Fox News Builds Bogus New 'Cancel Culture' Narrative Around Beloved Disney Ride

The California theme park updated a 1955 attraction, but one review created a new furor in right-wing media.
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Fox News spent a portion of Monday obsessing over a couple of lines in a review of the revamped Snow White’s Enchanted Wish ride at the recently reopened Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California.

In an article published Saturday on San Francisco’s SFGate, Managing Editor Katie Dowd and writer Julie Tremaine criticized a scene depicting what they described as a nonconsensual kiss.

“A kiss he gives to her without her consent, while she’s asleep, which cannot possibly be true love if only one person knows it’s happening,” Dowd and Tremaine wrote. “Haven’t we already agreed that consent in early Disney movies is a major issue? That teaching kids that kissing, when it hasn’t been established if both parties are willing to engage, is not OK?”

The two called on Disney to re-imagine that scene in the spirit of the film but without that element.

The rest of the review was largely positive, but Fox News singled out that one piece of criticism, claiming that “they’re trying to cancel Snow White.”

The right-wing network even questioned a U.S. senator over it:

According to the Daily Beast, Fox News referenced the attraction at least nine times and Fox Business Network mentioned it an additional five times on Monday alone. Meanwhile, Fox Business’ digital site published an article in response to the SFGate piece on Sunday.

Media Matters assembled some screen shots of the network’s newest outrage:

Online, however, the reaction the article was far more muted:

Disney did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment on the controversy.

Interestingly, Snow White’s Enchanted Wish ― previously known as Snow White’s Scary Adventures ― has historically divided Disneyland visitors. Prior to the 2021 refurbishment, the Evil Queen was the focal point of the attraction, often terrifying small children and angering their parents.

Debate over the theme park’s current incarnation follows the Orlando Sentinel and the Tampa Bay Times publishing a Disney fan’s heavily derided column accusing the company’s Florida theme parks of “ruining the experience” with “wokeness.”

“The parks are less fun because immersion and thus the joy is taking a back seat to politics,” Jonathan VanBoskerck wrote, pointing to recent updates to Disney World’s Pirates of the Caribbean attraction, as well as a newly relaxed dress code for employees. “The next time I ride Jungle Cruise I will not be thinking about the gloriously entertaining puns of the skippers, I will be thinking about Disney’s political agenda. That’s a mood killer.”

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