Ex-Walt Disney TV executive Monica Harris is blaming Hollywood’s collapse on high-dollar investment firms for forcing the woke DEI initiatives that have driven customers away.
Harris noted that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) ideas have flooded Hollywood from the writer’s rooms to the board rooms, and the agenda has become far more important than the products Hollywood is producing, according to The Park Place.
Harris pointed to how many corporations are failing so badly, with companies such as Target, Kellogg’s, and others suffering boycotts and loss of revenue thanks to the indulgence of woke, DEI policies. And she said Hollywood is suffering the same short-sighted obsession over such policies.
“I think very much the same is true in Hollywood. DEI has swept through that place,” Harris explained. “The Academy Awards, the nominations are only available to films that hit certain quotas, right? You have to have a certain number of people who are black or BIPOC, trans, non-binary, whatever. It’s totally the antithesis of what artistic work is about.”
So, why do they do it? Because they are being controlled by the people who control the money, according to Harris.
“I’ve noticed this is happening because the same core group of companies are largely funding or have shareholder stakes, majority shareholder stakes in Fortune 500 companies and in the S&P 500. We’re talking about BlackRock. We’re talking about Vanguard. We’re talking about State Street,” she said.
“When those three companies and their subsidiaries dominate Boards of Directors and dominate the ownership of stock, then they literally are in the position to tell these companies to adhere to whatever guidelines they’d like,” she continued. “So if DEI is an initiative that these majority shareholders would like companies to pursue, that’s what they’ll pursue. Because if not, then they’ll face the wrath of the people who can yank the money, yank the loans, yank the funding, because it’s all about money.”
Harris suggested the leaders of companies such as Disney are torn between two conflicting positions because of this setup.
“So at the end of they day you’re in — if you’re a CEO, you’re like, ‘Do I piss off my consumer base and maybe hope I can massage them, or do I piss off the people who are actually funding me?’ And they’re between a rock and a hard place,” she explained.
“But they have to do this because… if they don’t adhere to these guidelines those loans, that funding is going to be yanked,” she said. “So again, they are between a rock and a hard place. That’s the untold story, in my opinion.”
Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, has basically confirmed Harris’s opinion. In a 2017 interview, he bragged about “forcing behaviors” on companies.
“Well, behaviors are going to have change. And this is one thing that we’re asking companies. You have to force behaviors. And at BlackRock, we are forcing behaviors. 54% of the incoming class are women,” Fink said.
“We added four more points in terms of diverse employment this year. And what we are doing internally is if you don’t achieve these levels of impact, your compensation could be impacted. You have to force behaviors. And if you don’t force behaviors — whether it’s gender, or race, or just any way you want to say the composition of your team, you’re going to be impacted.”
Meanwhile, Hollywood’s revenues are tumbling fast. And Disney, in particular, has been hard hit by its dwindling customer base. That state of affairs has caused the company to begin seriously contracting, closing down departments, and laying off thousands of employees.
According to her LinkedIn work history, Harris worked for Disney from 1998-2000, long before its current woes.
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