Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Abigail Disney’s Call to Arms

Bob Iger, the Disney C.E.O. whose total compensation package soared to $65.6 million in 2018, gets paid an insane amount of money. That may be an objective statement—but it’s also the fiercely held opinion of Abigail Disney, the filmmaker, activist, and, yes granddaughter of Roy Disney who has become a bit of an unlikely folk hero for speaking out against the excesses of the ultra-wealthy (a category to which, again, Disney herself also belongs). The heiress made headlines last week for shaking her head at Iger’s mammoth pay, then jumped back into the fray on Sunday to explain why, precisely, she’s decided to take what might seem like an unusual stand. “Let me [be] very clear. I like Bob Iger,” she began, as Yohana Desta writes. “I do NOT speak for my family but only for myself. Other than owning shares (not that many) I have no more say in what happens there than anyone else. But by any objective measure a pay ratio over a thousand is insane.” Over the course of 22 tweets total, Disney laid out her position while defending Disney janitorial workers whose salaries could be boosted if higher-level employees, such as Iger, took cuts. “What difference would it make in the quality of life for those that gave up half their bonus?” she wrote. “None . . . If you send your kid to an expensive school and we cut your bonus in half, gosh you’d give up 740 years of her education. 7.5 $5M yachts you can’t buy. 3.5 $10M jets.”
Elsewhere in HWD, Laura Bradley proposes that politicians perhaps lay off the Game of Thronesreferences; Joanna Robinson digs into the HBO hit’s most satisfying relationship (that would be Jaime and Brienne’s, of course); Julie Miller details why Roman Polanski is suing the Film Academy; and HBO once again loses the battle to prevent its crown jewel from leaking before its scheduled release.