Newly crowned “princess” Bob Iger says increased diversity for women and minorities should be the company’s top priority moving forward.
The Disney CEO burnished his credentials on the issue Tuesday evening while being inducted into the TV Academy Hall of Fame in Hollywood.
Mr. Iger was honored along with industry peers Cicely Tyson, Seth MacFarlane and Geraldine Laybourne.
“I know this may be controversial, but when you really think about it, Bob is kind of like the ultimate Disney princess,” actress Kerry Washington told an audience at Saban Media Center, The Hollywood Reporter noted. “He began his career sweeping ashes out of the oven at Pizza Hut. If that is not a modern-day Cinderella, I don’t know what is. Then eventually, just like Cinderella, things changed when he befriended a mouse. He set out to change his fate. Like Moana, he went beyond the reef. Like Tiana, he kissed a few frogs, professionally speaking, I mean. … You see, like a true Disney princess, Bob doesn’t choose the easy path.”
Ms. Washington then thanked Mr. Iger for giving her “dreams to dream and then making them come true.”
The CEO then took the stage and told the crowd that entertainers have a “responsibility to serve the vital needs of people and to make a profoundly positive difference in the world.”
“Iger then closed his speech with a call to action that he said ’should be’ the number one priority,” THR reported. “’Making sure that more women, minorities and other underrepresented groups have the opportunity to tell their stories both on screen and behind the camera so that they may play a bigger role and contribute even more meaningful ways to the quality and the resonance of the content that we create.’”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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