There is a much deeper reason that the news about Stephen Colbert being taken off the air is such big news.  Or why ABC is re-thinking some of its daytime programming, such as The View.  There will be numerous television changes because many of these big production companies have been so committed to progressive causes that the financial impact of it is finally starting to catch up to them.  However, in everyday conversation, the real reasons for economic failures have been largely unexplored.  People know they are generally happy to hear that the Trump-hating Colbert is losing his late-night show, and that many of the other late-night hosts are in danger as well, because of the anti-Trump agenda.  Anti-Make America Great Again agenda points are not popular for good business.  And typically, CBS Studios, a division of Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, would not hesitate to donate $40 million to progressive political causes.  Which is what they are saying the show is losing per year.  It’s not about the money; it’s about the viability of the position.  Losing that much money by putting Stephen Colbert on television every night to attempt to destroy the Trump agenda is more or less a financial contribution to their political platform.  The problem for them is that they spent all that money and committed so many resources to it, yet they were unable to move the political needle at all.  Trump did not end up in jail, or bankrupt as radical liberals had fantasized about.  Instead, six months into his re-elected term, he is doing great, and there are no signs of him slowing down.  And he’s more popular than ever, which is breaking the back of the production companies and their commitment to communism that dates back to the fifties and sixties. 

I know quite a bit about all this as I have been discussing it for years.  For many people, it has been hard to connect the dots.  However, I hosted a major radio show on this topic, specifically centered on the release of the Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, where Disney killed the very popular character of Han Solo.  A friend of mine and I discussed the poor decision that Disney made in killing off the white hero Han Solo and replacing him with a DEI cast that nobody ever took to.  And now, ten years later, the things we said have turned out to be hauntingly accurate.  After that big, popular show, my friend received an offer to work at Disney for an excellent salary.  I always thought they did it to shut him up and get him off the air.  It is much easier to throw money at controversial voices to contain them somewhat.  My friend loved the Disney Company and hoped to improve it, so more power to him.  I told him there was no saving the company, but he had to try.  But the point of the matter is this: Disney didn’t need to kill off the original heroes of the Star Wars saga.  But they did it anyway, and they did it for purely political reasons.  That’s how radical the hatred in Hollywood is for the Make America Great Again movement, which was emerging openly as Disney was committing to these new Star Wars movies that had a DEI cast, and a killing off of the strongest character of them all, Han Solo, who was made popular by the very popular actor, Harrison Ford.

Now I’ve heard it all before.  People tell me that old Harrison Ford always wanted to kill off the character of Han Solo.  As an actor, he hears all the stories about toxic white masculinity, which he has made a lot of money over the years popularizing.  So, for him, to sacrifice one of his roles to the gods of progressivism is a logical choice.  And he has been saying for forty years that Han Solo should die in the Star Wars series.  However, George Lucas knew better, so they brought him back for The Return of the Jedi, and that character went on to become one of the biggest and most popular in the Star Wars brand.  If Han Solo is on the movie posters, people are excited for Star Wars and the toys that came from that series of movies.  But if the movie posters, as they turned out to be, were just diversity, equity, and inclusion characters, then the public was going to reject the offering.  And in that process, Disney killed the Star Wars brand forever.  I don’t think it will ever come back. The damage was so significant that they begged Harrison Ford to return and make an appearance in the last Star Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker, but it was too late by then.  And Disney has not been making any more Star Wars movies because their DEI characters were being rejected left and right.  A similar controversy arose on The Mandalorian television show involving Gina Carano.  She turned out not to be a DEI hire, but a conservative fighter, and Disney tried to punish her for it, and it blew up in their faces in terrible ways.  We are seeing entertainment that is not intended to entertain, but rather to convey political messages through popular franchises, and it has turned out to be a disastrous business decision. 

So, the writing was already on the wall when Trump was re-elected, and Disney was already undergoing its assessment process.  They had to learn, as a large entertainment company, that their public would reject them if they did not produce content that they wanted.  Kathy Kennedy should have known better about the Han Solo character.  Her husband, Frank Marshell, should be able to help her understand it.  He produced all the Jurassic Park movies and was the German mechanic in the very popular Raiders of the Lost Ark movie, notably in the fight scene.  He’s not a progressive lunatic.  However, he and Kennedy are fans of Jimmy Buffett and music from that era, so they have a left-leaning side that certainly comes through in their movies.  Kathy, as a woman CEO, went completely DEI and began pushing for female directors and characters.  I mean, they killed off Han Solo, knowing he was the father figure of the series, and they gave his famous spaceship, the Millennium Falcon, to some girl that nobody knew, as if the public would just accept it.  And they never did.  And the franchise took a permanent hit that it will never recover from.  I tried to tell them.  My friend and I laid it all out on that now-famous radio show, so we know the Disney bigwigs heard it and offered us jobs afterwards.  I have had numerous companies offer me money to try to keep me quiet, essentially.  I don’t blame my friend for taking the money.  Many people do, and it can lead to a fulfilling life.  And that is essentially why nobody understands these kinds of things structurally.  But that’s what’s going on with Stephen Colbert, and many others that will follow.  The man-hating Hollywood has not been working, and if they want to survive at all, they will have to make adjustments because the consumer is the boss.  Not the studios, and they have had to learn some tough lessons, too late.  The ramifications of all those bad decisions are only now becoming well-known and prominent.

Rich Hoffman

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