{"id":314958,"date":"2025-09-09T06:10:49","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T06:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=314958"},"modified":"2025-09-10T07:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T07:36:08","slug":"disneys-boy-trouble-is-a-crisis-of-its-own-making-the-fix-doesnt-require-a-plot-twist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=314958","title":{"rendered":"Disney\u2019s \u2018Boy Trouble\u2019 Is A Crisis Of Its Own Making. The Fix Doesn\u2019t Require A Plot Twist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amanda Harding \u2013 Daily Wire Sept 7, 2025<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/div>\n

Disney has a \u201cboy problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

At least, that\u2019s what a recent Variety report<\/a> suggests, quoting insiders at the company who admit the entertainment company has lost the interest of Gen Z men that the outlet describes as a \u201clonely, gaming-obsessed group who were hampered in their formative years by COVID-19 lockdowns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Disney executives are now hunting for answers, considering every conceivable tactic from \u201csplashy global adventures\u201d to old-fashioned \u201ctreasure hunts\u201d in an effort to lure young men between the ages of 13 and 28 back to the House of Mouse.<\/p>\n

But for Bill Rivers, a bestselling author and former Trump admin speechwriter, the diagnosis is clear. The problem with Disney isn\u2019t the lack of over-the-top projects. In the end, he says, Disney alienated their audience by forcing an ideology that undermined the same values it used to celebrate.<\/p>\n

When asked for his initial reaction to Disney\u2019s alleged \u201cboy trouble,\u201d Rivers blamed it squarely on the stories being told.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s self-inflicted,\u201d he told The Daily Wire via an email interview. \u201cThey\u2019re going to have to ditch an ideology that sneered at masculinity, chivalry, righteous honor, power for noble purposes, the warrior ethos \u2013 all these things that coded as toxically male \u2013 and accept these attributes are actually good and necessary for any healthy society and worthy of exploring in entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis ideology was obviously anti-men,\u201d Rivers added, \u201cbut the kicker is realizing it was also perniciously anti-women because it drove men out of the places women wanted to engage with them. Disney\u2019s already taken the first step by recognizing they have a problem; the next step is to remain stubbornly open to stories they would have discarded as too traditional. It\u2019s a time for tradition. Traditional stories stick around for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

A return to tradition, Rivers argues, is precisely what Disney needs to survive. \u201cUnfortunately for Disney, it\u2019s both,\u201d he said when asked whether the issue was about content or a deeper cultural disconnect.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn content, the boldest thing Disney can do right now is return to traditional storytelling \u2013 courageous heroes, nasty villains, and incredibly high stakes for believable characters who wrestle with timeless challenges like family, romance, revenge, redemption. You can tell these stories in outer space or [a] small town in Appalachia, because setting matters less than plot and character.\u201d<\/p>\n

The overarching failure, according to Rivers, is how Disney treated young men for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegarding Gen Z men, Disney still treats them as if they don\u2019t matter when it pushes cash-grab reboots aimed at them and not works of art crafted for them. \u2018Star Wars,\u2019 \u2018Minecraft,\u2019 the new superhero slop \u2013 this is the warmed-over childhood content of Millennials and Gen Xers.<\/em> Worse, you\u2019ve got these ideological political messages shoved in there. It totally kills the story,\u201d Rivers said, noting how young men \u201chate being told what to think.\u201d<\/p>\n

For decades, Rivers notes, Disney never faced this problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarvel, Star Wars, even Pirates of the Caribbean kept this 13\u201328 year old demographic engaged. What changed? Disney was fortunate to acquire some of the most compelling storytelling in American culture with the original Star Wars and Marvel comics. But these franchises were products of once-in-a-generation geniuses who did the creative heavy-lifting half a century ago or more. Ideological execs have squandered this inheritance for a payday or used them as a vehicle to ram political messages down their audiences\u2019 throats. That\u2019s propaganda, not storytelling.\u201d<\/p>\n

And \u201cgreat storytelling,\u201d Rivers insists, is hard to come by because the content creators have to trust their audiences to come to certain conclusions. That will never work if the studio openly despises them.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Rivers disagrees with the suggestion floated in Variety that this problem can be solved by building new franchises centered on splashy adventures.<\/p>\n

\u201cGen Z males are hungry for brotherhood and purpose. They want demanding missions where success is deeply consequential not just for them but for the people they care about. In the content they consume, that can involve treasure hunts and globe-trotting, but those things are secondary. Confusing them for the core is misguided and probably extremely expensive thinking for studio execs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Variety piece described young men as isolated, stunted by COVID lockdowns, and obsessed with gaming. Rivers sees a half-truth there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are lonely, but I take issue with the \u2018gaming-obsessed\u2019 thing because that\u2019s not what they are really after. \u2026 The boys weren\u2019t stunted by COVID but by the people who used it as an excuse to get more control over society. By and large, those people subscribed to the same bad ideology that is basically anti-male, anti-woman, and anti-civilization.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked what\u2019s missing in today\u2019s blockbusters, Rivers said it comes down to three things: \u201cAuthentic brotherhood. Transcendent purpose. Patriotism,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI write about young boys trying to become men, and all three of those things are critical to that. My novel \u2018Last Summer Boys\u2019 explores this in the Vietnam War-era of 1968, but it was a bestseller in 2022 because those are timeless concepts that people desperately want to engage with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a society, we become the stories we tell about ourselves,\u201d the author said. \u201cDisney understands this, it\u2019s just for so long they injected their stories with an impoverished ideology. The blockbusters that say \u2018to hell with that,\u2019 and bring back brotherhood, purpose, and patriotism will dominate. By the way, women love those stories too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the current state of entertainment, Rivers remains optimistic: \u201cDisney can absolutely turn this thing around. It\u2019s an iconic American company with an incredible legacy. Just as important, the country is at a moment where we as Americans are willing to do the hard work of renewing and reviving our greatest institutions. Disney can change from within, but it should also recognize America has no shortage of incredibly talented writers and storytellers who love this country and are willing to work with them. Hire those people. Acquire their stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, Rivers believes Disney\u2019s crisis could be a blessing in disguise. \u201cReally, Disney\u2019s \u2018boy trouble\u2019 crisis is a gift for the company. Because the opportunity for them is enormous, and I don\u2019t just mean commercially. If Disney starts telling authentic, powerful stories that men actually want to see, they will capture a rising demographic and participate in a renewal of American culture in a way worthy of the greatest institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Disney already admitted they have a problem \u2013 a classic first step. Now they just need to go about solving it in a way that doesn\u2019t alienate young men even more.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woke storylines have alienated a whole generation of young men. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-314958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-controlling-the-news-andor-the-free-exchange-of-ideas-and-information","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=314958"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314971,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314958\/revisions\/314971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=314958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=314958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=314958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}