OMG: Disney 'blatantly discriminates against whites'

O'Keefe Media Group has released their latest shocker. This time, it's an undercover conversation with attorney Michael Giordano, a Senior Vice President and Team Lead with 20th Television, The Walt Disney Company. He revealed that Disney was not only biased against hiring white men for some roles, but that the company was absolutely open about it. Giordano works in business affairs, negotiations for shows among creatives.

"Certainly there have been times where, you know, there's no way we're hiring a white male for this."

"Just kind of unspoken?" OMG's undercover reporter asks. She met Giordano on the Hinge dating app.

"There are times when it's spoken," Giordano said. And he admitted that it would be said bluntly, "there's no way we're hiring a white male for this role." He said further that "they'd be very careful how they message that to agents."

The backlash against white male actors in Hollywood among the woke studios, such as Disney, has been no secret to industry insiders and actors who have found themselves struggling to find work due to their race and sex, but it has seldom been so blatantly expressed. He told OMG's undercover reporter that in many cases, the bias toward "diverse" casting is front and center. "I think there's certainly a belief that it's just good for society and they know. But there's also a belief that we're gonna make more money if we appeal to a wider variety of people." He said "diversity helps with" financial incentives.

Giordano addressed his situation working for the Disney company while being a white man, saying "I think I'm sort of well prepared for it. I'm well positioned for it. But as far as Disney is concerned, I'm a white male, and that's not who they're looking to promote at the moment." And Giordano has not been immune to the effects of this bias.

"I've been at the company for 11 years now, so I have friends in HR and I have friends in those divisions," he told OMG's undercover reporter. Those friends have told him outright, when positions open up, "they're not going to consider any white males for this job." It's not just in casting, but in internal operations that Disney has determined that race-based promotion is the best way to operate.

Giordano says that his department wanted to hire a person who was half black, half white, "a few years ago now," but that since he didn't "like appear half black" he wasn't given the position. "And there was a creative executive who was like 'we're not, like, that's not, that's not what's wanted."

"They wanted somebody in meetings who would appear a certain way," he said, "and he wasn't gonna bring that to the meeting." Giordano admitted to the OMG undercover reporter that at some point, there's likely to be a lawsuit over the discrimination blatantly practiced by 20th Television and Disney. "That's kind of how it feels."

It turns out that Disney has something of its own coded language to discuss their bias and how to make sure that their hiring practices skew toward it. "I'm guessing," Giordano said, "that there is acceptable code words and buzzwords that are used to explain what they're looking for."

"They might say something like "We're not looking at the usual suspects for this job." In that sense, Giordano said, "it's not really a legally actionable thing. But everybody knows what it means." He admitted that writers and actors are always hearing execs saying "I'm looking to hire writers and actors who bring diversity."

And in fact, over the years in the entertainment industry, many writers and actors have heard that they are not desirable collaborators simply because their skin is too pale, their sex too male. Comic actor Tyler Wolf has spoken out against this and many others have talked about it privately, with the shame that comes from being untouchable. "I'm not looking to bring on any more clients who are white," Giordano recounted as being told to those pale, male actors.

And where do these standards come from? Giordano explained that standards are set by the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion department, which is "very involved in setting standards to make sure that shows have diversity." He pinned the origins of this on Disney head Bob Iger, saying that Iger pushes for diversity into shows, including children's shows. Part of that diversity is making sure some 30 percent of the writers on those shows are gay. Giordano posits that they naturally gravitate more towards LGBTQ etc. storylines and characters.

This interview is part of OMG's Disney Tapes and is just part one of their series on diversity hiring, discrimination, and woke policies at Disney. Disney has had its fair share of tumult over the past few years. They went to war with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and lost. They have had numerous box office flops, and as parents have gotten wise to their woke messaging on race and trans in their children's programming, the dials have been turning away from the Disney Channel. Shareholders have even revolted against it, saying the company has faulted in their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.

After the report dropped, Giordano deleted his LinkedIn profile, which was featured in the report from OMG. Next week, OMG plans to release part 2 of the Disney Tapes, which will feature a confrontation with Giordano.