Something is happening at WarnerMedia that may indicate far more than a change at some of its properties. It may be the start of a whole new cultural turn for the western world.
Studios have been under the control of social justice activists and advocates for years now. The infection has gone so deep that Disney went from being a corporation concerned with making solid entertainment for children to becoming a political activist organization willing to go to war over legislation that has nothing to do with it.
WarnerMedia was also infected with this, but then its merger with Discovery happened and an attitude shift took place. For one, Jeff Zucker, the man responsible for running CNN into the ground with unmitigated and inexcusable political bias, was suddenly out as President. He was to be replaced with Chris Licht, who was tasked with bringing CNN back to the center and focusing on the news instead of personalities. The move was supposed to revitalize CNN, which had fallen into a “sorry state of affairs” and work was to begin turning it around.
Today, it was announced that one of the worst offenders in journalism, Brian Stelter, is fired from CNN as his show “Reliable Sources” has been terminated. The firing of Stelter isn’t just tossing out bad rubbish. Stelter was one of the most egregious hosts on CNN, known for being one of the more obedient lapdogs for the Democrat Party. As Fox News covered at length, Stelter’s show was supposed to be dedicated to covering some of the biggest stories in media and yet, he refused to comment on anything that went against his bias or inconvenienced his party.
Stelter’s reputation as being a leftist puppet for the Democrat Party was widely known, and his show’s ratings reflected the people’s distrust of him. Now he’s fired, and the earth where his show stood has been salted. Moreover, I don’t think he’ll be the last one.
(READ: The Boom Gets Lowered on Brian Stelter as CNN’s Chris Licht Begins the Purge)
But outside of CNN, other moves are being made that signal a massive change. Warner’s movies are also being canned, the most headline-grabbing of which was the upcoming “Batgirl” movie which was a highly woke creation featuring a Latina Batgirl that replaces Michael Keaton’s Batman after he dies in the film, according to rumors.
The film was apparently made and was actually in post-production. It was budgeted to cost somewhere around $90 million but Warner Bros. decided to throw it all in the garbage and not release it on any platform, silver screen, or streaming. Millions of dollars were just tossed aside with the snap of a finger, and allegedly after test audiences were so disgusted by it that one audience member described it as “unspeakable.”
This is no small move. Warner CEO David Zaslav is reportedly obsessed with creating his own Avengers-style universe and creating a woke film that would drive audiences away from taking Warner seriously with its own DC superhero lineup is something to be avoided. While this may or may not be a direct rejection of woke culture, it is an acknowledgment that woke culture is bad for business and does more to drive customers away.
According to Bounding Into Comics, unconfirmed rumors have been floating around about an internal war at Warner Bros. surrounding woke and politically divisive content with ongoing contracts forbidding the complete elimination of it, at least for now. It’s currently unconfirmed whether or not these rumors are true, but the complete decimation of CNN+ seems to fit with this new strategy of pushing out the politics.
The CNN+ streaming service was going to feature people who practically define political divisiveness, such as Don Lemon, Chris Wallace, and Rex Chapman. Its launch was met with such tepid support that it was an embarrassment to the entire company.
Pair all of this with Zaslav himself denouncing “advocacy networks” and you seem to have a company that’s actually attempting to right a ship that’s listed too far to the left.
All of this points to a corporation that is trying to pry the left’s grip off of it and return to making products that appeal to a general audience, not a specific ideological group. None of these are small moves, and all of them are big moves that run contrary to social justice-approved media.
If I’m reading the signs correctly, then this is a huge deal. Warner is one of the largest studios in the western world, and if it sees success by producing apolitical movies and television while bringing CNN into a less biased way of operating then there’s no possible way other studios don’t take notice and begin attempting to implement a rejection of leftist politics themselves.
What we might be witnessing is no less than the end of woke culture’s dominance over the mainstream.