Thanks to Disney+, millions of fans around the world have access to a wealth of content from the House of Mouse. However, as Disney has acquired more brand names and merged with entities like Hulu, that magical image has become tarnished and changed.
It's because of this amalgamation of different brands that Disney+ has incorporated more and more mature content, drifting away from its family-friendly origins. That might be good news for Disney's bottom line, but it is leaving a bad taste in the mouths of many parents.
Has Disney+ lost the plot?
If you've tuned in to TikTok or other forms of social media lately, you might have seen a few videos surrounding a mom's reaction to FX's Dying For Sex on the main page of Disney+, and how Disney has gotten completely out of touch. However, how much of this is true?
The Disney/Hulu merger might have given subscribers access to a wider variety of media, but it also kicked the hornets' nest in the same breath. Along with other family-friendly features, the merger also added a lot of content that wasn't exactly magical.
Even at the time of writing, Prey, American Dad, Family Guy, and Futurama are some of the first features that spring to life on the Disney+ homepage. While this isn't all Disney's doing, it does beg the question: Does Disney even know who to cater to anymore?
For the record, a lot of what is currently being shown on the homepage has a lot to do with previously-watched content, and whether or not parental controls are enabled. Even so, it feels like Disney isn't promoting as much of its original material as we're used to seeing.
Granted, there are still a lot of IPs being promoted, like Star Wars and Marvel, but when was the last time Disney went all out on its animated features, new or old? The market has simply become so saturated with content that many users are burdened by choice.
In this writer's opinion, Disney is acting as a business, and there's little we can do about that. However, parental controls exist for a reason, and a streaming service shouldn't be a babysitter. There is still plenty of family-friendly content, users just need to be smart about what younger viewers in their household see.
Do you think Disney+ has gone off the rails?