Joseph Nichols, Staff Writer

I hate Disney. Okay, wait. I’m not the Grinch. I rather enjoy the Disney Renaissance movies that many of us grew up with. Who doesn’t love “The Emperor’s New Groove?” Let me be more specific: I hate how Disney has been oversaturating the film and television market with consistently poor products from the same few franchises while also chug-and-plugging flat DEI initiatives.

It’s apparent that the Disney playbook for the last decade or so has included buying popular franchises and rebooting them. Marvel films in preparation for “Infinity War” and “Endgame” brought unfathomable success to the studio with “Endgame” alone grossing nearly $3 billion worldwide.

Similarly, the Star Wars sequel trilogy grossed over $10 million globally, despite being critically panned. There is money and nostalgia mixed with contemporary visual effects. These movies do have enjoyable moments, yet Disney seemingly doesn’t know when to say stop. George Lucas himself even said the recent Star Wars sequel trilogy was “Star Wars in name and appearance, but not meaning.”

Both Marvel and Star Wars appeared to reach their natural conclusion in 2019, right when Disney launched their streaming service and had a decision to make: end these two profitable franchises as they ride off into the sunset on a halfway decent ending or beat a dead horse six feet under. 

Of course, the Mouse chose the latter, and the initial spinoff Disney+ shows from these towering franchises found a critical niche in their own respected fanbases. Marvel’s “WandaVision” and Star Wars’ “The Mandalorian” gained an audience and critical success on the platform, but the reality of these franchises in 2025 is entirely divergent from their 2019 peaks under the Disney label.

Star Wars’ “The Acolyte” with its abysmal 4.2/10 score on the International Movie Database (IMDB) is joined by Marvel’s “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” (5.2/10) as some of the most apathetic, uninspired, and embarrassing movies and shows graced with a blockbuster budget. 

While a constant stream of slop is bad enough, there is perhaps an even worse result than a consistently poor product that bleeds money: Disney’s hackneyed approach to diversity, equity and inclusion in film and television. 

While one need look no further than the abrasive, giant, twerking green woman in “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” in exactly how not to create a well-written character in a historically marginalized group, perhaps no franchise has been as polluted with such a nauseating abundance of needless DEI as “Doctor Who.”

Highly regarded as one of the most popular shows in all of television during its sixty-year and counting run, the British sci-fi program’s distribution rights were purchased by The Walt Disney  Company in 2022, providing them not only with control of how the show will be streamed or aired but also giving Disney a degree of unspoken sway in the production and direction of the show.

“Doctor Who” has historically been an incredibly diverse show, with moments including the fan-favorite bisexual Captain Jack Harkness, who shared an on-screen same-sex kiss with the titular Doctor in 2005, well ahead of their time. Similarly, Doctor Who introduced their first Black companion, Martha Jones, two years later and included a lesbian couple as frequent companions for much of the Eleventh Doctor’s run in 2010-13. However, “Doctor Who’s” greatest strength is that it is a show first with its characters and story placed ahead of any ill-executed or pedestrian message. 

Captain Jack Harkness is introduced as a dashing, swashbuckling rogue who travels the universe in search of individuals to con. He is a character first – and an excellent one at that! Yes, he is bisexual and that is significant to who he is, but Harkness is more than simply his identity.

Under Disney’s regime, “Doctor Who” characters have become so stripped down that companions and even the Doctor himself are nothing more than their identity. Yes, diversity and inclusion are necessary in film and television. However, the character and story must come first. I’d much rather enjoy a time-twisting tale of the Doctor and his companions than him being chastised for assuming a giant ball of fur with eyes and no discernable gender is male. 

Even though exchanges like these in recent seasons come off as needlessly domineering, Disney’s “Doctor Who” is not an issue of pronouns or diversity generally. In today’s world, introducing yourself with your desired pronouns is an entirely acceptable and encouraged practice, yet the poor implementation and absolutely unbelievable degree to which it has been implemented into the show pushes the line from entertainment into nothing more than dogma.

I’m not griping because there are queer or non-white individuals that exist in popular media. The magnitude, but more importantly the execution of diverse characters in Disney’s shows is done so poorly and to such an extent that the ensuing media is unwatchable, and what’s worse is that Disney has commandeered some of the most popular intellectual properties instead of creating something original.

Here’s to Star Wars, Marvel and Doctor Who: casualties of the culture wars. Pour one out for them this weekend, and may they rest in peace.