Disney isn’t exactly having a stellar week, what with Harrison Ford openly revealing how he shot down the House of Mouse and Netflix relinquishing its renowned passion to the streamer for once. The company is finally making headlines for the right things as it has sued the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis. But in case it plans on continuing to ride the positive vibe, all it has to do is introduce a decades-old queer feature to Disney World.
After being called out for its initial silence on Florida’s highly problematic ‘Don’t Say Gay Bill,’ Disney not only stood up against it, but has also retained their towering stance against DeSantis since then. First, it thwarted his oversight board takeover that would have stripped Disney of self-governance by invoking a surprising — not to mention exceptionally clever — King Charles III clause.
Amid the chaos, Disney also announced that it would be holding a gay rights summit at Walt Disney Resort in Orlando, followed by the revelation that Disneyland is set to host its first-ever Pride Nite event in Anaheim, California this June. And now, the company has declared legal war on DeSantis by suing the governor and other officials for violating Disney’s constitutional rights via their “retaliation” against the company openly not supporting the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
Frankly, Disney doesn’t have to pull the speed of this train anytime soon as it already has the next best thing it can debut to ensure DeSantis spends the rest of the week (and the months after it) fuming in silence. All the company has to do is re-introduce a tradition that used to be a Disneyland staple at Disney World — drag queens performing as famous Disney characters.
While information about the same is hard to come by, traces of the glorious ’80s can still be found in a TV special where characters like Cinderella and her wicked family — made up of the evil Lady Tremaine and her daughters — were performed by actors in drag. Similarly, many have memories of drag performances happening during the Main Street Electrical Parade back in the early 1980s in Disneyland, California.
Though we can’t deduce how DeSantis will react to this particular sucker punch, we can already see his blood pressure spiking in the face of what he will see as a blatant violation of his bigoted vision for the state of Florida.