With the recent news of Jennifer Lee stepping down as the Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Animation (WDA), itโs hard not to reflect on her devastating impact on the OG animation studio that startedโฆwith a mouse. Read the original D-Files to see just how we got here. This article will serve as yet another reminder of how DEI can kill your company and dreams simultaneously.
DEI Hiring
With Jennifer Lee firmly in place as the head of Walt Disney Animation and her plans for 50/50 female/male animator equity in place, her next goal was to include diverse voices to lead the next generation of feature animation. In 2019, Lee announced the names of four storytellers to direct four new films (Variety).
From within WDA, Lee chose Josie Trinidad (story for Zootopia and Ralph Breaks the Internet) and Marc Smith (director of story for Frozen II). Lee pulled the other two from outside. The first is Carlos Lopez Estrada, who directed Raya and the Last Dragon, and Iranian-American filmmaker Suzi Yoonessi (Unlovable and Dear Lemon Lima).
Many of the veteran animators saw these hirings, particularly Estrada and Yoonessi, as WDA embracing DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). Disney had a long line of veteran animators investing time and energy in the hope that one day they would helm a Disney classic. Now, these scarce opportunities were given to people who were labeled diverse and never worked in animation. As uncovered in past D-Files, the โOld White Guysโ were not given prominent scenes to animate in favor of inexperienced women of color. This snub began the slow and total exodus of veteran talent from Walt Disney Animation to competitor studiosโฆincluding Skydance.
Untitled Disney Animated Feature
Jump to a year ago with Disneyโs Wish coming to theaters. This was the current slate of films for this year:
Notice there is an โuntitled Disney featureโ and an โuntitled Disney Animationโ on the schedule. No feature film is coming out in 2024, but pay attention to the animated feature. At the end of the first quarter this year, Disney Animation made a surprise announcement during a shareholder call that Moana 2 would come out during Thanksgiving. Disney stated that it would be a repurposing of the already-developed Disney+ animated series. In fact, Disney found itself in scramble mode to re-sign the filmโs original voices, transition from television to the big screen, and deliver a film in around six months. It feels like WDA is pivotingโฆwhat happened?
