The last of those –Chip Chilla,a reasonable enough simulacrum of the Australian-made Disney hitBluey in both animation style and colour palette to warrant the ridicule it has attracted – has dominated media conversations since the platform launched last month. That it walks and talks like a cheap knock-off of a modern Australian classic goes without saying.
ButChip Chilla is the tip of a streaming iceberg that draws in Disney’s culture war with America’s conservative right,America’s emerging trend towards both homeschooling and school library policing and the belief – mistaken or not – that television schedules are the new battleground for the political hearts and minds of our young.
“They’re trying to copyBluey,and they’re trying to copy Disney and I find it laughable,” says Australian culture commentator and television historian Andrew Mercado. “What’s particularly making me laugh is that,first of all,I had to look up what a chinchilla was and I discovered it’s a rodent that is skinned for fur. That’s the best cute little animal they could come up with?”
They,in this case,is Daily Wire,the American conservative media organisation notable forThe Ben Shapiro Show,a podcast hosted by Ben Shapiro,andCandace,a political talk show,hosted by Candace Owens. The company has for several years dabbled in television content,such asTerror on the Prairie,a western film starring Gina Carano.
Much of that content has been politically framed,even if its politics are not declared outright. The Carano-led western largely came about because she was sidelined by Disney after making transphobic remarks,so the creative decision-making behind the project was,arguably,as much about Daily Wire’s dislike of Disney,as anything else.
That dislike of Disney is more explicitly the motivation behind Bentkey,a children’s television streaming platform that represents the company’s most substantial investment in non-journalistic content since its inception in 2015. In addition toChip Chilla,Bentkey offers a modest library of animated and live-action kids shows for US$99 ($156) a year.
The price is roughly comparative to other streaming services,backed by only a fraction of the content. It must also contend with the fact that there are ad-supported free services in the market now,such as the Fox-owned Tubi,which offer more robust libraries of children’s TV content. But its pitch is well-aimed:conservative,Disney-sceptic parents who homeschool their kids. (TheChip Chilla children are homeschooled,the parents play very traditional gender roles.)
“Daily Wire is a very politically charged name,and while the launching of our kids entertainment company is intrinsically a political act,what we’re trying to do with that political act is create content for kids that isn’t inherently political,” Daily Wire co-founder Jeremy Boreing said,when he launched the channel last month.
In development at Bentkey is an adaptation ofSnow White and the Evil Queen,another anti-Disney reaction,this time against Disney’s live-action remake ofSnow White,starring Rachel Zegler,and due for release in 2025. Bentkey’s Snow White is another conservative personality,right-wing YouTuber Brett Cooper.
Disney’sSnow White remake courted controversy with American conservatives,first by casting Zegler,who is of Colombian descent,in the role of Snow White,and later because Zegler herself said the new film would deal differently with some of the story’s seemingly old-fashioned ideas. “The original cartoon came out in 1937[and] there’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her,” Zegler said. “We didn’t do that this time.”
Launching Bentkey’sSnow White,Boreing did not mince his words:“While Disney still uses Walt’s name,they’ve all but abandoned his legacy. Instead of telling stories about timeless truth,what the ancient fairy tales were all about,Disney’s newSnow White is an apology for their past and will expose children to the popular but destructive lies of the current moment.”
Despite Boreing’s posturing about Disney’s push to include diverse representation in its content,Mercado says visibility matters to children,who tune into programming searching for something familiar.
“The best example I can describe is when Dylan Alcott was made Australian of the Year,and he said when he was a little boy growing up,the only time he ever saw a person in TV in a wheelchair was when they were a car crash victim,” Mercado say. “Now he hopes little kids can watch him and think,they could be a TV host,or a sportsman.
“The fact that we want TV to be diverse and show disability along with queer representation is really,really important to kids out there. You see it inThe Wiggles documentary too;they put Emma into the group and saw a sea of yellow ribbons in the crowd,and they thought,wow,can you believe it’s taken us this long to put a girl into the group?”
Mercado says Bentkey’s biggest hurdle may be the name of the platform itself. “Originally,it was called Daily Wire Kids,and then they changed it to DW Kids,and I actually thought DW Kids worked. But to call a kid’s network Bentkey and say that they are doing it in opposition to LGBT brainwashing. It’s just laughable.”
“I know they’ve got US$100 million behind them,but you’ve got to be bright to take on Disney at their own game,” Mercado adds. “You might say that there’s some courage in doing that. But you’ve got to really have some good product behind you to be better than Disney who’ve been doing this 100 years now. Good luck,that’s my advice.“
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