PTC Want Disney To Improve Its Tarnished Image
Over the last few decades, Disney has been creating content for different people, for families and children under its Disney branding, but it has released content aimed at a general audience, including adults, under a number of different brands, including Touchstone Pictures, ABC, ESPN and many more. And since Disney purchased 20th Century Fox in 2019, it also added a number of studios to its roster, including FX, 20th Television and Searchlight Pictures, which create shows like “Family Guy”, “Welcome To Chippendales”, “Pam & Tommy” and “The Dropout”, which are aimed at adult viewers.
However, according to the Parents Television and Media Council (PTC), Disney must earn back the trust of parents and families in order to find success.
Melissa Henson, vice president of the Parents Television and Media Council said in a statement:
“As Disney prepares to announce its quarterly earnings this week, the reality is that Disney has lost the trust of parents and that impacts every area of its business. Disney’s shift over the past few years to programming that sexualizes children is simply a huge concern for parents and one that parents do not want to support.
“Disney-owned Hulu features PEN15, a program that has depicted a teenage girl masturbating in front of her laptop computer.
“Disney-owned Hulu produced and distributed a television program, A Teacher, that centers on a steamy, sordid ‘romance’ between a high school teacher and one of her students.
“Disney produced a cartoon, Little Demon, for one of its cable networks that focuses on a teenager who is the love child from a fling her mother had with the devil. In just the first three 30-minute episodes, PTC research found sexual content including animated female frontal nudity (no pixilation), vulgar slang references to male and female genitalia, vile sexual innuendo, a main character who gets turned-on by violent sex. We counted 173 instances of explicit language including 38 f-words and 35 s-words (all unbleeped); 45 instances of violence including graphic, gory violence such as heads exploding and bodies being mutilated and dismembered; all along with occult imagery, Christian-bashing, and drug use.
“Disney used to be the most trusted entertainment brand. It still can be, but it needs to divest its programming that sexualizes children and improve its tarnished business practices in this area”.
The shows that the PTC has highlighted as troublesome are rated as TV-Mature, so they aren’t aimed at children and are created for adults to enjoy.
Both Hulu and Disney+ offer parental controls to limit access to these shows. If a subscriber to Hulu or Disney+ wants to lock down their account to ensure that viewers have a kid-friendly space to stream with Kids Profiles and PIN Protection. With PIN protection, parents can create a PIN to protect viewers from switching out of Kids Profiles and help ensure they are not accessing content that may not be appropriate.
This isn’t the first time that the PTC has attacked Disney over its decision to make shows or films for mature audiences. Last year, they had a major problem with shows like “Daredevil” being added onto Disney+, and the companies push into more mature content.
Disney is not doing anything different to other studios like Netflix, Amazon, Universal, Paramount, BBC, and Warner Brothers Discovery all make content for adults to enjoy, along with shows and films for families and children. Offering families more choices with the content, they have access to. It seems the PTC still have a view of Disney from fifty years ago, where they only made animated films and shows for families and children, which just isn’t sustainable in a global business in the 21st century.
What do you think of the PTC’s issue with Disney content aimed at adults? Let us know on social media!
Roger Palmer
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