April 10, 2022 - The Benny Show - Benny Johnson
58:20
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| you you you Yeah, I think so. | ||
| Honestly, when you go woke, you go broke. | ||
| And Disney, I think, is going to go broke. | ||
| I think that Disney has broken itself. | ||
| It may not even be something that affects their bottom line. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I know that my family canceled Disney +, and we sold our Disney stock, and we told ourselves in the Johnson household, we're not going to buy another Disney product ever again. | ||
| We're not going to fund the people who hate us. | ||
| And who want to destroy this country and who certainly want to attack our children? | ||
| I mean, how perverse is it that the place that is supposed to be safe for children to have fun and to learn lessons about the world around them and how great America is? | ||
| The Hall of Presidents, downtown Disney, right? | ||
| Has been utterly perverted and turned against us by a small, radical mob of freakazoid pink-haired activists. | ||
| Who wish to only destroy, you know? | ||
| It's amazing. | ||
| Evil can only destroy. | ||
| It doesn't ever build. | ||
| It doesn't ever make anything. | ||
| It doesn't create. | ||
| These people are not Walt Disney. | ||
| These people are desecrating, actually, the legacy of a great American, Walt Disney, in what they're doing. | ||
| And they're hurting people in the process. | ||
| They're hurting, clearly, the lives of myself and my children. | ||
| I'm no Disney-ophile, but I liked going to the park, you know? | ||
| And I... | ||
| I would like to maybe bring my kids to the park someday. | ||
| Ain't going to happen anymore. | ||
| But it's really hurting the people inside of the company, people who have been loyal to Disney for a very long time, people who have given their working lives to Disney. | ||
| And there is a huge majority, we hear, of people inside of the company who are sickened by the woke projection and activism that is among their ranks, making the happiest place on Earth a very Unhappy place to work. | ||
| We were really shocked, actually, when we covered this topic first to hear from a Disney cast member, somebody who has Disney in her blood, somebody who lives in Florida, who wrote us and said, you have no idea how bad it really is. | ||
| We're going to protect the identity of this Disney cast member. | ||
| We're going to call her Kathy for our interview. | ||
| Interview with us, audio only, and tell us about the story of what's really happening inside of the not-so-magic woke kingdom of Disney. | ||
| Kathy joins us now. | ||
| Thank you so much for being on The Benny Show and for speaking out. | ||
| You are brave. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much. | |
| Kathy, can you give me a little bit of a background as it pertains to you and your relationship or admiration of the Disney parks? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I've been going pretty much my whole life since I was age five. | |
| And it's been part of my family. | ||
| I actually was a Disney Vacation Club member for many years. | ||
| Sold it when my son decided to come to college down here in the Florida area. | ||
| And ended up working at Disney. | ||
| And, you know, a dream come true. | ||
| And it has kind of become a nightmare, to be quite honest. | ||
| Yikes. | ||
| How long have you worked at Disney? | ||
|
unidentified
|
About two and a half years. | |
| Okay, so when did you first go to the Disney parks here in Florida? | ||
|
unidentified
|
1971 in October. | |
| That's got to be like the opening date, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It was a couple weeks. | |
| We had just moved to St. Pete, and the people we bought the house off of said to my parents, hey, there's this new park. | ||
| Let's go see it. | ||
| So that was something we did, and that was our Easter vacation. | ||
| When we moved back to New Jersey, every year we would come and go to Disney for Easter. | ||
| So did you have a favorite ride, Disney trinkets, Disney toys? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Definitely. | |
| It's a small world. | ||
| My favorite ride ever. | ||
| I go in and I have memories of my father. | ||
| To me, when I go to the parks, that's the ride I always go on. | ||
| I think you speak on behalf of millions, maybe tens of millions of Americans who have special family memories at these places because they're a special, shared, uniquely American place that we can all... | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| It used to be that way. | ||
| I just feel like more and more families are being pushed out and there is a political agenda in everything now. | ||
| It's being injected into everything. | ||
| But by the same token, you see a lot of the hypocrisy where they sell items that go directly against their political leanings. | ||
| They sell the princess costumes. | ||
| Yet we're supposed to all be one sex. | ||
| We're supposed to be our costumes that we wear at work. | ||
| We have a female costume and we have a male costume. | ||
| We're now allowed to wear either. | ||
| But I have to wear pantyhose to go to work. | ||
| I mean, this is not 1950s. | ||
| It's Florida. | ||
| It's hot. | ||
| I have to wear pantyhose. | ||
| I just, I find it ironic that when I see a little girl in a princess costume, I am told I'm supposed to curtsy and say, Your Highness. | ||
| But yeah. | ||
| I cannot wait to go into the rules and what it's like to be on the inside of Disney and working at these parks. | ||
| I think that I speak for the entire audience that's watching this that we don't have any personal animus to Disney. | ||
| I assume that Many of us grew up on Disney, Disney movies, some of the classics, right? | ||
| And certainly some of the even more modern videos. | ||
| I was raised on Lion King, right? | ||
| Little Mermaid. | ||
| Beauty and the Beast is my wife's favorite. | ||
| So this is like something that belongs to all of us. | ||
| And I suppose I simply wanted to establish that you're not someone who hated Disney. | ||
| You're not somebody who disliked this park or this place, right? | ||
| You didn't sign up to work there as some type of agent or irrational actor who had animus towards the parks. | ||
| Am I wrong? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, not at all. | |
| I mean, I love the place. | ||
| And before I was a cast member, I was going in there three times a week. | ||
| Four times a week, I would get done my job, take clothes, drive over, and go in the parks after work. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| So I think it's clear to say that you... | ||
| We're raised as a Disney fan, maybe even a Disney-phile, depending on how you want to identify yourself. | ||
| And you clearly cared for the legacy and appreciated the legacy of Walt Disney. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, definitely. | |
| Definitely. | ||
| So then you decided to work at Disney. | ||
| What was that experience like? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I came in relatively close to the pandemic closing. | |
| I mean, you go to something called traditions, which is really a cool thing. | ||
| And one part of traditions, though, is that the union comes in to sign you up, because most of us are unionized. | ||
| Interesting. | ||
| Didn't know that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| So the union comes in. | ||
| Disney cast members excuse themselves and they say, we now are excusing ourselves. | ||
| The union is coming in and they're going to speak to you. | ||
| Anything they say to you is not, you know, they're not speaking as Disney. | ||
| But when they come in, they circle the room and cross their arms and put a piece of paper in front of you and stand there with their arms crossed and say, sign it. | ||
| What? | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's not really how I operate. | |
| So I took my paper off my table and I put it in my bag. | ||
| And literally the head guy that was speaking motioned to other people, union members, to come speak to me. | ||
| And everyone, these people are just signing away their life not knowing what they're doing. | ||
| And I said, how much are my union dues? | ||
| They couldn't answer the question. | ||
| Somebody at my table said, who, what political? | ||
| Candidates, do you give two? | ||
| We can't answer that question. | ||
| So, right there, I'm already, like, I'm concerned. | ||
| So, three people at my table. | ||
| Everyone else signed, but three people at my table, including myself, did not sign. | ||
| I say that because going down the road, I did have issues and had to be represented by a union rep. | ||
| Interesting. | ||
|
unidentified
|
While I was under a labor investigation. | |
| And I will tell you, they found out very quickly I wasn't a union member, and boy, my representation was very different. | ||
| It was non-existent. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| I want to get there, and I want to talk about your experiences and some of the inside perspective of what you saw inside of Disney. | ||
| However, I mean, I think that people don't quite understand inside of these industries. | ||
| My wife is a nurse. | ||
| Nurses are often a unionized profession. | ||
| How much you can really get shaken down. | ||
| My wife was treated like... | ||
| Garbage! | ||
| Because she didn't join the union when 99% of the hospital, nursing staff, was unionized in Washington, D.C. Mm-hmm. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It is amazing. | |
| I mean, to the point where I got told I didn't have First Amendment rights as a cast member by my union rep. | ||
| Goodness gracious. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I thought she was joking. | |
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I did. | |
| I thought she was joking. | ||
| So let's go there. | ||
| Was there any honeymoon period? | ||
| Did you enjoy your job at Disney? | ||
| Can you describe to me what you did? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I actually still love my job. | |
| That's the thing. | ||
| I love what I do. | ||
| I love the guests. | ||
| My son actually summed it up perfectly. | ||
| He said, my mom loves working at Disney. | ||
| She does not necessarily love working for Disney. | ||
| And I think that sums it up profoundly. | ||
| I love dealing with the guests. | ||
| And it's so funny because so many people think cast members, oh, they get treated horribly by the guests. | ||
| I really have only had one or two instances where I've had a guest that was irate. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Is my guest service different? | ||
| I'm not sure. | ||
| But it's not the guests that are the problem. | ||
| I love the guests. | ||
| I love sharing their vacation time, the fact that they've chosen Disney as their destination. | ||
| I recently had a family from England. | ||
| It was their first time in the United States. | ||
| And they chose Disney. | ||
| And I thank them for that. | ||
| So it's not the guests. | ||
| It's really the culture there is becoming so that you can't do your job. | ||
| The job is no longer guest-centered. | ||
| It was prior to the pandemic, and something, a switch changed during the pandemic, and you just can't go the extra mile for the guest. | ||
| And then while this is happening, you're being injected with all this Political baloney. | ||
| And you're being told how you're supposed to think. | ||
| So, one, that sounds horrible. | ||
| But two, many, many millions of us and many in the audience have been to Disney. | ||
| And what is your position? | ||
| Are you inside of a Mickey Mouse costume? | ||
| Are you running the Matterhorn? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I had two roles. | |
| I was a concierge at a resort, and then I was in merchandise at a resort. | ||
| So I have done shifts within the parks, but mostly I am in the resorts. | ||
| So I deal with the guests that are staying at the resort or guests that are visiting just to come for whatever at the resorts. | ||
| And for those unfamiliar... | ||
| These resorts are massive and they're part of the parks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're massive, yes. | |
| So I've worked at a deluxe resort and I've worked at a value resort. | ||
| And so I've gotten the entire spectrum. | ||
| I've had famous people I've had to work with and just regular everyday people. | ||
| So yes, merchandise and concierge. | ||
| So when you're checking in, I'd be the person that you would be dealing with. | ||
| I assume you've seen... | ||
| Disney, probably Disney families in the thousands per day, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, yes. | |
| Prior to the pandemic, literally when they had the Disney Magical Express, the bus that would bring people in, you would look up and see a line out the lobby, out the door, and you would just go, whew, that one's done. | ||
| And the next bus would roll up, and the line would be about 100 people long. | ||
| Goodness gracious. | ||
| But you loved it nonetheless? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| In my interview, I specifically asked the person interviewing me to send me to the busiest resort. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Your onboarding otherwise with the company went well? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The onboarding went perfectly well. | |
| It was the post-pandemic. | ||
| Re-onboarding that we had that was interesting. | ||
| Wait, wait, stop, stop, stop. | ||
| You had to be re-onboarded after the pandemic? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Correct. | |
| We had to go over COVID protocols. | ||
| Ah. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Okay, let's hear about that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, so I was actually out on furlough for 53 weeks. | |
| Yikes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So that's a long time to not be working. | |
| I was not able to go, due to the union rules, I was not able to go back to my original role with the company. | ||
| I had to pick something else. | ||
| So they gave us a list of 12 jobs, and then we had a phone interview, and then they would try to place us somewhere. | ||
| So based on my seniority, I had to wait, because even though my resort was open, I was so low in seniority I couldn't go back. | ||
| So I get the call back, and you have to go to one of the resorts, and someone greets you with a face shield and a mask. | ||
| They take your temperature, they sit you in a seat, and then you get the spiel. | ||
| The spiel is, if you see a guest without a face mask on, you are to say to them, excuse me for the safety of you, the safety of all the other guests, for the safety of me and all my fellow cast members, I need you to pull your face mask up over your nose and your mouth. | ||
| And then went that much further, the person doing it, the person doing the training, was actually proud of the fact that a three-year-old was trying to have a conversation with her and was not keeping the six-foot distance from her. | ||
| So she was backing up from the child to keep the six-foot distance. | ||
| And she thought that was fabulous. | ||
| This was a three- or four-year-old child. | ||
| I saw a viral video of Winnie the Pooh and some child trying to hug Winnie the Pooh. | ||
| Have you seen this? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have. | |
| I actually got in trouble for hugging a child. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| The minder came out and told the child to get lost? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Yes. | ||
| So this was the position that they were training you for this type of role? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So they told us also we were not allowed to touch a guest's phone. | |
| Now, pretty much everything is on your My Disney Experience app on your phone. | ||
| So if a person has a problem, we were told to keep six-foot distance from them and just give them instructions. | ||
| We were not supposed to take photos. | ||
| If a guest asked for family photos, we were to tell them no for the safety. | ||
| Same spiel for the safety of you and for the safety of everyone else. | ||
| We were not supposed to touch any of the guests. | ||
| So, I am a rule breaker by just the way I am. | ||
| I had guests ask me for photos, and I took photos. | ||
| And I would get the, what were you doing? | ||
| They asked for a photo. | ||
| You're not supposed to touch their phone. | ||
| I said, I could walk outside and get run over by a Disney bus. | ||
| That's life. | ||
| I mean, I'm going to, if a guest asks for a photo, I'm going to take a photo. | ||
| That's right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I did. | |
| I got in trouble for hugging a little girl. | ||
| The mother asked if she could give me a hug, and I said yes, and I got a talking to. | ||
| It's so sickening because people save up for years to come to Disney. | ||
| You said you had a family from overseas. | ||
| It was their first time in America. | ||
| These are expensive trips. | ||
| Really pricey, and that's not what this podcast is about, but it's expensive to do Disney, and obviously you saw the families from the Midwest or from all around the planet are spending what they have to come there and have a magical experience, and you've got to treat them like diseased lepers. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| So between the plexiglass shields that we had to talk to people through, and we're wearing a mask, and they're wearing a mask. | ||
| You know, I was always leaning around the plexiglass shield and, you know, trying to talk to guests. | ||
| I would ask them if they were comfortable with it, but I would come and stand next to them if I was trying to tell them something. | ||
| I would help them with their app on their phone, and I would say, if you want an alcohol wipe, you know, and I had one person take me up on it. | ||
| But that was it. | ||
| I said, I cannot, this is not guest service. | ||
| And you're right, we were treating them like lepers. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| I want some actual alcohol after listening to this story. | ||
| It's terrible. | ||
| Not the wipe. | ||
| Bypass the wipe. | ||
| I'll take the alcohol. | ||
| I mean, it does seem, and probably if you buy alcohol at a Disney park, it's going to be $20 a beer. | ||
| It does seem like there is a disdain for the customer that is growing inside of Disney. | ||
| Am I missing this, or am I not seeing something? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I would like, I think the thing that I noticed during the pandemic, because while I was out on furlough so much, there was really nothing to do around here but go to theme parks. | |
| So I was an annual pass holder at Disney, even though I was a cast member, and Universal and SeaWorld. | ||
| And I completely saw a difference through those three theme parks, those three companies, as to how they handled things. | ||
| The way I like to explain it is I find that Disney cast members, I find a lot of them are a little emotionally stunted. | ||
| I know that sounds an awful way to describe it, but they tend to be very immature. | ||
| And I find that they were probably bullied in school, and they found a way to become a bully. | ||
| So the bullied became the bullies. | ||
| And I feel honestly in my heart that Disney saw that they could mask people. | ||
| and control them, even when other places weren't doing that around here. | ||
| And it was a control issue, and it ramped them up to say, well, if we can mask people and they're willing to give us all this money, we can push the next agenda and the next agenda. | ||
| And, you know, like I said, I see cast members that I'm horrified that they're Even able to hold a job, to be quite honest, and just watching them chase people down about a mask, scream at them. | ||
| They actually had a job role, which was called the Incredi-team. | ||
| And the Incredi-team were people who walked around and told you to put your mask up. | ||
| And they offered that job to me. | ||
| And I said, no, that's the mask police. | ||
| I don't want to do that. | ||
| And it didn't go over well. | ||
| And he said, what do you mean? | ||
| And I said, well, I don't tell grown adults what to do. | ||
| If someone needs a moment without a mask, I'm going to give them a moment. | ||
| I'll be miserable for eight hours, and you'll be miserable for eight hours, and I'm not going to make people miserable for eight hours. | ||
| Why would you want to be miserable? | ||
| People are spending their life savings to come to Disneyland. | ||
| Kids are looking forward to this for months, years maybe, and then you arrive, and you have just these miserable cretins. | ||
| You can't even hug Winnie the Pooh? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| It just seems like the opposite of what Walt Disney intended. | ||
| You ended up getting in trouble? | ||
| Is this right because of mask policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| So when I first went back, we had to wear masks. | ||
| And then they were dropped. | ||
| And then they were reinstituted when our numbers here went up in Central Florida. | ||
| And I wrote a post on my private Facebook page, which I don't list where I work. | ||
| It's private. | ||
| All my posts are private. | ||
| And I only have like 200 friends. | ||
| And I put, I struggle with a mask because I have a lot of ENT issues and hearing loss issues. | ||
| And I'm not happy about going back to a mask. | ||
| And one of the things I said was, I'm not going to chase people around. | ||
| I didn't mention work. | ||
| I didn't mention anything. | ||
| I just said, I won't chase people around if they're masked, if they need a moment. | ||
| Because I know sometimes I need a moment to just catch my breath. | ||
| And I was in the office and one of our leaders came in and just casually said to me, hey, so we need you to watch your Facebook posts. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| They were spying on you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, someone that I work with took a screenshot of it and showed it to management and said she didn't feel safe working with me. | |
| And it became a thing. | ||
| I asked to sit down with the person and I said, you know, hey, can I sit down with the person who reported me and so we can talk about it as adults? | ||
| And I was told no. | ||
| And that's when I reached out to the union and I was told, well, you're going to have to make a written statement because now there's a labor investigation into you. | ||
| So for two weeks, I didn't know if I had a job. | ||
| I get pulled out of my work location. | ||
| And I get pulled into an office, and I'm with a stranger, and I'm told, this is your union rep. | ||
| Write a statement. | ||
| Now, the leader who approached me said, you need to tow the Disney line. | ||
| And I went, I only tow my own line. | ||
| So, your job, I come in, and this is how it works. | ||
| I come in, I clock in, I give. | ||
| What I'm supposed to do during my job, and then I go home, and you're not in my personal life. | ||
| That's how this goes. | ||
| And I stated the policy, which is the only thing I'm not allowed to put on social media, is any notification that hasn't been made public. | ||
| Like, I'm not allowed to take a script and put it on Facebook, or I'm not allowed to say, hey, this is about to happen before it's ever, and believe me, we're always the last to know as cast members. | ||
| So I did. | ||
| I filled out my labor investigation, my statement, and I started it with, I have to say this is the biggest waste of time. | ||
| And I thought we were all grown adults, but obviously we're not. | ||
| And then I went on to what happened, and then I finished it up with, I find it shameful that we're wasting time worrying about me struggling with a mask. | ||
| I wear a mask when I'm at work. | ||
| I'm vaccinated. | ||
| You know I'm vaccinated. | ||
| You have my record. | ||
| And two weeks later, I got pulled in, and I got told, you were cleared. | ||
| You were cleared of the whole investigation. | ||
| And that was it. | ||
| And I had two roles I was doing. | ||
| One was as a trainer, and one was as a part-time, like when they needed me, I would step in and be a leadership role. | ||
| And I turned to my manager, and I said, I don't want to do the leadership role. | ||
| And she said, may I ask why not? | ||
| And I said, because I find you toxic. | ||
| This whole thing is toxic. | ||
| I said, we're grown adults and we can't even talk to each other. | ||
| If someone has a complaint, we can't sit down as grown adults. | ||
| And I will say I asked to still train and I never trained after that. | ||
| They never let me train another cast member after that. | ||
| So for two weeks I didn't know every day I'd go into work, is this the day I'm going to be fired? | ||
| Because I dare say that I struggle with wearing a mask. | ||
| So what you're saying is that this started long before the wokeism that now we see with the indoctrination of the children and with the agendas, that this was brewing for a while. | ||
| And from the inside, you were able to see this fascistic, leftist take on the world, bullying, as you said. | ||
| And you were able to watch it metastasize into what now seems like a deeply untenable PR disaster for the company. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I will say prior to the pandemic, I was being trained by someone and we had an envelope and we wrote all our transactions, our monetary transactions on it. | |
| And I, one day at the end of my shift, had no transactions. | ||
| So I took and wrote just like a line on the envelope and wrote no trans. | ||
| And my trainer lost her ever-loving mind. | ||
| And said, you can't write that. | ||
| And I said, what did I write? | ||
| I had no transactions. | ||
| She goes, we don't know who might see this envelope. | ||
| And we might trigger them with this microaggression. | ||
| So we have to write the whole word. | ||
| And I said, I have a half-sibling that's trans. | ||
| And she would never get her panties in a wad over this. | ||
| I mean, this is just really... | ||
| We're looking for things to be offended by. | ||
| And that was pre-pandemic. | ||
| When I came back, it was a mess. | ||
| During the pandemic, you know, if you dared like Trump or think Trump had anything nice to say or you liked a policy, you were a bigot, you were a horrible human being. | ||
| And if you don't agree with... | ||
| If you're gay or you're trans, I don't care. | ||
| I was raised by Republican parents who believed in gay marriage. | ||
| And I have gay family members and I have a trans sibling. | ||
| It doesn't matter to me. | ||
| But respect my right to have my opinions, but it's like, you have to accept me. | ||
| You have to accept me. | ||
| And I finally said to one guest member, I said, why do I have to accept you? | ||
| Why do you care? | ||
| Because you have to. | ||
| But I don't have to. | ||
| I might just dislike you because I dislike you. | ||
| It might have nothing to do with your sexuality. | ||
| But that's not how it's viewed. | ||
| If you don't like someone or you don't accept someone, and the rules are different, because I did train with someone who was trans, and she was not required to wear the same pieces of the costume we were, because physically she couldn't wear them. | ||
| And I thought that was unfair. | ||
| Interesting. | ||
| So you're saying that there's a double standard? | ||
|
unidentified
|
There's a double standard, yes. | |
| So this person was trans. | ||
| And we had to wear a shirt that was buttoned up and a blazer, which is very hot, a skirt, pantyhose. | ||
| And this person was allowed to unbutton the shirt because it didn't close over her neck. | ||
| She was too warm in the jacket, so she didn't have to wear the jacket. | ||
| And no one ever said anything. | ||
| She wore sweat socks and sneakers. | ||
| And that was okay because she's comfortable. | ||
| I'm like, I'm a mid-50s woman in menopause. | ||
| I'm uncomfortable. | ||
| Can I wear, like, my shirt open and no blazer? | ||
| No, you, no, that's, this is the dress code. | ||
| This is what you have to wear. | ||
| So, yes, there's a different, there's different rules there. | ||
| And if you don't agree with them, you are lectured. | ||
| Are they going to change, like, the bathrooms at Disney? | ||
| I mean, I, you know, I noticed that they're still male and female. | ||
| They're still Disney princesses and princes. | ||
| And, you know, what are they going to do here? | ||
| Are they going to actually, like, suicide and destroy the entire legacy of the company? | ||
|
unidentified
|
And the funny thing is, backstage, that's what we call anything that the guest doesn't see. | |
| Backstage, we have female locker rooms and male locker rooms. | ||
| And that's why I say there's a double standard. | ||
| And if there's a dollar sign involved, they will definitely, they'll say anything. | ||
| If there's a dollar sign involved. | ||
| So they do have rainbow merchandise, which is really marketed towards the pride crowd. | ||
| Some of it's cute, some of it's adorable. | ||
| But you're not allowed to talk about it. | ||
| You just sell it. | ||
| Don't say what it is. | ||
| And I actually had a guest come up to me and he said, my wife wants to know if this is a gay pride piece of luggage. | ||
| And I'm like, well to me it's... | ||
| A piece of luggage with little multicolored Mickey heads on it. | ||
| But if she feels uncomfortable, I wouldn't buy it for her. | ||
| And he called her in the store and said, she says it's not a pride luggage. | ||
| It's fine. | ||
| And I had a cast member come up to me and say, that bigot? | ||
| Isn't he horrible? | ||
| And I said, no. | ||
| He has the right to ask a question. | ||
| But that was the mindset of, oh, the cast member was horrified. | ||
| He's a horrible human being. | ||
| I said, why? | ||
| Why is he a horrible human being? | ||
| Maybe his wife didn't want to, you know, I don't know. | ||
| Maybe she wasn't against gay pride. | ||
| She just didn't want to represent it in her luggage. | ||
| I don't know what their thinking was. | ||
| But I'm like, they're the guest. | ||
| So I'm only worried about what the guest, to make the guest happy. | ||
| But yes, the cast member was horrified. | ||
| Horrified. | ||
| But yes, you can't call it like the pride line or anything. | ||
| So with the parental rights and education bill, were you able to see sort of the freak out on the inside? | ||
| Was there a freak out? | ||
| We can see the local news reports showing like a guy protesting, like one person. | ||
| What's going on with this? | ||
| I mean, is this being blown out of proportion as the corporate press tends to do? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I think, first of all, we get a point if we miss work. | |
| We have a point system. | ||
| So a lot of people don't want to get a point on their record. | ||
| So if you call out and you go to a, you know, whatever, a protest or anything, you're still going to get a point on your record. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's very infantile, but whatever. | |
| I understand they're a big company. | ||
| So I know there's some misinformation out there in the public as far as, like, you know, we're dragging children through tunnels and things like this and, you know. | ||
| But I will say, and I hate calling it that because it's not that, the thing I found with cast members is the ones who were very anti-DeSantis, Ron DeSantis could come out and say the sky is blue, and they would protest him. | ||
| I had a friend on Facebook, somebody that I really cared about, and said, if you agree with Ron DeSantis in any way, unfriend me. | ||
| Okay, you don't need to tell me twice. | ||
| It's definitely there, but if you ask people, did you read the bill? | ||
| I'm not going to read such a hateful thing. | ||
| And I'm like, no, no, no, that's not what I asked you. | ||
| Did you read the bill? | ||
| I don't read things that are so disturbing to me. | ||
| There was never a clear answer. | ||
| There was never a yes, I read it, and I still find it offensive. | ||
| But no one read it. | ||
| People politically motivated to already hate Republicans and Ron DeSantis were against it because it was being used as a political cudgel to hurt them. | ||
| Right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And if I would send it to them and say, here, read it, I'm not even opening that. | |
| No, I'm not even looking at that. | ||
| So are you shocked when you watched Chris Rufo, I'm sure you're familiar with his reporting as it pertains to the Disney executives and the Disney corporate president, saying, hey, you know what, not only are we doing this, we are injecting it into everything having to do with Disney. | ||
| This is now our job, is to be an extreme sexual identity indoctrination factory. | ||
| Walt Disney seemingly spinning in his grave at an RPM unheard of. | ||
| Nonetheless, were you shocked to see those executives say it so bluntly on a call? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The funny thing was, the day that came out, I had a phone call with someone from HR. | |
| And I said, you know, if I were gay or trans, this problem would be solved already. | ||
| And her response to me was, aren't you so excited to see the political pendulum finally going in the right direction again? | ||
| And after I literally felt like I pulled my jaw up off the ground during this phone conversation, I said, you actually said, you said it. | ||
| And she's like, yes. | ||
| And I said, no, I don't agree with it. | ||
| We're not in the business to push a political agenda. | ||
| We're in the business of hospitality. | ||
| That's our job. | ||
| We come into work to make people have a happy vacation. | ||
| Period. | ||
| End of story. | ||
| And I said, I find it absolutely shocking that you just said those words. | ||
| And it was funny because later that afternoon, I saw that report. | ||
| And I was like, well. | ||
| And then I pulled up, we have something called The Hub, which is our website where all of our information is. | ||
| It's where our pay stub is. | ||
| It's where our schedule is. | ||
| It's where everything is. | ||
| Disney related for a guest member. | ||
| Big banner. | ||
| We have just decided to have an inclusion department and we have job opportunities available for people who want to be part of the inclusion key. | ||
| And I'm like, oh my gosh. | ||
| I actually just had a friend who quit because the funny thing is women are not revered there. | ||
| Women are not built up there. | ||
| It's all smoke and mirrors. | ||
| She actually quit because of the mean girl mentality. | ||
| Really? | ||
| So I'm like, so we have one group who's up here, and then we have the rest of us. | ||
| And so I'm seeing all this inclusion, except if you're, you know, for me, I'm a middle-aged white straight woman. | ||
| I've got no clout. | ||
| And I straight up told the woman from HR, I said, I'm not politically beneficial to you. | ||
| I am a middle-aged straight white woman with an invisible disability. | ||
| You can't make money off me. | ||
| You can't do a promo touting Disney with me. | ||
| I'm nothing. | ||
| I hold no political clout for you. | ||
| And then we're all down here. | ||
| So, yeah, it's gotten to the point where... | ||
| I always waited because we have to do training, and I always waited for it to be in our training videos, and then I was going to be like, peace out, I got to go, I can't do this anymore, and it never showed up. | ||
| Thank goodness. | ||
| But now, like I said, when you go on, everything's about inclusion, and there's, you know, Bob Chapek doing his thing, and Josh Tomorrow, who is a lovely person, I had the honor to meet him, but pushing his agenda, and I'm just like, I can't, I can't, I don't go to work for this. | ||
| I just, you know. | ||
| There's so much that I cannot look at. | ||
| And then it's very frustrating when you're in work and it's talked about constantly. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Because that's not what you go... | ||
| You could go sign up to work in politics. | ||
| You could go work in the state capitol and do politics all day. | ||
| You could work at MSNBC or Fox News and do politics all day. | ||
| You're working at Disney, damn it. | ||
| And there should be like a veil that says these are the things that people come here to escape. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it's funny because when I would get in trouble, it was always this one or two leaders that would speak to me, and the one wore two masks. | |
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And she was always telling me, you know, Kathy, you can't do that because it's not safe. | |
| And I'm like, you're wearing two masks. | ||
| I don't even know how you breathe, but okay. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You're afraid of your own shadow. | |
| So I, you know. | ||
| I guess I'm wondering, as it pertains to Disney in the news, clearly Disney in the news on this circumstance got town halls and new departments and inclusion agents or whatever you want to call them, cast members and so on. | ||
| This bit of news about as it pertains to Disney got a ton of attention internally. | ||
| How about any of the child molestation charges for Disney cast members? | ||
| Those have been... | ||
| Steady and repeated through many years, a very severe and horrifying record of Disney employees and cast members being charged for horrible sex crimes, often against children. | ||
| Do those get any internal note? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, no, no, no. | |
| Nothing. | ||
| That's... | ||
| It's like... | ||
| To make a Disney reference, with Encanto, we don't talk about Bruno. | ||
| Like... | ||
| I don't know if you know what that means. | ||
| Unpack that. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| So there's a new movie called Encanto, and there is a character named Bruno, and there's a whole popular song called We Don't Talk About Bruno because Bruno says what no one wants to hear. | ||
| So I refer to that as our... | ||
| We don't talk about burnout moment. | ||
| We don't talk about things that are unpleasant. | ||
| I will say, as a Disney cast member, you do go through fingerprinting. | ||
| I was fingerprinted, and I did go through a background check. | ||
| I used to work for the federal government, and I was a substitute teacher for many years, so I never worry about my background check. | ||
| But it really concerns me how these people never got caught before. | ||
| Do you know what I mean? | ||
| I can't think this is their first go-round. | ||
| I actually just bought a house in Polk County and Sheriff Grady Judd is like, you know, the best thing since sliced bread. | ||
| And in my mind, I don't know if he's just an extraordinarily great sheriff that he ferrets these people out. | ||
| But it is very scary. | ||
| I know, I think it was a week ago, we just had a lifeguard at one of the resorts. | ||
| And he was young, yet arrested. | ||
| And that's scary. | ||
| Now, do we ferret children through tunnels? | ||
| We don't. | ||
| I mean, you wouldn't be able to take a child anywhere backstage without someone stopping you. | ||
| But it is concerning that there are cast members that are doing things like this. | ||
| And again, like you said, we don't talk about it. | ||
| It isn't brought up. | ||
| There are things we don't talk about. | ||
| So it seems like a lot of the PR messaging thought up in corporate boardrooms in Manhattan. | ||
| You know, cycled through the corporate press for Disney on its behalf is that Disney is simply trying to act to protect trans kids and to protect the children. | ||
| But you're telling me that when children are literally being molested and being attacked by abusive people inside of Disney, inside and outside of Disney, but Disney employees, that there's no town halls inside of Disney about this. | ||
| Nothing. | ||
| There's no emergency, like, staff meeting to talk about this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, I'm nobody on the food chain, but no, there's nothing. | |
| And I can even tell you, though, I mean, the way it was was when we had coworkers that had COVID, we weren't told. | ||
| So they were all about, like, oh, safety, safety, safety, but then we weren't told. | ||
| Like, I had cast members that I worked with, and I'm like, where was so-and-so been for the last two weeks? | ||
| Oh, she has COVID. | ||
| Oh, nobody thought to tell us? | ||
| Now, do I think Disney cast members could do anything with a child on property? | ||
| Absolutely not. | ||
| We are watched constantly. | ||
| We have cameras everywhere on us. | ||
| You can't walk away with a child. | ||
| You know, we can't go anywhere. | ||
| No one can come backstage if they're not in a costume or with our blue ID. | ||
| So that would be pretty much an impossibility. | ||
| But what people do on their off time? | ||
| That's kind of scary when you see that. | ||
| And no, it's not discussed. | ||
| That person probably just... | ||
| I would bet dollars to donuts that that leadership team never even spoke to the rest of the team about why that cast member is no longer with the company. | ||
| Yeah, it seems like if you're wishing to protect the children, if that's the line you're going to take, that we're protecting the children and that's what Disney's all about, then maybe having a conversation about the child molesters that are caught in a massive child sex... | ||
| Operation Sting. | ||
| Maybe that'd be something you should discuss at the children's park. | ||
| And that we're going to take these steps. | ||
| So no one's ever sat down the employees at Disney and said, we're going to take these steps to make sure we don't hire child molesters anymore. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, we do have to go through something about human trafficking. | |
| But at no point is it ever discussed about cast members that are maybe doing it. | ||
| It's more like... | ||
| Guests that come in and are in a room and things are happening. | ||
| But that's, I think, industry-wide. | ||
| I think most of the companies down here, you have to go over human trafficking. | ||
| But no, there's nothing about that. | ||
| There's nothing about like, hey, we've got some cast members. | ||
| We don't talk about that. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| And like I said, I've never been in a... | ||
| I've never been in a role at Disney where one of my fellow cast members on my team has been in that situation. | ||
| But I would probably guess that no one was talked to about that in that person's team. | ||
| So, Kathy, I guess, in conclusion here, do you see this getting better or worse, the wokeism inside of Disney? | ||
| Nobody in America wants Disney to become some type of... | ||
| Politically venal organization that is attacking one side, and we certainly don't want our children to be unsafe with its products or its content, either inside or outside the park. | ||
| But it seems like Disney has gone Leroy Jenkins and is just being like, no, we are now like the pink-haired, freakazoid, woke activists. | ||
| That's our identity now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think they're just going to keep going forward. | |
| I think Bob Chapek has dug his heels in. | ||
| I thought it was a big mistake when he came out and said anything. | ||
| I will straight up tell you, I have written to Bob Chapek about the mask thing. | ||
| I never got an answer back. | ||
| He didn't say to me, oh, you poor thing with the mask. | ||
| But obviously there was a group at Disney, and I'm assuming the executives, like you saw that video, I was a little shocked at the executives really pushing it. | ||
| So obviously this is from the top. | ||
| This isn't like a grassroots from the bottom cast members, you know, kind of a thing. | ||
| This is from the top. | ||
| And I don't see it getting any better. | ||
| And it's so sad to watch cast members that I know are good people that are just being vilified right now because they dare agree with this bill. | ||
| You know, a lot of us just don't care what any cast member does in their private life. | ||
| As long as you don't hurt animals or children, we're cool with whatever you want to do. | ||
| But that's not enough. | ||
| The agenda has to be pushed. | ||
| We have to be accepting of this. | ||
| And by accepting, we have to bring it on display while we're at work. | ||
| We're at work. | ||
| And it's sad. | ||
| I honestly don't think, sadly enough, I don't think it's going to make a huge difference in their business. | ||
| I really think at this point, Disney, the middle class American family is not what Disney is after anymore. | ||
| That is really depressing to hear that. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Unpack that. | ||
| Unpack that. | ||
| You'd say that they're just essentially okay with losing what I assumed was the bread and butter of their customers, middle-class American family from Ohio or Iowa, where I'm from, where people would spend all year looking forward to their Disney vacation. | ||
| They just really don't care about them anymore. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I think they want the families from overseas. | |
| They want the South American families. | ||
| They want the European families, the families with big bucks that are coming and staying for a month that are willing to stay in a $600 a night, $700 a night room for a month that aren't really maybe aware of what's going politically in the area. | ||
| So they're bringing them in. | ||
| Everything comes down to dollars and cents. | ||
| Things we were allowed to do for guests pre-pandemic, we're not allowed to do. | ||
| Oh, no, that costs money. | ||
| Oh, no, we can't do that anymore. | ||
| Oh, no, we don't do that. | ||
| We don't do that for guests anymore. | ||
| We don't make magical moments for guests anymore. | ||
| And guests actually have levels. | ||
| I have heard guests referred to as a level one guest and a level two guest. | ||
| All comes down to the dollars and cents. | ||
| And I really just don't think middle-class families that come once every five or ten years or once in a lifetime is what Disney is after anymore. | ||
| They're there for the people who are going to come. | ||
| They're going to spend large quantities of money. | ||
| It's the weddings. | ||
| It's the people from other countries that have tens of thousands of dollars in disposable income. | ||
| And everyone else is just an afterthought. | ||
| I mean, Bob Chapek made it completely obvious when he basically said that annual pass holders don't spend enough at Disney to be worth anything. | ||
| And those are the locals. | ||
| Those are the people that come in and are in three times a week. | ||
| They don't spend money. | ||
| They don't buy food. | ||
| They don't buy souvenirs. | ||
| They put levels on the guests? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They don't. | |
| What would be just like a normal person? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, it was funny. | |
| I'd never heard it referred to, but I had a guest that I was trying to help, and they pulled them up on an iPad, and they're like, oh my gosh, they're a level two. | ||
| We have to do whatever they want. | ||
| And I went, what? | ||
| So yes, it's bizarre. | ||
| Sickening. | ||
| So it's coming from the top? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| So sad to hear. | ||
| It does seem as though, and if you know anything about Walt Disney, he was a patriot. | ||
| He essentially lent the entire company to the war effort during World War II. | ||
| He wanted to talk about Americana. | ||
| He believed in the great virtuous stories of our time. | ||
| Western civilization, certainly, which is stories about Snow White and Cinderella. | ||
| And virtues and values, those are all instilled non-politically, but beautifully in a lot of what he created. | ||
| It just seems like it's being desecrated. | ||
| It must be very, very sad for you to watch. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It is. | |
| I mean, like, people wanting to shut down Peter Pan. | ||
| I mean, that's one of my favorite movies. | ||
| And I'm like, I also saw Song of the South when I was a kid. | ||
| So when I go on Splash Mountain, you know, I don't... | ||
| I just see a bunch of bunnies and foxes running around in a ride. | ||
| You know, I try to say, okay, I understand the world is turning, but at the same point, we have to kind of keep some of those things. | ||
| I mean, like you said, Walt was very much a patriot, and his whole purpose was to have a park where families could go and enjoy time together. | ||
| That was why he started Disneyland. | ||
| Because he wanted to spend time with his daughters. | ||
| And then he started Disney World. | ||
| Unfortunately, he never saw it. | ||
| But it was for families to come and have a nice, wholesome vacation. | ||
| And it's just morphed into this thing that I just, you know, part of me wonders if the pandemic hadn't happened, would we be in this position? | ||
| I really don't think we would be. | ||
| I just, like I said, I really think the pandemic emboldened those at the top at Disney to say, we can control people. | ||
| We can control the guests. | ||
| And it's so sad that we've gotten to this place. | ||
| I think Chapik is probably the worst CEO ever that Disney has had. | ||
| I think he's horrible. | ||
| You know, he's a numbers man. | ||
| I get it. | ||
| We're a business. | ||
| By the same token, there's a legacy there. | ||
| And when you have a legacy, you have to abide by that legacy. | ||
| Or, here's my thought, step down if you don't want to abide by the legacy. | ||
| There are ways you can make money and still really be family-oriented, and it's just not there. | ||
| And I don't think he has any interest. | ||
| I don't think he cares, to be quite honest. | ||
| If he turns off millions of Americans, I don't think Bob Chapek cares. | ||
| He's still getting his $50 million bonus. | ||
| There are still cast members on food stamps every week. | ||
| He doesn't care. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| It really does, I suppose in closing here, it really does speak to the soulless corporate pablum that Disney is expanding inside of anti-gay countries, doing movies next to concentration camps in Xinjiang in China, perhaps using concentration camp labor on Mulan, live action Mulan. | ||
| You know, you never know, but they thanked the province in China where the Uyghur camps are. | ||
| And that seems just so, on its face, immoral. | ||
| But nobody seems to have a problem with that. | ||
| They do cruises to the Dominican Republic from here, from Florida, that take off from, like, right around the corner here that go to anti-gay islands where it's illegal to be gay. | ||
| But Disney's doing a cruise with them, bringing people and presumably gay cast members to those islands. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The funny thing is, if you've seen to those cast members... | |
| They, they, they, it doesn't process to them. | ||
| Like, you can say that to them. | ||
| I have put out there something about the fact that Disney Plus is now going into all these countries that are anti-gay and that they do have cruises to these places. | ||
| And the people that I know are gay, crickets. | ||
| Crickets. | ||
| It's never about... | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's sad. | |
| It's all about the bottom dollar. | ||
| And listen, I'm all for capitalism. | ||
| I am a capitalism kind of a girl. | ||
| But this is a whole different animal right now. | ||
| This is... | ||
| And I think the fact that the gay and the trans community at Disney, I think they're being sold a bill of goods and they don't even realize it. | ||
| Because if it weren't dollar value attached to it, Disney wouldn't do it. | ||
| And there's something behind this that's related to funds. | ||
| This is not someone taking the moral high ground out of the goodness of their heart. | ||
| There's a dollar and cents value behind it. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I think a lot of it has to do with woke shareholders and woke capital and some of the largest investment firms in Disney wanting to push these agendas. | ||
| But I think that's also beside the point. | ||
| They're doing it, and I think... | ||
| In so doing, they are proving that wokeness does indeed only destroy, and it is wrecking now some of our favorite things like the NFL. | ||
| It's wrecking our favorite movies. | ||
| It's utterly destroyed Hollywood, and now it's destroying Disney, which was sort of a cultural holdout, an apolitical cultural holdout that seemed to be trying to resist, and now it's just utterly collapsed for... | ||
| The appeasement of political power and political elites. | ||
| It's very, very sad. | ||
| It's very sad to see. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It is sad. | |
| It is sad because people would come to Disney to escape life. | ||
| Yes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And now it's there, it's in their face, and it's everywhere. | |
| And it's just sad. | ||
| I mean, that was people that was, especially after the pandemic, that was a big escape for a lot of families. | ||
| You know, let's go to Disney. | ||
| That's our bubble of pre-pandemic world. | ||
| Disney, let's get back there. | ||
| Boy, were they shocked. | ||
| Or even like, you know, Downtown Disney is like, what, set on the 1920s or 1950s, like a classic Americana town, right? | ||
| And that's the way, Disney's always sort of, in a way, been a bubble to escape the realities of the world and to see a brighter, you know, perhaps it's fake, but is it really fake if people are creating real memories there? | ||
| As you said, to start off this interview, you know, real memories with your family, your father. | ||
| It's a small world after all. | ||
| These things are real. | ||
| So there's nothing fake about a real special thing with your family. | ||
| And now that place is being desecrated by people who have no right, no right to destroy a great American institution that they didn't help build. | ||
| They've never built anything. | ||
| Walt Disney built it all. | ||
| And again, I think it's sad. | ||
| I think he's spinning in his grave. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It is. | |
| It is. | ||
| And it's sad. | ||
| It's sad to be a cast member. | ||
| It's just very depressing. | ||
| You know, it's not a happy place to go into work. | ||
| It's very much a toxic environment now. | ||
| And that's sad because, you know, I used to be like, yes, getting in the car. | ||
| I can't wait to get to work. | ||
| And now it's like, oh, I have to go to work. | ||
| You know. | ||
| I'm a consummate optimist. | ||
| Kathy, I don't know what your next moves are going to be, but we just want to thank you on our program for being able to speak truth into this issue that is affecting so many tens of millions of Americans who are having this special place ruined for them and sort of shining a light on how corrupt and how contemptible their actions are inside of this Disney corporation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Thank you for having me. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| It's been something that's really bothered me, and you gave me the platform to actually voice my concerns because I can shout from the rooftop, but it's just me. | ||
| I'm one little voice. | ||
| And this platform is nice because you have plenty of listeners that will see this and realize that we're not all on board there. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good. | |
| Good. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| Teachers, nurses, people like to think that they're all homogenous. | ||
| I know tons of awesome teachers who love this country a lot. | ||
| And there's this small freakazoid minority that ruins it for everyone. | ||
| It's the woke. | ||
| The woke ruin it for all of us. | ||
| And that's what we must fight against. | ||
| So anyway, I look forward to seeing you working at Universal Studios and Harry Potter World very soon and the VelociCoaster. | ||
|
unidentified
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Oh, Lord. | |
| Very much look forward to this. | ||
| Thank you, Kathy. | ||
| It's very brave to speak out. | ||
| Most people just put their heads down and get beaten by these people. | ||
| And that's how you lose a country. | ||
| That's how they can control us. | ||
| And so you're saying no, and we just want to thank you. |
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