Clownfish TV: Audio Edition
Disney Exec Says They Don’t Want to Hire White Dudes...
James O’Keefe just busted a Disney exec saying the quiet part out loud -- that Disney is actively passing over white male candidates in the name of diversity and inclusion. We;’re surprised so many people are surprised by this. We thought it was common knowledge? And it’s not just Disney. ➡️ Tip Jar and Fan Support: http://ClownfishSupport.com ➡️ Official Merch Store: http://ShopClownfish.com ➡️ Official Website: http://ClownfishTV.com ➡️ Audio Edition: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qJc5C6OkQkaZnGCeuVOD1 Disney executives have been caught making derogatory comments and discriminating against older white men in an effort to diversify their boardrooms and are using discriminatory hiring practices to prioritize diversity. 00:00 Disney exec admits to excluding white males in hiring, citing example of half-white, half-black candidate not looking "black enough," highlighting hypocrisy in diversity efforts. 03:08 Disney exec discusses lack of surprise over "reimagine tomorrow" initiative, recording people without their knowledge, criticizing date setups, warning against leaking info, and admitting to discriminatory hiring practices. 07:56 Disney executives caught making derogatory comments and discriminating against older white men in an effort to diversify their boardrooms, leading to bland and sterile content. 13:20 Disney execs hesitant to invest in diverse creators after "High Guardian Spice" failure, acknowledge lack of diversity in animation, controversy over potential discrimination against white men. 17:13 Disney exec admits to not hiring based on race, leading to unfairness in hiring process and shaming of white males starting their own businesses. 21:35 Disney is pressuring employees to move to Florida or lose their jobs, facing internal concerns about treatment of employees, pushing out talented individuals, and using code words to justify discriminatory hiring practices. 25:03 Disney exec admits to prioritizing diversity, using connections to bring in diverse talent, and pushing out those who don’t fit the mold, while also being aware of the shift away from middle-aged white couples in their projects. 29:22 Disney executives are not hiring white men anymore, but they won’t say it outright to avoid legal issues. About Us: Clownfish TV is an independent, opinionated news and commentary channel that covers Entertainment and Tech from a consumer’s point of view. We talk about Gaming, Comics, Anime, TV, Movies, Animation and more. Hosted by Kneon and Geeky Sparkles. Disclaimer: This series is produced by Clownfish Studios and WebReef Media, and is part of ClownfishTV.com. Opinions expressed by our contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of our guests, affiliates, sponsors, or advertisers. ClownfishTV.com is an unofficial news source and has no connection to any company that we may cover. This channel and website and the content made available through this site are for educational, entertainment and informational purposes only. These so-called “fair uses” are permitted even if the use of the work would otherwise be infringing. #Disney #DisneyWorld #Streaming #Hollywood #News #Commentary #Reaction #Podcast #Comedy #Entertainment #Hollywood #PopCulture #Tech
Hey guys, this is the audio edition of clownfish TV. If you guys are unfamiliar with clownfish TV, please check out the video versions of these episodes on the clownfish TV YouTube channel and also on the clownfish gaming YouTube channel. Please subscribe for more podcast. Check out D-Res, that's our other podcast. The episode will begin in a couple of seconds. Thanks for listening. (upbeat music) Hey guys, welcome back to clownfish TV. This is neon. I am here with Gigi Sparkles. - Hello. - And this time for another daily dose of dismal Disney. We're gonna talk about that video, James O'Keefe, talking to a Disney executive and he said the quiet part out loud that Disney does actively exclude white males in their hiring practices. I don't know why anybody's surprised. - No, I mean, it was even said that there was, but it was half white, half black and they wouldn't hire him for a job 'cause it didn't, the optics weren't right for the boardroom. Like he needed to be like, you know, more black looking. - But you need to look more black. What does that even mean? That's like saying you need to sound more black or what does that even mean? That's, that's weird. So we're gonna talk about this 'cause, I mean, I am surprised that so many people are surprised because every indication, especially with the company like Disney over the last couple of years, is this is what they're focusing on or have been focusing on. Now, will this continue? I don't know, I'm gonna be honest. I'm kind of looking at these companies now and it seems like a lot of the people they are tossing overboard were their DEI hires. And I think it's because they were given a chance and a lot of these people could not perform. So, you know, I would like to think that we're gonna have a return to meritocracy that the most qualified person, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, whatever gets the job. But, you know, who the hell knows? - I think we do need a meritocracy. And of course, you are like DEI and you're making fun of people that aren't white. No, I think there are plenty of people who are very qualified for these jobs that can get the jobs by qualifications alone. I wanna make that very clear. But I think whoever's the most qualified should get the job. - Yeah, absolutely. And we'll talk more about this and just kind of how other companies do it and how Disney is just so out about it. And then they don't really practice what they've reached a lot of times. Anyway, before we get into any further, please subscribe for more pop culture, news, views and rants, guys. You'll get woo-hoo if you do. - Uh-hoo. - Yeah, so I'm thinking yesterday, we watched the video that Universal put out talking about dark universe. And it was interesting because in the video, we saw a mix of women and non-white people and white people. And none of them referenced the fact that they were diverse and inclusive. They're just like, "Hey, we wanna make a kick-ass monster theme park." - Right, and we're all excited to work together on this to make this really awesome experience. - Right, and that's how it should be, you know? And Disney is just so, I mean, over the top with this. And look, they've been busted on multiple occasions. I mean, even a couple of years ago, Dana Walden, who you think is actually gonna wind up being CEO of Disney. - 'Cause she has tits. - 'Cause she has tits, right? She flat out said that they have passed on sitcoms, brilliantly written sitcoms, because they weren't diverse and inclusive enough. Basically, they had too many white people in them. So they passed on them, says the white woman. - Right. - You know? So it's, you know, and then they had the reimagined tomorrow and we talked about that and, you know, that whole thing. So, I don't know. I don't know why everybody's surprised, but we'll talk a little bit about-- - People are surprised. They're just, you know, it's just confirmation that everybody already kind of knew. They're surprised that they actually got the person on camera. - I'm surprised this guy kept talking. We're gonna talk about that in a minute. - Yeah, this is weird that, like, look, if you meet somebody on Tinder and they take you out to eat and they start chatting you up about your job and your politics, and it seems like they're asking very pointed questions. There's a good chance they probably have a camera in their pocket. - I don't know, it's weird. Like the questions, first of all, okay, I'm gonna say, and if people can get mad at me all you want. I think the fact that they keep catching these people on dates and stuff like that, I think it's kind of me. I think that's kind of, you know, that's the only way you're gonna get somebody to actually say something, and I understand why they do it. I just think it's kind of a really, really crappy thing to do. That being said, setting up a date is the crappy thing to do, but this person cannot stop talking, and that's where that's on them, because they ask, I'm listening to these women asking questions, and I'm like, I would have been like, why are you asking me this? You know, I'd have been like, wait a minute, that's a little specific, you know? I would have stopped to be like, this is a little odd that I'm being asked. He's very pointed questions, and he doesn't, he just runs with it. I'm sure the girls are very pretty, and he's just like, I'm gonna get some, yay. But he just keeps talking, and I'm like, dude, why would you tell people that you don't know all of this stuff anyway? - Yeah, I would, I mean, as an employer myself, I probably would fire the guy just because I'm like, you just spilled a bunch of company's secrets to some random woman you just met on Tinder, or whatever, you know what I'm saying? - I don't know what it was on, but yeah. - Like, I'm sure he asked, especially 'cause he's a legal, senior vice president and team lead for 20th Century Fox, I'd be like, you signed NDAs, you're talking to strangers about our company business, that's not cool. I mean, there are some cases when you work for specific companies that you're not allowed to even talk to your spouses about what is going on at the company. - Yeah, I just, I mean, that has happened before. - That has happened. - That has happened. - I found out, I found out about stuff for the one company he worked at from the rumor mill from my mother, a month after the fact, because they were told not to tell anyone, so he didn't tell them. - We were told there was a very, one project that was going on, there was a very small group of us that were involved that we knew about what was happening, and it would be very easy to find out who was squealing, and we were basically told you will lose your job if you tell anybody, even your spouse. - Yeah, but the person that did it couldn't lose your job and they knew they couldn't. - Yeah, it was a higher level executive, but everybody figured out who it was pretty quick, 'cause there were like five of us in the room, and I didn't talk, and he didn't talk, and he didn't talk, so it had to be you. - Yeah, Plus, he was the only one who didn't have the fear of losing their job. But yeah, look, you go on a date with somebody, and you start saying all of the stuff, and then they're asking you questions, like, does it mean this or does it mean? I'd be like, wait, why are you asking me this? You know what I mean? - Right, right. - I think we're here to get to know each other about a job, but it's, I mean, clearly this person wants to talk about himself. - Yes. - I got that vibe from this person. - Yes, yeah, so anyway, here's what's going on, is James O'Keefe now, as if by magic, Rolling Stone had a hit piece on James O'Keefe, the day that he dropped his video. They had it ready to go, you know? But he posted breaking senior vice president at the Walt Disney Company, details discriminatory hiring practices. Nobody else is gonna tell you this, but they're not considering any white males for the job. This is Michael Giordano, a vice president, business affairs, there's no way we're hiring a white male. He says that Disney uses code words and buzz words to avoid legal action and even mentions a candidate being rejected for not looking black enough, what you talked about. He admits Disney gives bonuses to executives for practicing diversity, equity and inclusion that should not shock anybody, agreeing that diversity helps with financial incentives, that should not shock anybody, it helps getting loans, it helps getting free money from certain companies, you know? In fact, there are some banks that will not lend to you unless you meet certain criteria when you're dealing with large sums of money. So yeah, I mean, this is, again, this is nothing shocking. - Well, he also said he didn't get the promotions because of his race. And what was interesting too, he mentioned was, they said, she even the girl asked them, like, what did they tell you? They just like insinuate, they don't tell you, he was like, no, they will say, you know, he said, like, they tell you flat, he's like, well, yeah, they say don't hire, we don't want to hire any white men for this job. He said they tell him that. Sometimes they use ways around it, other times they'll just flat out say it. - So this is interesting, I'm reading this article here on Hollywood in Toto. And they're talking about film threat. And they said that apparently behind the scenes they were using terms like pale and stale at Disney. (laughing) - That sounds about right. - It does sound about right. - It does sound about right. - It's nothing, none of this should be shocking to anyone. If you guys following along at all, none of this should be surprising in any way, shape, or form to anyone. - No, do we want to listen to some of this? Now he actually used, now I don't know James O'Keefe, he actually used our thumbnail in this video. That was kind of surprising, people were like, wait, did you work with it? It's like, no, I don't even know the guy. I have no idea what's going on with this. But again, I'm more surprised that other people are surprised. - Yeah, that's where I'm at. I mean, people are surprised. But I just think it's interesting and that they actually got somebody on tape admitting to it. I think the way they went around about doing it was kind of in. But the dumbass wouldn't shut up. Like he just kept talking. I was like, why are you talking? Like, obviously something's up. - Well, my understanding is he scrubbed his social media after this too. - Well, you haven't known it was coming because the guy goes up to it at the end and says, oh, I hear you work for Disney and then he walks and then he says Matt walks away. So he had to have known this was coming. I don't know how he didn't see this coming when you've got this woman asking you these very pointed questions. You know what I'm saying? Like this happened with, was it Pfizer? One of the pharmaceutical companies too. Like they're asking a lot of very pointed questions about details of your business. And to me, that'd be red flag. A first date should be like, hey, you know, so where'd you grow up? You know, tell me about your family. You know, you married before you got kids. You have any pets. What do you like to do in your free time? Not like, please tell me all the details about your company and their hiring practices. - Yeah, I know, but he is more than happy to be like, he probably thought, oh, I'm showing off. Like, you know, she's into me because I'm a big wig at Disney and I'm important. And I'm just gonna, I don't know, but we're gonna listen to some of this. But you can hear like, if I'm asking questions or what they're saying and it's like, we're being dead giveaway to stop talking and he just keeps going. - Yeah, I'd be like, shut up, dude, shut up. Ready? - Mm-hmm. - Where, you know, there's no way we're on a way. - It's kind of unspoken. - There are times when it's spoken, but-- - How would they say it? - No way we're hiring or what if no one's spoken. (laughs) - I'm like, but like right there, how would they say it? Why would you ask that? - Yeah, that's a very, that is a very pointed-- - Like, this guy's kind of dumb. I mean, this guy's really not smart. - How the hell did you get to senior vice president being that stupid? I don't know, I don't know. - Can you check his knees? Sorry. - Thank you. - Like straight to you or, okay. - They'd be very careful how they message that to agents. - According to these videotapes, Disney blatantly discriminates against whites. - It's, okay, it's not, I mean, this is a thing too, that it's kind of, like, you're very shocked about this. It's not just Disney. In fact, it came up in conversation on Twitter. Yesterday, I think Grums was talking about it, that there are a lot of companies, you know, video game studios that have the same policy, they just don't explicitly state it. But you can see that we have a lot of older, white guys getting pushed out. A lot of them pushed into early retirement. And this is, again, this mad dash to make our boardroom look more inclusive and diverse, and it's usually posturing. - But they're all white and the high, high, high. - Oh, exactly. - Yeah. - So we got one woman, which is why she's probably gonna be CEO. - Yeah, so, I mean, do I think any of this is real? Do I think any of us legitimate? - No, do I think some of it is about eliminating potential competition? Yeah, I think it might be on some weird, you know, level, like, that there are people that are like, oh, this guy's a threat. Oh, well, we got too many white men. Let's push him out the damn door. But I do think that that has been the case for the last, like, five to eight years. But we are starting to see now why these companies throwing people that only got hired based on their gender or race overboard. And just saying, oh, it's just, you know, downsizing. I think they tried it. I think they got free money for a while. And I think they're realizing it doesn't work. You need to actually hire qualified people. What happens when you hire people based on DEI points, non-qualifications is what's happening at Disney World right now in Imagineering. You get bland, sterile stuff. And then, but then look at universal. You've got diverse people working over universal on Epic Universe, but they're qualified, obviously, because the stuff that they're putting out looks amazing. They hired qualified people. Yeah, they keep acting like it's an either/or thing, but you can hire qualified people. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. But I think they were just like in such a hurry to make the boardroom or make the offices look diverse that they're like, okay, you meet all the checkboxes, you're hired, you know? And then they're like, oh, we'll deal with what happens later. It's like, well, when you hire a bunch of unqualified people based solely on their appearance or their gender, you know, everything's gonna fall. Or they hire someone who's qualified, but they took it way too far. Or they weren't told to take too far, but I need a scapegoat. Yeah, well, yeah, and I think that's happening too. So I think in a lot of ways, people, they are hired based on their skin tone or gender or whatever, sexual orientation are being done a huge disservice because now we saw this with, was a crunchy role originals that because of high guardian spice, they said that they weren't going to take a chance on more, quote unquote, diverse creators or pitches because that was such a disaster. But that was literally the selling point for the show was it's diverse. Well, what's it about? I don't know, it's diverse. Look at all the diverse people working on it. And the writers room is diverse. Give us money. It's diverse. We don't have anything. We don't have any animation. We have, we got nothing, but it's diverse. Look at the writers room. And that's the way they've been going. And it's, I think he's really late to the party. Let's put it that way. But I think it just took a while to find someone that can get on camera. They probably tried this before and they couldn't get. People are too smart. Most people are too smart. This person isn't. No. All it takes is a couple of drinks, right? White men, in particular. Like Steve, I'm sort of like well prepared for him. I'm well positioned for him. As far as he's concerned, I'm a white male. That's not what they're looking at promoting him. As a white guy, even Michael is his own doubts about the possibility for advancement for himself. Yeah, that is actually true. I mean-- We didn't hear it in this in Hollywood in general. It's Hollywood in general. It's all of Hollywood. And it's not just Hollywood. It's also tech. It's also video games. It's also comics. But I think that we are starting to see things kind of pivot back to center, where we're open to hiring people from different backgrounds, different points of view. But we're also going to make sure that they're qualified. Yeah, that's a big-- And we're not going to toss somebody overboard just because they're middle-aged and white. In fact, we're, again, back to Disney Imagineering. We're seeing what happens when you push all of your qualified middle-aged white dudes that have been there for years out the door, and they did it. I still think Joe Rody got pushed out. I still think that John Lasseter wasn't just because of whatever was going on. I think it was because he was an older white dude, and he had to go. And we've seen them pay for it, time and time again. You're on hit with the other day, though. Discrimination, discrimination. And this is discrimination. So this probably opens them up. I mean, he said that behind the closed doors, they use buzz words or wording to try to make it sound like-- Some people would know they know what they did not to hire white people, but they aren't saying it. However, we have it now on camera that, according to somebody who is an executive, Disney deliberately tells him not to hire white men. Well, is it-- Yeah. So I mean, if proven true, that's discrimination. So Elon Musk apparently retweeted this, and Elon Musk has a beef with Disney now, obviously. And he's bank rolling Jina Carano's lawsuit against Disney. And I have to wonder which-- I guess it's been given the green light to go forward. So how much of this stuff is going to come out in discovery? I don't know. Because they might look into all this and be like, hey, just by the way, there's definitely some discrimination against people, certain-- Political leanings. Political leanings and also their race, the gender. Well, when Jina Carano, it's about-- they're political leanings or things like that. But he's saying, in regards to specifically gender and race, they won't hire or promote white men. And if it's true, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen because that's discrimination. And wasn't there a discrimination suit based on their new guidelines for films and stuff like that and shows that Disney remember? They had like their DEI initiatives, and I thought there was already a lawsuit. I don't know what happened with it, but there was already a lawsuit. If there was a lawsuit, they probably settled because-- Or they got thrown out. Or they got thrown out because they might be like, well, they can green light or not green light, whatever they want. But yeah, I mean, again, this is-- I'm shocked that you're shocked, and you're also like-- I'm not saying he is, but the general public, you're also like five years late to the party. This is a lot of what we've been talking about. I mean, what Disney will say was, well, he said that doesn't mean it's true. Right, right. So they're going to argue-- That's his perception, but that's not true. We never told him that. And then he'll get gone and he'll be threatened to keep his mouth shut by Disney and everything else. And it'll go away, and it'll get buried, and that'll probably be what happens with it. But we see what happens like-- I mean, again, we'll go back to Washington. We're not going to watch this whole thing. It's like 20 minutes long. But you can go watch on your own. You can go watch it on your own, it's on X. But we've seen it with other companies, too, where if they-- OK, so you get guys that leave a company or whatever, and they go form their own game studio, or their own publishing company, or their own, whatever. And it turns out that just by happenstance, a lot of them are white, well, they get shamed for that, too. Yeah, it's like, well, it's their own company. So you can't even go start your own company, and they get pissed off, because now the expectation is-- We scream, and you'll have to hire us. Right, right. You owe us jobs because we said so. And then meanwhile, Hollywood is burning. The video game industry's burning. Tech is burning. It's burning. Everything's burning. It's all burning down. At Disney, in fact, Michael actually got to experience Disney's discrimination against white males firsthand. You know, I've been in the company 11 years now, so I have friends in HR, and I have friends in the vision, and so they're like, look, nobody else is going to tell you it's white, but they're not considering any white males for a shot, which is not. I can believe it. Yeah, probably, that's probably true. They even passed over a qualified half-black person before a qualified half-black woman. Yeah, I mentioned this earlier. Because they didn't look black enough. Yeah. You didn't act black enough. You didn't talk black enough. You need to be more black. If you were just more black, we'd give you a job. Like, what the hell? That's insulting, isn't it? Mm-hmm. Can you imagine? I don't think he's assaulting the whole way around every way. You're too pale. You're too pasty. You sound like freaking Carlton from the Fresh Prince. You're not black enough, right? And now what's going to happen is people who are qualified for jobs that are diverse are going to be like, well, are you here because you're qualified? Are you here because you're D? I'm hired because Disney's mandating that you'd be hired. And executives benefit financially if you are hired. And it could be that somebody's completely qualified, and then they deserve the job. But now everybody's going to question it. Yeah. And that's not a fair eye of that. No, that's not fair. Because that is the side effect of this, is that because there were a lot of unqualified people being hired, now everybody's going to look at anybody that's not a white male and be like, well, are they here because they deserve it? Or are they a diversity hire? Or are they actually qualified? They're going to be super suspicious. Again, 10, 15, 20 years ago, nobody gave a shit. There was people who were hired all the time that were different. Yeah, it didn't matter. It didn't matter. Everybody looks at everything under a microscope because we've all been-- everybody's so suspicious of everything because of this. And it's horrible. It's just all the way around. It's not good. We wanted to hire somebody who brought them a few years ago now, who was half black, but didn't like hear half black. And they're not black. And it was like, that's not what's wrong. They wanted somebody in meetings who would hear a certain way. Yeah, exactly. It wasn't going to bring that to the meeting. So when we take a picture of our executives and we flash it up to get some more financing, to get some more loans, to get some more venture capital, you look too white. Do you even as a shield? Yeah, we can't use you as a shield. You look too white. You're not a shield enough. That's-- I mean, can you imagine that? What the hell? Because I know there are lighter skinned black folks who are just like-- everybody just assumes I'm white. I saw a story. I think it was on-- it was like 2020 or something. Years ago-- and I remember they were siblings or twins. They weren't identical, obviously. But one was like really pale skinned. Yeah, I saw it. Dark skinned. And they were like, there's no way people were related. There's not related to each other. And they're like, no, we are. And yeah, it was-- They were twins, and they-- Yeah, they were twins. They were like fraternal twins. Yeah. I mean, it kind of feels like we're at some point, there's going to be a lawsuit. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Take your pick of lawsuits. Disney's-- I mean, they're in it with Gina Carano, right? Elon Musk retweeted this, so he's probably looking at this situation. And they're getting it from their own employees that they basically told them, you pack up, move to Florida, or you lose your job. And yeah, they're going to get buried by lawsuits. Well, since this came out, people don't want to hit pieces on the O'Keefe guy. But he's saying that people from Disney are coming to him. Yeah. And giving him information and confirming stuff or whatever, back channel, which I believe. I believe it. Can we talk to you guys before about the fact that there's a lot of people at the Walt Disney company that are not down with the way it's been going lately. And they're either moderate or they lean a little on the right or they lean right. And they're not OK with it, because they're the ones that are pilot-a-white guys who were probably like, we're getting kept down because we ourselves have stories. People that were there for years-- I mean, you look at John Musker, who-- he's one of the best animation directors they've had in the last quarter century. And he's not Disney anymore. But a lot of these people are not there anymore. And I don't think it was their choice to leave. I really think Joe Rudy got pushed out. Yeah, I don't know for sure, but it was yours. I think they gave him, like, Disney legend stats or something, just to make him feel better. But the reality is, they got rid of him, and they brought in a bunch of people who were-- But he got tired of it, not going to do anything, because he seems very creative. I don't think he wants to be having his hands tight all the time. He's probably like, you know what, I'm out. They probably place that will work with me. They probably accuse him. I know he's probably difficult to work with, because most people that do good work are difficult to work with. But they probably accused him of cultural appropriation or something, because he spent a lot of time in Africa and Asia doing traveling. And he's got the piercings and all that stuff. They're probably like, he's just a white dude just pretending to be a culture. It makes me uncomfortable. It makes me feel unsafe to work with him, get rid of him. Yeah, and so they just keep ripping the heart of Disney out time and time and time again. And it should be the most qualified person for the job, always, always. And if it's a black lesbian and a wheelchair who's the most qualified person for the job, then to hire her. Yeah, exactly. And keep her. Keep her happy. That's not how it feels, just because of things. And that is a lawyer talking. So how does Disney explain pushing these discriminatory practices? They use code words and code words. Yeah, that's the always thing. I am saying that there is a acceptable code words and buzz words that are used to explain what they're looking for. So I know this is true because we spend a lot of time with them at media events. And they would use certain code words and buzz words to refer to certain kinds of customers and different situations. And yeah, they do. It's-- Disney has its own culture. And it's-- I guarantee you, because they don't want to look like they're doing anything wrong, right? That'd be like, oh, yes. Well, we just want more. So basically, diversity has become code word for not white. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, across the board. A few years ago, it was just code word for women, lesbian. Now it's just like anybody but white men are diverse. Everybody else is vanilla. They might say something like, we're not looking at the usual suspects for this job. The usual suspects. They know. So it's not like a legally actionable thing. Yeah. Right now, it's what it means. They, you know, they writers and actors here all the time, like, you know, looking to hire writers and actors who bring diversity, if they're not looking to bring on any more clients who are willing. Well, you know, and the thing is, again, why would you tell someone to send a date? Yeah, that's stupid on his part, for sure. And last, he thought, you know, she was, like, legitimately interested in this. Now, we can speak to this. This actually is true. This is kind of what happened with us. With our agent. With our agent. Yeah. Who happened to be a white dude, by the way. Years ago, and we've talked about this before, and we worked in comics, and we had a literary agent. I knew we were going with this before you even started. And, you know, when it was a meritocracy, we were actually marketable. We had people interested in our stuff, and we brought the numbers online, and that's what they're kind of looking at. And then it was about 2013, like, the switch got flipped, and all of a sudden it was like, yeah, I'm not even going to pitch your stuff, I can't help you. And then you started to see that it was unspoken. It was unspoken. But it was like, we're looking for more diverse voices, and that was like, we would see people that, you know, other clients of his that just happen to not be white people. White, straighter male. White, straighter male. Get pushed for the same kinds of projects that we were trying to pitch. And so I cornered him the one day. And like, what the hell is going on here? It's like, you've been sitting on our one pitch for six or eight months. Like, what is going on? And he just was like, yeah, I'm not going to, you know, I think we need to just break up, basically. Yeah, basically. This is after he said I wasn't-- Feminist enough. I wasn't feminist enough because our character was happy that the boy smiled out or she liked. And I was like, well, you've never been a teenage girl, bitch, but I've been a teenage girl. And you don't tell me what's feminist and not, because I don't care if you're like boys or girls. And you know, you're a teenage girl. You're crushed smiles at you. It's going to make you happy. I don't care about your agency. You're going to be happy about it. So kindly fuck off. And yeah, that's what happened. Other people, like, you know, he actually used neon's contacts to get some of his super diverse people into other projects using, you know, people he had healed. He was working through with neon. That neon new one had found. And it was like he brought them with him. And he was using those people under the guise of doing stuff for neon to go make deals with other people. And then we got pushed out. Because he knew he could sell them. Because at that time, it started kind of started in publishing and then kind of blood out into Hollywood and video games and all that. But like, he knew he could sell them. And I remember-- and this is kind of like it kind of stuck with me because things changed when we got him new headshots, I remember. Yes, because he thought you were black. He thought I was black. I'm convinced he thought I was black. I don't know why everybody thinks I'm black. But once he got the headshot, it was just kind of like, and he saw the two white-- because I think-- because your name and my voice, because he'd been talking to me on the phone, we never met a person. I was a woman. Yeah, I knew you were a woman. And, you know, yeah, I mean, that's what I think happened. I'm going to be honest. There was a definite shift. He was very-- he was very surprised. Let's put that way. And I think he was like, oh shit, I can't sell them. Because middle-aged white couples, not cool. Not cool anymore. And so yeah, it's a real thing. And it's been going on for a while. This isn't recent. This has been going on for about 15 years now. We weren't even middle-aged then. No, no. But it was just like, oh, you're not 22. Yeah. Yeah, you're not 22. You're not diverse enough. So no, not cool, not cool. But yeah, we're not going to run through this whole thing. You can go watch it on Twitter. I'm surprised that so many people were surprised. And Disney did say the quiet part out loud. Well, no, they didn't. This guy from Disney said the quiet part out loud. Right. Disney's going to bury the quiet part even further. It's like, look, if you know what to look for, they've been saying this for years. They've been saying this for years. It is very obvious to anyone who's been paying attention that this is what they're looking for, is what they're not looking for. And again, it's not just Disney. I think Disney, because they're one of the biggest studios out there, they are a bigger target. And I think they've been sloppy with it, too. But other companies, it's the same thing. You're seeing all these actors and writers from Hollywood. Like, hey, why doesn't so-and-so do anything anymore? Why isn't this person do anything anymore? And a lot of times, it's because there's not what they're looking for. And they're not going to tell you why they're not looking for them, because it would open. If they flat out said, we do not hire white men anymore, then yes, you absolutely, positively will open yourself up to a lawsuit. If you just don't do it, then there's really nothing that can be done legally, right? So anyway, we're going to wrap this up. Please subscribe for more pop culture news, views, and rants. And we'll talk later. Bye. [MUSIC PLAYING] Thanks again for listening. More news and videos are available on our website at www.clownfishtv.com and on our YouTube channel, clownfishtv. You can buy official merchandise, clownfish, comic books, and more at shopclownfish.com. If you like this show, please consider subscribing and leaving us a positive review on iTunes and other podcast platforms. If you're looking to help support this show financially, go to clownfishsupport.com. [MUSIC PLAYING] If you'd like to sponsor an episode of this show, send us an email at business@webreath.io. This podcast is a production of clownfish studios, LLC, and web reef media proudly made in Pittsburgh, USA. [MUSIC PLAYING] (upbeat music) (upbeat music)