For a long time now, conservatives and other traditionally minded people have been on the cultural back foot. We have become astute at critiquing the madness of the modern world but not so adept at offering creative solutions.
Fortunately, that is all beginning to change. Consider just the latest example of this welcome trend.
Conservative news empire The Daily Wire has used the 100th anniversary of Disney’s founding to announce the surprise launch of its own children’s entertainment brand called Bentkey.
At last week’s release, the Bentkey streaming app launched with 150 episodes across 18 kids’ series, with four of the shows being brand new and produced in-house. New episodes will drop each Saturday, in a tribute to the nostalgic Saturday morning cartoon tradition.
Bentkey represents a self-conscious broadside against the Walt Disney Company, a corporation that has all but abandoned creative storytelling to push a political agenda.
In a video created for Bentkey’s launch, The Daily Wire co-founder Jeremy Boreing pulled no punches:
It’s been just a little over one year since Disney—the most powerful entertainment company in the world—got caught saying the quiet part out loud. Namely, that they were using their brand—a brand parents had been trusting with their children for generations—to indoctrinate those children into the LGBTQIA cult.
“It would be impossible to overstate just how big a loss this is for Americans who believe in basic reality,” Boreing added. “Disney controls the greatest content library ever created. Their cultural reach particularly with children is beyond anything that’s ever existed.”
Bentkey is the realization of a commitment made by The Daily Wire early last year to invest $100 million over three years into children’s entertainment.
Bentkey’s aim, says Boreing, is to create “the next generation of timeless stories that transport kids into a world of adventure, imagination, and joy.”
Its four in-studio originals include Chip Chilla, a cartoon series about a family of homeschooled chinchillas; Kid Fit Go!, a child-directed fitness program; Kid Explorer, which tells of the people and events that have shaped the modern world; and A Wonderful Day with Mabel Maclay, a live action show about a kindly woman and her pet dog who sing songs, read books, build gadgets, and have fun with their neighbors.
In addition to their original content, Boreing explains that Bentkey has curated content from other production studios worldwide “that we would trust our kids with.”
As part of the big Bentkey reveal, Boreing announced that the new studio will release its own live-action remake of the classic Snow White fairytale, titled Snow White and the Evil Queen, due for release in 2024.
Given widespread skepticism at Disney’s own woke live action Snow White remake, it is possible that Bentkey cashes in on Disney’s folly and even surpasses Disney’s takings.
What is sure is that Disney is intent on pushing a particular agenda on its impressionable young viewers, as Boreing noted. In 2022, a leaked video showed an executive producer discussing a “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” and noting that her team is “adding queerness” to children’s content.
Unless something dramatic changes in the entertainment industry, it seems unlikely that we will so easily return to the days of content that promotes traditional family values. The same could be said for woke corporations and other institutions.
For those who uphold traditional values, creating and finding alternatives may be the key to creating the cultural pressure that either revives or replaces such failing institutions.
When it comes to Disney, will Bentkey be an entertaining and wholesome alternative to Hollywood’s programming? Only kids and their parents can make that call. But in a world gone woke, maybe Boreing’s wildest dreams will come true.
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Image credit: “Firecrackers go up in the sky before Cinderella Castle, Magic Kingdom” by Ethically Yours on Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Image cropped.
1 comment
1 Comment
Nori Pepper
October 27, 2023, 11:23 amIs this a streaming service for the TV?
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