introduce a Black princess. Since then, it has continued to champion diversity, from the all-Hispanic cast in “Coco” to the “Eternals” featuring a gay superhero who kisses his husband on screen.
The shift towards inclusion can be attributed to Disney’s CEO from 2005 to 2020, Robert A. Iger, who pushed for more diverse casting and storytelling. At the 2017 Disney shareholder meeting, Iger fully embraced entertainment as activism: “When we make a movie called ‘Zootopia,’ which is about prejudice … we can actually change people’s behavior – get people to be more accepting of the multiple differences and cultures and races.” Iger has since returned and is Disney's CEO today.
Disney is an unavoidable behemoth of a brand, giving it the power to weather the seasons of public opinion. But in our era of hyperpartisanness, everyone wants the biggest entertainment company on their side, so the politicization of Disney will likely persist well past the company’s 100th birthday.
A view shows Batman logo on a box of cocaine, said to be recovered by New Zealand Police.
Hard Numbers: Batman found on cocaine, Disney censors Simpsons, Nicaragua jails priests, Bard flub costs Google billions
3.2: In a possible indication that the Marvel universe is winning, Batman is now on cocaine. New Zealand’s navyintercepted a haul of 3.2 tons of the drug floating in the pacific. Many of the packets were labeled with the Dark Knight’s symbol, evidently a trademark of certain producers in South America.
1: Disney hasremoved one single episode of the current Simpsons season from its streaming service in Hong Kong. They haven’t commented on why, but the episode features a scene where Marge Simpson’s online spin instructor stands before a background that advertises “the wonders of China: Bitcoin mines, forced labor camps where children make smartphones!”
5: A Nicaraguan courthas sentenced five priests to decade-long prison terms for supporting pro-democracy protests in 2018 that the government of strongman Daniel Ortega deemed illegal. Since those protests, Ortega has cracked down severely on civil society, with a particular focus on his one-time allies in the Catholic Church.
100 billion: Google’s parent company Alphabetlost more than $100 billion in value on Wednesday after Bard, its newly unveiled AI-powered chatbot, incorrectly attributed the origin of certain deep space photographs in an advertisement. That weird sound you hear right now is rival AI bot ChatGPT, somewhere deep in the metaverse, laughing its neural networks off.
Brazil's outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro votes during the election runoff in Rio de Janeiro.
What We’re Watching: Bolsonaro’s next move, China’s forever zero-COVID, Iran’s public trials
What’s Bolsonaro gonna do?
Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro will speak publicly on Tuesday for the first time about the presidential election, which he officially lost on Sunday to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva by just under two points. Unlike in some other countries — ahem — Brazil’s unified electronic system counts all the votes at once, on the day of the election, and that’s that. But the right-wing Bolsonaro has spent months casting doubt on the credibility of that system itself, repeatedly hinting that he might not accept the result if he loses. Meanwhile, his supporters have cried foul at heavy-handed efforts by courts and electoral authorities to police fake news in the run-up to the vote. Truckers who support him have already blocked roads in 20 of Brazil’s 26 states. Some analysts fear a January 6 insurrection or worse, given Bolsonaro’s cozy ties to the military. Does he really think he can overturn the result? Probably not. Is he crazy enough to try a coup? Doubtful (really). But can he create an awful lot of chaos as a way of bolstering his political capital ahead of his upcoming role as leader of a powerful opposition that now controls congress? Surely. The results are in, but the streets are waiting: your move, Jair.
China's COVID curbs hit Disney, iPhones
Xi Jinping won't let zero-COVID go, no matter how much damage it does to China’s sputtering economy — or to people just having fun. Disney Shanghai shut its gates Monday after the city of 26 million reported a measly 10 infections, leaving visitors stuck inside. The park’s rides are still operating, which is a small bonus for visitors trapped until they test negative three times (this happened last November, with 30,000 people inside the park). Even more troubling, over the weekend employees began sneaking out of Foxconn's largest iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, after being locked down for days in their dormitories with dwindling food supplies amid a COVID outbreak. If a significant chunk of the 200,000-strong workforce vanishes, the factory's output of iPhones could plummet by as much as 30%. It's not just Apple devices – before the pandemic, the plant was China's third-largest exporter, shipping $32 billion worth of electronics per year. As “forever” zero-COVID threatens to further snarl global supply chains ahead of the holiday season, Xi might take over Joe Biden as this year’s Grinch.
Iran to publicly try 1,000 protesters
Tehran said Monday it’ll hold public trials for 1,000 demonstrators arrested during the ongoing protests over the in-custody death of Mahsa Amini, who was reportedly beaten by the morality police for “improperly” wearing her hijab. Authorities say the defendants played an “active role” in the largest protests the country has seen in a decade. But there are no figureheads for the movement, and the women of Iran have been joined in the streets by students, labor unions, and oil workers. The public trials intend to signal that Iran’s leaders will not tolerate dissent against the theocratic republic that has called the shots since 1979. What's more, some of the protesters have been charged with crimes that carry the death penalty; if found guilty, they could be publicly executed. Iran usually hangs death row inmates inside prisons, but perhaps this time the ayatollahs think mass public executions might show protesters — and the world — that they won't give up an inch of power. Will this spark fear, as intended, or revolution?
Barr pressures DOJ to bring antitrust suit against Google
Nicholas Thompson, editor-in-chief of WIRED, discusses technology industry news today:
What's the deal with Google and antitrust?
Well, we've long known that the Department of Justice is likely bringing an antitrust suit against Google. What we've just learned this week is that William Barr, the attorney general, is pressuring them to bring it really quickly, and the career lawyers don't like that idea. Why is he doing that? Maybe because he thinks they're going slowly, maybe because he wants a political victory for Trump before the election.
Should we be worried about the decline in stock for Apple, Amazon and Tesla?
No, we should not. Those stocks, well, tech stocks swing wildly. All three companies are totally fine. Their stocks were quite inflated.
What is the controversy over Disney Plus's new movie, Mulan?
Amazing thing is that about five minutes ago, I got an e-mail saying my kids had purchased it and are watching it. The controversy is, what I saw, which is, "I've already paid for Disney Plus and I have to pay $30 more?" If they like it, it's worth it, but it's still a lot.