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Disney corporate president Karey Burke says, he supports having “many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories” and wants a minimum of 50 percent of characters to be LGBTQIA and racial minorities.
TRANSCRIPT:
“I’m here as a mother to two queer children actually, one transgender child and one pansexual child, and also as a leader.” Burke said in the video. “That was the thing that really got me because I have heard so much from so many of my colleagues over the course of the last couple weeks.” In open forums, and through emails and Phone conversations. I feel a responsibility to speak, not just for myself but for them. We had an open forum last week at 20 th where, again, the home of really incredible groundbreaking LGBTQIA stories over the years, where one of our execs stood up and said, “You know, we only had a handful of queer leads in our content,” and I went, “what? That can’t be true!” And I realized, “Oh. It actually is true.” We have many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories and yet, we don’t have enough leads and narratives in which gay characters just get to be characters and not have to be about gay stories. That’s been very eye-opening for me. I can tell you, it’s something that I feel, perhaps had this moment not happened, I as a leader and as well as my colleagues would not have focused on. Going forward, I certainly will be more so. I know that we will be, and I hope this is a moment where shot, the 50 percent — the tears, sorry are coming — we just won’t allow each other to go backwards.