God it feels good when horrible men lose! Ike Perlmutter—you know the racist, sexist man who is the (former) chairman and CEO of Marvel Entertainment—was part of the Disney layoffs going on right now, and while we usually don’t want to celebrate anyone losing their job, this is one of those instances where it is a great thing that he doesn’t work there anymore—especially since he tried to stage a coup to take over the board of Marvel Entertainment’s parent company, Disney!
Speaking Marvel’s parent company, Marvel Entertainment—the parts of Marvel separate from the movie division Marvel Studios—will reportedly be absorbed into other parts of Disney as part of Disney’s restructuring, so what that means for Marvel Comics is anyone’s guess at this point. We do know that Disney is planning to lay off 7,000 employees over the next few months as part of their “strategic realignment,” which is horrible.
Perlmutter was reportedly, in a lot of ways, responsible for the slow speed of the climb in diversity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe—mainly because he’s reportedly racist and sexist. Throughout the years, there were rumors that Perlmutter was the reason for Marvel’s lack of diversity in its films, putting “roadblocks” up to stop movies like Black Panther and Captain Marvel from being made. When Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige was talking about the Marvel Cinematic Universe back in 2019, he was very candid about Perlmutter, as was Disney CEO Bob Iger.
The two were not hiding the fact that Perlmutter put stops to things like Black Panther, and tied to Perlmutter’s own political leanings, it isn’t that surprising that he wasn’t someone that Feige or Iger seemed to really mesh with when working on Marvel movies. And while Perlmutter hasn’t been directly connected to Marvel Studios—and, thus, the Marvel Cinematic Universe—for years, after its separation from the rest of Marvel Entertainment, he did try to stake his claim back on Disney’s board by reported staging a “shadow coup.”
Stage a botched coup and find out
For two men who voted for Donald Trump, you’d think that Perlmutter and co-conspirator Nelson Peltz would maybe think differently about their choices after seeing Trump’s failed real-world coup. And yet, they tried to stage a “shadow coup” of the Disney board, and it has now ended with Perlmutter getting fired, so ….
Bob Iger revealed earlier this year that Ike Perlmutter and Peltz were, essentially, using Bob Chapek’s feelings when it was clear Disney wasn’t happy with him to their advantage. Perlmutter was clearly trying to get his own views back on the board, and for a man who has been photographed with former president Donald Trump and someone who loves to give Trump money, it isn’t surprising that he went through this trickery to try to get what he wants. Luckily, it backfired royally, and good!
All this to say that Perlmutter tried to gain more control for his terrible views, and what he gained was unemployment. Now, we cannot say that this was the reasoning behind his being let go from Disney, but he went from being the reason Disney owned Marvel to someone who was cut off from the massive success of their movies, to unemployed. So …
(featured image: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
