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      They’ve finally gone there: South Park lets rip at Benjamin Netanyahu

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      In the three weeks since South Park last aired, things have changed. The assassination of rightwing pundit Charlie Kirk exploded already fiery political tensions, with the Trump administration and its base embarking on a campaign of retribution the likes of which haven’t been seen since the McCarthy era, and stating, without sufficient evidence, that Kirk’s murder was the result of a wide-ranging leftist plot. Scores of people in the public and private sectors have been punished for commenting on the situation, most notably late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, whose show was briefly pulled off air after the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, put parent company Disney under pressure to do so.Suffice to say, the situation is far too dire to worry about where a cartoon sitcom fits into it all, but South Park is a special case. The first episode of season 27 revolved around the politically motivated cancellation of Stephen Colbert, another late-night talkshow host critical of Donald Trump, while the second directly lampooned Kirk.Many on the right have declared South Park morally complicit in Kirk’s murder, despite the fact that Kirk himself celebrated the parody (going so far as to use its caricature of him as his X profile picture). Repeats of that episode were pulled from Comedy Central, although it remains available to stream on Paramount+. Then, a week to the day after Kirk’s death, it was announced that the new episode of South Park would be postponed. This sparked speculation of censorship, although showrunners Matt Stone and Trey Parker roundly denied this, claiming it was simply a matter of a blown deadline (the result of their famously tight schedule).View image in fullscreenWhile that seems like an all too convenient excuse, Parker and Stone have never backed down from controversy before. Then again, said controversy has never been this furious before, nor hit so close to home for them. The big question ahead of the newest episode was: what would South Park have to say about all this?The answer is … not much.The latest instalment, provocatively titled Conflict of Interest, makes no mention of Kirk, although it does tackle the aftermath in a roundabout way. In one of the two main storylines, Trump, upset over the impending birth of his unholy lovechild with Satan, sets a series of convoluted traps to force an abortion, only for Carr to continually wander into them. By the end of the episode, Carr, badly injured and hosting a brain parasite as a result of toxoplasmosis from being buried in a mountain of cat poo, is at risk of “losing his freedom of speech”.View image in fullscreenDespite avoiding one of the touchiest subjects of the day, South Park steered headlong into another, finally addressing the genocide in Palestine by way of prediction market apps. A bet on one of the platforms – “Will Kyle’s mom strike Gaza and destroy a Palestinian hospital?” – grows so large that Kyle’s mom ends up flying to Israel to put a stop to it.For most of the episode, the outrage is directed at all sides, with Kyle angrily yelling: “Jews and Palestinians are not football teams that you bet on”, and his mother proclaiming: “It’s not Jews versus Palestine, it’s Israel versus Palestine!”However, that outrage is ultimately aimed at a specific party, with Kyle’s mom barging into the office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and letting rip: “Just who do you think you are, killing thousands and flattening neighbourhoods, then wrapping yourself in Judaism like it’s some shield from criticism!” If Netanyahu’s comeuppance isn’t as scatologically extreme as Carr’s, it still provides a fleeting moment of catharsis.While not the most outrageous episode of the season, this may be the funniest, with the Looney Tunes-like gags and the prevalence of JD Vance’s impish caricature both earning huge laughs. And if this week’s South Park didn’t quite meet the moment head-on, neither did it back down. It’s good to know that it will continue to go after Trump and his cronies no matter how hot the political temperature grows.

      South Park is on Paramount+ More

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      Jimmy Kimmel comeback breaks his YouTube monologue views record

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      So much for low viewership: Jimmy Kimmel’s comeback monologue is now his most-viewed one on YouTube.The nearly 30-minute segment, in which Kimmel acknowledged his suspension by ABC owner Disney under pressure from the Trump administration, clarified his remarks on the killing of Charlie Kirk and passionately defended free speech, racked up more than 15m views in 16 hours.Numerous Jimmy Kimmel Live! sketches, interviews and other short clips have attracted tens of millions of views over the year, but Tuesday night’s segment marked record viewership for one of the comedian’s monologues.His previous most-watched monologue was from another emotional occasion in 2017, when Kimmel revealed the birth of his son Billy with a congenital heart condition that required immediate open-heart surgery. Other highly viewed monologues include Kimmel’s reaction to Will Smith’s infamous slap of Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars (13m views), his response to the mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas in 2017 (10m views) and his thoughts on Trump’s re-election last November (9m views).The spike in viewership comes after Disney suspended his late-night show under pressure from the Trump-appointed head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over his comments on the shooting of rightwing activist Charlie Kirk. The decision quickly became a cultural flashpoint, prompting national outcry over free speech and condemnation over the bullying tactics of the Trump administration. Disney reversed course on Monday, following “thoughtful conversations with Jimmy” and pressure from Hollywood stars, free speech advocates, consumer boycotts, union protests and even Republicans like Ted Cruz.Kimmel’s show remains pre-empted on the dozens of ABC affiliate stations owned by the companies Sinclair and Nexstar, which is seeking FCC approval for a $6.2bn merger. Jimmy Kimmel Lives! typically averages about 1.6m broadcast viewers per night, but according to the New York Times, experts expect this tally to be much higher for Tuesday’s show – despite the Nexstar and Sinclair eliminating about 20% of its broadcast audience.Shortly before Tuesday’s show aired, Donald Trump lashed out at the host, a longtime needler and critic, and criticized ABC for allowing his return to broadcast.“I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled! Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his ‘talent’ was never there.”“I think we’re going to test ABC out on this,” he added.“Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative,” Trump said, seemingly referring to the settlement he reached with ABC News last year in a defamation lawsuit filed against the network.In his return, Kimmel was neither conciliatory nor fiery. He decried his suspension as “anti-American” – “this show is not important,” he said, “what is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this” – and clarified his stance on Kirk’s death. “It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anything funny about it.”“Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what – it was obviously a deeply disturbed individual,” he added. “That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make, but I understand that to some that felt either ill-timed or unclear, or maybe both. And for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you’re upset. If the situation was reversed, there’s a good chance I’d have felt the same way.”Kimmel also praised Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, for offering the accused killer forgiveness in a televised memorial service over the weekend.“Look, I never imagined I would be in a situation like this,” he later said. “I barely paid attention in school. One thing I did learn from from Lenny Bruce and George Carlin and Howard Stern, is that a government threat to silence a comedian the president doesn’t like is anti-American … Let’s stop letting these politicians tell us what they want and tell them what we want.”Jimmy Kimmel Live! will air as usual on Wednesday night, except on the 28 affiliates owned by Nexstar and the 38 owned by Sinclair. On Wednesday, Nexstar told Variety that it is “continuing to evaluate the status of ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ on our ABC-affiliated local television stations, and the show will be preempted while we do so. We are engaged in productive discussions with executives at The Walt Disney Company, with a focus on ensuring the program reflects and respects the diverse interests of the communities we serve.” More

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      With Kimmel’s suspension, the FCC chair has made himself Trump’s comedian-in-chief | Sidney Blumenthal

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      Who’s the comedian? Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission chairperson, pressured the Disney company to indefinitely suspend Jimmy Kimmel, the late-night talkshow host on ABC, for a remark he made about the right wing’s attempts to shape perceptions about the murderer of the far-right political operative Charlie Kirk. (Kimmel is now back on the air.) It was the opening riff of Carr’s stand-up routine.Carr’s choice of venue to issue his threat – a hard-right podcast – indicated the kind of media of which he approves. His pressure against Kimmel is no isolated gesture, but the execution of a calculated plan he himself helped hatch to eradicate critical political speech. But Carr’s exploitation of the death of Charlie Kirk to serve as the trigger for Trump’s repression only succeeded in turning Jimmy Kimmel into a free speech symbol before his return to television on Tuesday.“Free speech is the counterweight – it is the check on government control,” Carr wrote as an FCC commissioner in 2023. “That is why censorship is the authoritarian’s dream.” Then, on 17 September, he told the podcast: “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.“These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”Now, Carr was fulfilling “the authoritarian’s dream”. He seems indifferent to his duplicity, boldly tossing aside pretense. Dealing with Kimmel, he posed as a stereotypical gangster speaking in clichés from a 1930s movie: “the easy way or the hard way.” Carr seems excited by his own rough language. His display of brass knuckles, however, demolishes his legitimacy to wear a badge. As the violator of free speech, he betrays his office as a protector. He also destroys conservative posturing as the special victim of speech suppression.Carr is using government power to eliminate criticism. He is implementing a policy of censorship he himself authored in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 playbook. Even when he imitates a mobster, he does not issue his threats in a raised voice. His tone does not rise to the histrionics of Stephen Miller. Carr is a zealot of a certain type, the rightwing Leninist with the grim resolve of a commissar, the bureaucrat rigorously checking off boxes – in this case, purging late-night comedians – to fulfill the larger ideological agenda.The operation of Trump’s purge involves not the slightest bit of persuasion, debate or discussion. Carr is executing the will of the leader who is not to be questioned and above all never to be ridiculed. “We’re not done yet” with the changes in “the media ecosystem”, Carr told CNBC on 18 September. He called the erasure of Kimmel a “market correction”. Carr is incapable of comprehending when he is unintentionally funny in a way that is self-undermining. He’s not only Trump’s executioner. He’s Trump’s straight man.Before the identity, let alone the motive, of the Kirk assassin was known, Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, raged against “an ideology at war with family and nature”. Weeks before, on Fox News, he had already declared the Democratic party “a domestic extremist organization”. Now, after Kirk’s assassination, taking Miller’s cue, the rightwing site the Federalist stated: “After a long history of condoning, advocating, and participating in political violence, it is time to designate the Democrat party a domestic terrorist organization.”The influential anti-woke activist Christopher Rufo tweeted: “The last time the radical Left orchestrated a wave of violence and terror, J Edgar Hoover shut it all down within a few years. It is time, within the confines of the law, to infiltrate, disrupt, arrest, and incarcerate all of those who are responsible for this chaos.”JD Vance threatened: “We are working very hard to ensure that the funding networks for leftwing violence, that the radicalization networks for leftwing violence – that if you encourage or fund your fellow Americans or anybody else to commit acts of violence because you disagree with political speech, you are going to be treated like a terrorist organization and we are going to go after you.”Trump went on Fox & Friends to point his finger: “The radicals on the left are the problem – and they are vicious and horrible and politically savvy.”All of this occurred before Jimmy Kimmel’s ouster.Meanwhile, gaggles of feverish far-right influencers, whose stock-in-trade is conspiracy theories, tried to debunk one fantasy spinning around the internet that threatened to boomerang on them. Within the Maga hothouse, Kirk had faced backlash in 2019 from the Groypers, led by Nick Fuentes, who once dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and accused Kirk of being too moderate. Kirk later shifted his position to the hard right on immigration. “I’ve noticed people like Charlie Kirk … are now calling for an immigration moratorium,” Fuentes said in June. “That means they want to shut down all immigration. And suffice to say, the Groypers have won. It’s just not even a question at this point.”The theory spread like wildfire that the killer’s cryptic inscriptions on shell casings could be Groyper messages. If they were, he would be an errant rightwing extremist, not a leftwing one. Those etched messages, however, apparently referred to a range of things, including gaming memes. No evidence has emerged that Tyler Robinson, the suspect, had political connections to any group or the involvement of anyone else in his act.But with the far-right’s history of heated factional warfare flaring in the background, Jimmy Kimmel said in his monologue on 15 September : “The Maga gang [is] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”Kimmel’s comment condensed, into a line that was not a joke, a complicated and fraught situation, down the rabbit hole of the far right, involving the frenzied Maga effort to pin the blame on the “radical left” and by extension the whole Democratic party, and to deflect scrutiny of their own infighting. Kimmel’s remark assumed a lot of arcane knowledge on the part of his audience.At the same time, the FCC, which Carr chairs, was considering a $6.2bn merger between Nexstar Media, a large owner of TV stations, and the Tegna media company.Within days of Kimmel’s rather innocuous comment, Carr stated that the comedian was “appearing to directly mislead the American public”. Nexstar announced it would no longer broadcast Jimmy Kimmel’s show. Disney followed by suspending him from ABC. Carr praised Nexstar “for doing the right thing”.Ironically, during the Red Scare, in 1950, when Gypsy Rose Lee, soon to be the host of an ABC radio gameshow called What Makes You Tick?, was accused of being a Communist by the American Legion and Red Channels, a conservative publication seeking to root out subversives in the media, ABC executives stood by her. CBS, on the other hand, demanded all of its employees sign a loyalty oath. Gypsy Rose Lee said about the efforts at censorship: “This may be all right for Russia, but I hope not for us.”Sinclair, a rightwing-controlled media outlet that broadcasts ABC shows, announced that suspension of Kimmel was insufficient and that it would pre-empt his program until further notice. But even that was not enough. Sinclair demanded that Kimmel “make a meaningful personal donation to the Kirk Family and Turning Point USA”. Instead of airing the show, Sinclair said, it would offer to its affiliates a “remembrance” of Kirk, “who boldly and tirelessly defended biblical values and truth as he challenged a new generation to stand firm for Christ”. The piece was sanitized of his racist, nativist, antisemitic and misogynist views, and his assertion that Joe Biden “should honestly be put in prison and/or be given the death penalty for his crimes against America”. Kirk, extolled as an exemplar of free speech and debate, had in fact created a “Professor Watchlist” to blacklist liberal academics across the board. Sinclair made Kirk, touted as an advocate of free speech, into a symbol of its suppression. But, after further stoking the firestorm, Sinclair put its “remembrance” on YouTube and instead ran an episode of Celebrity Family Feud. Once Disney restored Kimmel’s show, Sinclair and Nexstar stated their affiliates would not air it.Carr launched his attack on Kimmel on a podcast called The Benny Show, hosted by Benny Johnson, the former chief creative officer at Kirk’s Turning Point USA. Carr had plunged down a deep rabbit hole of the right with a dubious character.Johnson was fired from BuzzFeed in 2014 after being accused of plagiarism. He was later associated with a political consulting firm called Arsenal Media – “a chaotic working environment, rife with internal bullying, toxic HR practices, and an intense culture of secrecy”, where some contractors said they were not paid, according to an investigative report in the Verge. (Johnson’s own website described him as a co-founder and chief creative officer of the site until April 2022, according to the report, but a spokesperson for Johnson told the Verge in April 2022 that he “is not currently, nor has ever been an owner, executive, or even employee of Arsenal Media”.) Johnson was also exposed last year to be among a group of six rightwing influencers who were funneled $10m from two Russian agents indicted by the justice department. Johnson and the others claimed to have been duped.When Pam Bondi, the attorney general, created an uproar, including on the right, by stating: “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech,” Jonathan Karl, the former ABC White House correspondent, asked Trump his reaction.“She’ll probably go after people like you, because you treat me so unfairly,” Trump replied to Karl. “You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they will come after ABC. ABC paid me $16m recently for a form of hate speech. Your company paid me $16m for a form of hate speech, so maybe they will have to go after you.” Trump was referring to his suit against ABC for This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos’s comment coming out of the E Jean Carroll trial describing Trump’s sexual violence. It was generally believed that ABC would have won the case, but the prospective threat to the Disney company from the Trump administration prompted its first capitulation.Trump, on his state visit to Britain, slammed Kimmel at a press conference with Keir Starmer, saying the host had been “fired because he had bad ratings” and was “not a talented person”. The old reality-TV host’s jealousy for an actual show-business star shone through. In fact, Kimmel’s show was rated No 1 with the highly valued young adult demographic.On Air Force One, Trump suggested that the FCC look into revoking the licenses of other networks, saying: “They give me only bad publicity or press. I mean, they’re getting a license. I would think maybe their license should be taken away.”If there are further attempts at impertinent humor, they will be met with even more severe punishments. Will Carr issue a full report to meet the crisis, perhaps to a newly created House committee on the weaponization of humor, the Trump era version of the Red Scare’s House un-American activities committee? Will witnesses be subpoenaed from the writers’ room? Will comics be permitted to sign confessions regretting their past gags? What about the audience members, fellow travelers all, who laughed? An inquisition of comedy would take everyone’s minds off the Epstein files. Are you now or have you ever been a comedian? No joking! That’s an order – an executive order.

      Sidney Blumenthal is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Jimmy Kimmel says silencing comedians is ‘anti American’, as his show returns to air after suspension

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      Jimmy Kimmel returned to air on Tuesday night, calling government threats to silence comedians “anti American”, as he broke his silence about the suspension from ABC which ignited a national debate over free speech and outcry over the bullying tactics of the Trump administration.“This show is not important” Kimmel said during his first monologue since Disney, which owns ABC, suspended his late-night show from the network last week under pressure from Trump officials over his comments on the shooting of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. “What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”Kimmel’s comments come one day after Disney, facing backlash from Hollywood stars, unions, media hosts and even Republicans such as Ted Cruz, allowed Jimmy Kimmel Live! to resume production.The company had indefinitely suspended the show after right-wing outcry over Kimmel’s 15 September monologue, in which he said that “the Maga gang [is] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”On Tuesday night, Kimmel thanked his fellow late night hosts for their support and thanked his audience and supporters.“And most of all I want to thank the people who don’t support my show and what I believe, but support my right to share those beliefs anyway” Kimmel added.“I do want to make something clear, because it’s important to me as a human and that is, you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,” Kimmel said. “I don’t think there’s anything funny about it.”“Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what – it was obviously a deeply disturbed individual” he said. “That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make, but I understand that to some that felt either ill-timed or unclear, or maybe both. And for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you’re upset. If the situation was reversed, there’s a good chance I’d have felt the same way.”Later in the monologue, Kimmel hit out against Trump, saying that the president “did his best to cancel me” but that “instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show.”Kimmel added that “the president of the United States made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs. Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can’t take a joke.”“One thing I did learn from Lenny Bruce and George Carlin and Howard Stern, is that a government threat to silence a comedian the President doesn’t like is anti American” he added.Kimmel closed his monologue by reflecting on remarks made by Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, at her late husband’s memorial service over the weekend.“Erika Kirk forgave the man who shot her husband” Kimmel said. “That is an example we should follow.”“It touched me deeply” he added. “And if there’s anything we should take from this tragedy to carry forward, I hope it can be that, not this.”Kimmel’s comments on the shooting of Kirk angered Trump supporters and officials who have vowed to avenge the death of the conservative activist. Last Wednesday, the Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Brendan Carr, threatened ABC’s affiliate licenses if Disney did not “take action” against the host. Two broadcast groups that own hundreds of affiliate stations – Nexstar, which is currently seeking FCC approval for a $6.2bn merger, and Sinclair – then refused to air the program, leading Disney CEO Bob Iger and Disney Entertainment co-chair Dana Walden to suspend production.The move drew intense backlash from the Hollywood community and free speech advocates and prompted boycotts and protests against both ABC and Disney.Around an hour before Kimmel’s return on Tuesday, Trump lashed out at Kimmel and criticized ABC for allowing the comedian’s show back on air.“I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back” Trump wrote on Tuesday night. “The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled! Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his ‘talent’ was never there.”“I think we’re going to test ABC out on this,” Trump added.“Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative,” Trump said, seemingly referring to the settlement he reached with ABC News last year in a defamation lawsuit Trump filed against the network.On Monday, hours before Disney announced Kimmel’s return, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released an open letter signed by over 400 Hollywood stars condemning Disney’s decision as “a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation.” Signees included Jennifer Aniston, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Ben Affleck and Robert De Niro.In a statement on Monday, the company said the decision to pre-empt Kimmel’s show was made “to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country.”“It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive,” the statement continued. “We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”Although Kimmel’s show returned to ABC on Tuesday, it did not return to ABC affiliate networks owned by Sinclair. The company, which is known to promote conservative talking points, said it would not allow the late-night show to air until Kimmel apologized to Kirk’s family and made a donation to his conservative activist group Turning Point USA.“Beginning Tuesday night, Sinclair will be preempting Jimmy Kimmel Live! across our ABC affiliate stations and replacing it with news programming,” the company said, which has the nation’s largest number of ABC affiliate stations.“Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return,” the group added in a statement late Monday.Nexstar also confirmed that it will continue to pre-empt Jimmy Kimmel Live! on its stations in 22 states. “We made a decision last week to pre-empt Jimmy Kimmel Live! following what ABC referred to as Mr Kimmel’s ‘ill-timed and insensitive’ comments at a critical time in our national discourse,” the company said. “We stand by that decision pending assurance that all parties are committed to fostering an environment of respectful, constructive dialogue in the markets we serve.”The two companies’ continued pre-emption means that Jimmy Kimmel Live! did not air on almost a quarter of ABC affiliate stations. The show continues to be available online as well as on the streaming services Hulu and Disney+. More

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      The rise and fall of Disney: how the company found then lost its backbone

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      The Walt Disney Company is probably hoping that upon viewing the new trailer for the upcoming Star Wars film The Mandalorian and Grogu, audiences feel a swell of nostalgia. No, not for 1977, when Star Wars was fresh and wondrous; after all, Disney didn’t even own it then. Not even for a decade ago, when the company brought the film series roaring back with 2015’s The Force Awakens, still the highest-grossing movie in US box office history. Rather, the trailer, consciously or not, hopes to transport viewers, and presumably profits, back to the halcyon days of … 2019.They would probably settle for any time before their brief but tumultuous suspension of Jimmy Kimmel from ABC became national news. But 2019 would be preferable. That year, Disney’s exercised almost unprecedented box office domination, boasting an astonishing seven of the year’s 10 biggest hits – and an eighth featuring Spider-Man, a Disney-owned character in a movie produced by Disney’s Marvel Studios (but released by Sony). Remakes of Aladdin and The Lion King, sequels to Toy Story and Frozen, two to three Marvel installments (depending on how to count Spider-Man), and a new Star Wars movie added up to around $10bn in global grosses. If the Star Wars movie The Rise of Skywalker landed a little soft compared to its better-reviewed predecessors, even that cloud had a silver lining: the late 2019 debut of The Mandalorian on the then new Disney+ streaming service was an instant sensation. Even genuinely rapacious corporate moves, like Disney’s purchase of 20th Century Fox, were greeted in some fan corners with unthinking delight, because it meant some errant licensed Marvel characters could be in the MCU.As the Covid-19 pandemic (as well as relatively bare franchise cupboards) made replicating those 2019 profits impossible over the next few years, the company at least attempted to burnish some goodwill from contemporary audiences in other ways. In particular, Disney’s various entertainment brands/fiefdoms – Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, etc – seemed to keep the company’s most evil (or equivocating) corporate instincts at bay. In 2022, Pixar and Marvel employees helped push back against the company’s initial silence on Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill prohibiting discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in elementary school classrooms, which the company eventually condemned. Those companies were also beginning, after a long delay, to diversify their slate of movies, shows and characters, with projects such as Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Turning Red and The Acolyte.But the mixed reception to some of these projects, as well as a general mortal terror that they couldn’t somehow make a Frozen, Toy Story, Star Wars and Avengers movie happen every year in perpetuity, seemed to spook Disney somewhere in the transition period from supposedly brilliant CEO Bob Iger to stumblebum replacement Bob Chapek back to Iger again. Despite his savior status, Iger himself exposed that fear when he spoke with corporate-coded cowardice about future projects not putting forward “any kind of agenda”, a pledge in deference to meaninglessness that made even the more craven “exclusively gay moments” or long-delayed female-led Marvel movie seem fiery by comparison. Corporate skittishness over including gay or minority characters that might offend vague “international audiences” was now policy.View image in fullscreenIn some ways, the company was probably just catching some blowback from the much-delayed revelation that CEOs are largely useless figureheads. Yet a series of clumsy, cowardly decisions seemed to transcend boardroom drama. Disney has been carrying out Iger’s edict in a sloppy panic. Seemingly rattled by the ire of random YouTubers, the vagaries of a post-pandemic world and the re-ascension of Donald Trumpo, this year alone the company’s removed all references to a transgender character’s identity on a Pixar streaming show; completed the bowdlerization of the Latino-driven Pixar movie Elio, which originally featured a queer-coded character; reoriented (and renamed) their corporate DEI initiatives to emphasize the generation of that old fan favorite, profit; dumped Black-led Marvel show Ironheart out in a single binge despite using a weekly release model for its marquee shows; and yanked Jimmy Kimmel off the air for expressing skepticism over the Maga-world reaction to the murder of Charlie Kirk, before eventually backtracking. (ABC affiliates under Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar ownership will continue to pre-empt the show until further notice.) In an elegant cherry of bad PR, Disney apparently decided the time was also right for a streaming-service price increase, its third in three years.Of course, as with any massive corporation, Disney’s earlier diversity focus was probably more for the sake of public image and accompanying business interest than genuine empathy. It’s worth asking, then, whether any of these decisions did, in fact, make money for the company especially compared to the profits generated by the Black Panther movies, or a more diverse Star Wars trilogy. The revised Elio could scarcely have made much less at the box office; it’s the lowest-grossing Pixar movie other than those directly affected by the pandemic. Are any Disney+ subscriptions attributable to de-transing a supporting character on an eight-episode miniseries? On the other hand, plenty of people did seem to cancel their subscriptions over the Kimmel battle, and the company’s stock price dipped over the past week. If the idea for any of this was winning back Maga folks in the long run, well, good luck with that. They’re still fuming over the same-sex kiss in Lightyear or girls being in Star Wars or Black people being in anything. The plain truth is, there’s a certain Maga demographic that accepts nothing less than full capitulation to their preferences and values – and you can’t dabble in full capitulation.That’s why Disney’s real wish must be for a 2019 revival. Back then, there might have been little teapot-level tempests here and there from audience segments who complain that a remake is too woke or, on the less rabid side, who regard the inclusion of, say, queer supporting characters as mild (and cynical) concessions, but $10bn buys executives a lot of confidence (even if it’s apparently not enough for actual courage). After all, that’s an environment where no one’s favorite Star Wars film can still eke out a billion dollars worldwide.Disney isn’t alone in facing a tough entertainment landscape where movies don’t gross quite as much and streaming services can easily tip into overspending. But it’s the company that now seems most terrified of this new world, maybe because its late-2010s surge somehow created the impression that endless and unbeatable growth on the backs of perma-beloved nostalgia brands would be possible. It’s not, and if there’s an upside to Disney’s morally checkered year, it’s the revelation that brands are not bulletproof spine protection. No one mad about Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension (or mad about his words to begin with) seems to be taking solace in the upcoming release of another Zootopia movie. The Mandalorian movie looks fun, fan-friendly, perfectly watchable … and that’s not enough to save anyone. More

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      Jimmy Kimmel is coming back. It’s proof that you still have power | Robert Reich

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      ABC says Jimmy Kimmel Live! will return to the airwaves next Tuesday – less than a week after Trump’s henchman Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, said on a podcast that Kimmel’s remarks were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people”.Carr threatened that the FCC could “do this the easy way or the hard way” – suggesting that either ABC and its parent company, Walt Disney, must remove Kimmel or the regulator would have “additional work” to do.Why Walt Disney Company’s turnaround? As it limply explained: “Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.”But now, apparently, all is well.“We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”How lovely. How reasonable. How, well, kumbaya. All it took were some “thoughtful conversations with Jimmy” and everything returned to normal.Don’t believe it. In the days since ABC’s decision, the blowback against Disney has been hurricane level.At least five entertainment industry unions, with at least 400,000 workers, spoke out, with the screenwriters’ union charging Disney with “corporate cowardice”.Celebrities Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep called out “government threats to our freedom of speech”.Kimmel was supported by his late-night peers including Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver, all of whom blasted Disney and ABC with rapier-like humor.Jon Stewart devoted his show to a takedown of Disney’s cowardice.Disney talent was up in arms. Damon Lindelof, a creator of ABC’s Lost, threatened that if Kimmel’s show did not resume, he could not “in good conscience work for the company that imposed it”.Michael Eisner, a former Disney CEO, added a rare public rebuke.Even the rightwing Republican senator Ted Cruz expressed concern, suggested Carr was speaking like a mafioso and calling his threats to retaliate against media companies “dangerous as hell”.“We should not be in this business,” Cruz said. “We should denounce it.”By Monday, Carr himself was busy minimizing his role in the whole affair – denying he had threatened to revoke the licenses of ABC stations (it “did not happen in any way, shape or form”) – and putting the onus on Disney for having made a “business decision” in response to negative feedback from viewers.“Jimmy Kimmel is in the situation that he’s in because of his ratings, not because of anything that’s happened at the federal government level,” Carr claimed.But the most intense pressure came from us – from Disney viewers and customers – who immediately began to cancel subscriptions to Disney+ and Hulu and threaten a broader consumer boycott.Some stars, such as Tatiana Maslany, star of Marvel’s Disney+ series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and Rosie O’Donnell urged people to cancel their subscriptions.But the consumer boycott seems to have begun almost immediately.Shortly after Kimmel’s suspension was announced, Disney stock dipped about 3.5%. It continued to trade lower in subsequent days. The loss in market value has amounted to about $4bn.Investors got the message. Consumers were upset, which meant they’d buy fewer Disney products and services – which meant lower profits.There’s never one single reason for the ups and downs in the value of a particular firm’s shares of stock, but the timing here has been almost exact.Bottom line: We consumers have extraordinary power. We’re the vast majority. Like every other big corporation – especially one selling directly to consumers – Disney relies on us.Even if we can’t count on our elected politicians to protect our first amendment rights, we can rely on ourselves. When our outrage translates into withholding our consumer dollars, a big corporation like Disney is forced to listen – and respond.Next time you’re feeling powerless, remember this.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now More

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      in US Politics

      Media giants accused of ‘cowering to threats’ as Trump tries to stamp out criticism

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      Over the past two decades Jimmy Kimmel has interviewed thousands of people – including his ultimate boss – on his late-night talkshow.“I’ve probably, with the possible exception of Roseanne, caused you more headaches than anyone in the last 15 years,” Kimmel grinned at his guest one night in late 2019. “Absolutely,” replied Disney CEO Bob Iger.When ABC, broadcaster of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, decided to suspend the program “indefinitely” this week, it dispatched an anonymous spokesperson to announce the news. Iger, veteran leader of Disney, ABC’s parent company, was nowhere to be seen – but was widely reported to have been intimately involved in the decision.Iger is one of a small handful of powerful executives pulling the strings behind the most prominent media organizations in the US. David Ellison, the new CEO of Paramount Skydance, and son of the billionaire tech mogul Larry Ellison, is in charge of CBS, and reportedly pursuing a deal to buy the owner of CNN. Brian Roberts, the Comcast chair, is the most senior executive overseeing NBC and its cable news network, MSNBC.View image in fullscreenIn recent months, major broadcasters have faced criticism for their responses to threats and pressure from the Trump administration. CBS paid a $16m defamation settlement to Donald Trump and scheduled the cancellation of the The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. ABC paid a $15m settlement to the US president and suspended Kimmel.And Trump is publicly pushing NBC to cancel its two late night stars, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, too.The owners of the largest US TV networks, and the ultimate employers of their stars, are even bigger companies who conduct business transactions that most viewers may not pay a lot of attention to – mergers, acquisitions, licensing deals – but are firmly in the sights of the White House.On Wednesday, FCC chair Brendan Carr – dubbed Trump’s “censor-in-chief” – dangled the power of the federal government over ABC, and Disney, saying that the regulator has “remedies we can look at” to address comments Kimmel made about conservatives in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s killing.“These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead,” Carr said of the affiliates that carry ABC across the US. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”Soon after, ABC announced it would indefinitely suspend Kimmel’s show. “Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done,” wrote Trump.But Carr is not done. “I don’t think this is the last shoe to drop,” he said of Kimmel’s suspension, in an interview on the conservative Fox News on Thursday.To Robert Thompson, a media scholar at Syracuse University who specializes in TV history, battles between government regulators and the companies that broadcast America’s favorite shows have long been a part of broadcast history. But the way TV networks are now part of far larger businesses, and complex webs of interest and influence, have changed the stakes of the fight.“Entertainment and news are controlled by these large companies that are very dependent on new acquisitions and mergers that require approval by federal government agencies,” Thompson said. “That’s why there’s a vulnerability for this kind of thing to happen.”The Telecommunications Act of 1996, signed under Bill Clinton, loosened restrictions on how many TV and radio stations a company could own nationally.Now, the dominant US TV networks – and their news and entertainment arms – are controlled by a small, but powerful, collection of entertainment giants. CBS is owned by Paramount Skydance, which includes Paramount Pictures, cable channels like MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, and other TV channels abroad, including Channel 5 in the UK. ABC is owned by Disney, which also owns Marvel Studios, Hulu and ESPN. NBC is owned by Comcast, which is also a cable TV company and an internet service producer, while also being the company behind the European broadcaster Sky and DreamWorks movies like Shrek.The timing of recent mergers have alarmed first amendment advocates, who are starting to see a pattern of companies bowing to the Trump administration in order to get approval for their deals.CBS owner Paramount was criticized for settling with Trump and cancelling Colbert’s show weeks before the FCC greenlit an $8bn merger with Skydance, a Hollywood studio.The merger installed David Ellison, founder of Skydance, at the top of Paramount Skydance, and CBS.CBS News has since appointed a Trump ally as its ombudsman and Bari Weiss, founder of the Free Press, an “anti-woke” startup, is said to be in line for a role shaping its coverage.View image in fullscreenMeanwhile, Nexstar Media, a major owner of local television stations, including over 30 ABC-affiliated stations, has been looking for FCC approval for a $6.2bn merger with Tegna, another broadcast media company. After Carr’s podcast interview, Nexstar announced it would preempt Kimmel’s show on their ABC-affiliated stations, meaning the show wouldn’t access millions of TV viewers in specific markets. (Nexstar executives “had no communication with the FCC or any government agency” before making the call, the firm has stressed.)Christopher Anders, a senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, a leading defender of rights and freedoms enshrined in the US constitution, said Carr was using “the regulatory power the government has over media companies” through his comments.“That is exactly what the first amendment is designed to stop: the government using its power to stifle speech,” Anders said. “And if there’s any speech that’s at the very heart of the first amendment, it would be the ability to criticize those in power, particularly the ability to criticize the president.”Media giants have been “cowering to threats”, he added, ignoring the responsibility they have of defending free speech.Iger, who previously considered running for president, has tried to steer clear of the culture wars that embroiled his predecessor, Bob Chapek. Now he faces intense scrutiny for overseeing a decision – suspending Kimmel – which critics say raises serious free speech concerns.Michael Eisner, Disney’s former CEO, and Iger’s former boss at the firm, wrote on X on Friday: “The ‘suspending indefinitely’ of Jimmy Kimmel immediately after the Chairman of the FCC’s aggressive yet hollow threatening of the Disney Company is yet another example of out-of-control intimidation. Maybe the Constitution should have said, ‘Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, except in one’s political or financial self-interest.’”It is still unclear when – or if – Kimmel will come back on air. The companies in charge of US television, and the government agencies who regulate their dealings, loom large.“Anyone that has the privilege of owning one of the major media networks, or owning the affiliate stations that carry those networks, ought to also have recognized the responsibility to protect the right of free speech,” said Anders. “Not just give up that right because an administration official is at least implicitly threatening to block their ability to carry out business.” More

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      in US Politics

      Ted Cruz compares threats to ABC by FCC chair to those of mob boss

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      Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, compared Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr’s threats to revoke the broadcast licenses of ABC stations over late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s commentary to “mafioso” tactics similar to those in Goodfellas, the 1990 mobster movie.“Look, Jimmy Kimmel has been canned. He has been suspended indefinitely. I think that it a fantastic thing,” Cruz said at the start of the latest episode of his podcast Verdict with Ted Cruz. There were, however “first amendment implications” of the FCC’s role, the senator, a Harvard Law School graduate who clerked for US supreme court chief justice William Rehnquist, added.Cruz, a formerly fierce political rival of Donald Trump turned strong supporter, called Carr’s comments “unbelievably dangerous” and warned that government attempts to police speech could harm conservatives if Democrats return to power.“He threatens explicitly: ‘We’re going to cancel ABC’s license. We’re going to take him off the air so ABC cannot broadcast any more’ … He says: ‘We can do this the easy way, but we can do this the hard way.’ And I got to say, that’s right out of Goodfellas. That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it,’” Cruz said.“I hate what Jimmy Kimmel said. I am thrilled that he was fired,” Cruz also said. “But let me tell you: if the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you, the media, have said. We’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like,’ that will end up bad for conservatives.”During an Oval Office event on Friday, when Trump was asked about Cruz’s comments on Carr, the president raised the issue of licenses and suggested stations might be “illegally” using the airwaves to broadcast critical coverage of him in news reports.“When you have networks that give somebody 97% bad publicity,” the president said, “I think that’s dishonesty.”“I think Brendan Carr is a patriot. I think Brendan Carr is a courageous person. I think Brendan Carr doesn’t like to see the airwaves be used illegally and incorrectly,” Trump said. “So I disagree with Ted Cruz on that.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe president’s claim that news coverage on ABC, NBC and CBS was almost entirely negative appears to have been based on a subjective analysis of “the networks’ spin” by NewsBusters, a conservative media watchdog group founded by Trump’s nominee to serve as US ambassador to South Africa, the activist L Brent Bozell III. More