Homosexuality will be illegal in Disney’s new UAE park

One month after Kristallnacht, in 1938, the Nazi film director Leni Riefenstahl was an honored guest at Walt Disney’s studio. While the degree to which Disney was himself an active anti-Semite is argued over, he wasn’t exactly reluctant to hang out with those who were; there was Riefenstahl, there was also his association with the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a famously Jew-hating organization.

If Disney’s DNA is anything but woke, the company has, in the 21st century, made a transformation as dizzying as a ride on one of its theme parks’ rollercoasters. Now one of the most painfully correct mega-entities in America, it has allowed its faux-progressivism to leach into its whole enterprise, so that at its theme parks staff are no longer allowed to use gendered greetings. Lightyear (2022), an updated spin on the Buzz Lightyear Toystory character, features two female characters kissing, and this year’s simply hair-pullingly awful remake of Snow White sees the Seven Dwarves as a diverse crew of “magical creatures.”

And so the news that Disney will be opening its next Land in Abu Dhabi is curious. There’s nothing curious about the choice of location from a business and tourism point of view; 28.8 million people go through Abu Dhabi airport alone every year. The Emirates is a vast conurbation and a four-hour flight from a third of the world’s population. On Yas Island, where the site is due to open in the early 2030s, there is already Ferrari World, Warner Bros. World, Yas Waterworld and SeaWorld Yas Island, plus Abu Dhabi’s largest mall.

No, the curious thing is that the UAE, for all its commercial temptations, is not the progressive paradise one would imagine being a happy home for the reinvented, enthusiastically LGBTQ+ inclusive Disney – and nor will it likely be so any time soon. Homosexuality is illegal there, trans isn’t a thing, the racism inherent in the exploitation of the South-Asian workers who build the place up and the Muslim country’s custom of female modesty would all, one might think, rub up against some of that ladies-kissing, gender-is-an-offensive-construct stuff that’s come to define Disney in recent years. For a firm that freaked out about Florida’s 2022 “don’t say gay” law curbing sex education about gender and sexual identity in schools – staff staged walkouts and demanded then-CEO Bob Chapek do more than behind the scenes lobbying to combat the law – the UAE could be a painful fit.

One also wonders how Disney’s firmest family favorites will look in the Muslim nation. Will The Little Mermaid’s Ariel be allowed to wear the purple shell bikini I grew up watching with love? I think not. Will Beauty be able to show off that lovely bust in those tight-fitting dresses that made the Beast and Gaston swoon so? One imagines not.

But perhaps Disney is in a new era – one where profit has once more taken the lead over and above the performative ethics of social justice. This could in part be down to the return of hard-nosed Bob Iger in 2022, after Chapek was booted out.

Still, the executives behind it all are using language of such exuberance to describe the venture that it makes the head spin more than a turn on the infamous barf-machine Guardians of the Galaxy ride. “Disneyland Abu Dhabi will be authentically Disney and distinctly Emirati – an oasis of extraordinary Disney entertainment at this crossroads of the world that will bring to life our timeless characters and stories in many new ways and will become a source of joy and inspiration for the people of this vast region to enjoy for generations to come,” gushed Iger. Hmm.

Meanwhile Josh D’Amaro, the chairman of Disney Experiences, opined that the Abu Dhabi resort “will be the most advanced and interactive destination in our portfolio [allowing] us to tell our stories in completely new ways. Ultimately, it will be a celebration of what’s possible when creativity and progress come together.”

This is marketing gloss at its sickliest and most overblown – possibly also insecure – it all feels somewhat unnecessary. Of the people drawn to Disney Land, a relatively high proportion will be keen on the idea of a trip to the sun-soaked, artificial beaches of Abu Dhabi. A low proportion, I suspect, put “inclusivity” above the fun of days of state-of-the-art roller coasters that thrill the kids nonstop. Those that do? They’ll have to lump it and go to a different resort. It seems that Bob Iger has realized the obvious: Disney wants money, and people want fun. The two have little in common with Disney’s embarrassing, and hopefully finished, era of woke.