Disney has a “boy problem.” 

At least, that’s what a recent Variety report suggests, quoting insiders at the company who admit the entertainment company has lost the interest of Gen Z men that the outlet describes as a “lonely, gaming-obsessed group who were hampered in their formative years by COVID-19 lockdowns.”

Disney executives are now hunting for answers, considering every conceivable tactic from “splashy global adventures” to old-fashioned “treasure hunts” in an effort to lure young men between the ages of 13 and 28 back to the House of Mouse.

But for Bill Winters, a bestselling author and former Trump admin speechwriter, the diagnosis is clear. The problem with Disney isn’t the lack of over-the-top projects. In the end, he says, Disney alienated their audience by forcing an ideology that undermined the same values it used to celebrate. 

When asked for his initial reaction to Disney’s alleged “boy trouble,” Winters blamed it squarely on the stories being told.

“It’s self-inflicted,” he told The Daily Wire via an email interview. “They’re going to have to ditch an ideology that sneered at masculinity, chivalry, righteous honor, power for noble purposes, the warrior ethos – all these things that coded as toxically male – and accept these attributes are actually good and necessary for any healthy society and worthy of exploring in entertainment.”

“This ideology was obviously anti-men,” Winters added, “but the kicker is realizing it was also perniciously anti-women because it drove men out of the places women wanted to engage with them. Disney’s already taken the first step by recognizing they have a problem; the next step is to remain stubbornly open to stories they would have discarded as too traditional. It’s a time for tradition. Traditional stories stick around for a reason.”

A return to tradition, Winters argues, is precisely what Disney needs to survive. “Unfortunately for Disney, it’s both,” he said when asked whether the issue was about content or a deeper cultural disconnect. 

“On content, the boldest thing Disney can do right now is return to traditional storytelling – courageous heroes, nasty villains, and incredibly high stakes for believable characters who wrestle with timeless challenges like family, romance, revenge, redemption. You can tell these stories in outer space or [a] small town in Appalachia, because setting matters less than plot and character.”

The overarching failure, according to Winters, is how Disney treated young men for years.

“Regarding Gen Z men, Disney still treats them as if they don’t matter when it pushes cash-grab reboots aimed at them and not works of art crafted for them. ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Minecraft,’ the new superhero slop – this is the warmed-over childhood content of Millennials and Gen Xers. Worse, you’ve got these ideological political messages shoved in there. It totally kills the story,” Winters said, noting how young men “hate being told what to think.”

For decades, Winters notes, Disney never faced this problem. 

“Marvel, Star Wars, even Pirates of the Caribbean kept this 13–28 year old demographic engaged. What changed? Disney was fortunate to acquire some of the most compelling storytelling in American culture with the original Star Wars and Marvel comics. But these franchises were products of once-in-a-generation geniuses who did the creative heavy-lifting half a century ago or more. Ideological execs have squandered this inheritance for a payday or used them as a vehicle to ram political messages down their audiences’ throats. That’s propaganda, not storytelling.”

And “great storytelling,” Winters insists, is hard to come by because the content creators have to trust their audiences to come to certain conclusions. That will never work if the studio openly despises them. 

That’s why Winters disagrees with the suggestion floated in Variety that this problem can be solved by building new franchises centered on splashy adventures.

“Gen Z males are hungry for brotherhood and purpose. They want demanding missions where success is deeply consequential not just for them but for the people they care about. In the content they consume, that can involve treasure hunts and globe-trotting, but those things are secondary. Confusing them for the core is misguided and probably extremely expensive thinking for studio execs.”

The Variety piece described young men as isolated, stunted by COVID lockdowns, and obsessed with gaming. Winters sees a half-truth there. 

“They are lonely, but I take issue with the ‘gaming-obsessed’ thing because that’s not what they are really after. … The boys weren’t stunted by COVID but by the people who used it as an excuse to get more control over society. By and large, those people subscribed to the same bad ideology that is basically anti-male, anti-woman, and anti-civilization.”

When asked what’s missing in today’s blockbusters, Winters said it comes down to three things: “Authentic brotherhood. Transcendent purpose. Patriotism,” he said. 

“I write about young boys trying to become men, and all three of those things are critical to that. My novel ‘Last Summer Boys’ explores this in the Vietnam War-era of 1968, but it was a bestseller in 2022 because those are timeless concepts that people desperately want to engage with.”

“As a society, we become the stories we tell about ourselves,” the author said. “Disney understands this, it’s just for so long they injected their stories with an impoverished ideology. The blockbusters that say ‘to hell with that,’ and bring back brotherhood, purpose, and patriotism will dominate. By the way, women love those stories too.”

Despite the current state of entertainment, Winters remains optimistic: “Disney can absolutely turn this thing around. It’s an iconic American company with an incredible legacy. Just as important, the country is at a moment where we as Americans are willing to do the hard work of renewing and reviving our greatest institutions. Disney can change from within, but it should also recognize America has no shortage of incredibly talented writers and storytellers who love this country and are willing to work with them. Hire those people. Acquire their stories.”

In fact, Winters believes Disney’s crisis could be a blessing in disguise. “Really, Disney’s ‘boy trouble’ crisis is a gift for the company. Because the opportunity for them is enormous, and I don’t just mean commercially. If Disney starts telling authentic, powerful stories that men actually want to see, they will capture a rising demographic and participate in a renewal of American culture in a way worthy of the greatest institutions.”

Disney already admitted they have a problem – a classic first step. Now they just need to go about solving it in a way that doesn’t alienate young men even more.

This summer marked the end of an era in American Christianity. Within weeks of each other, pastor John MacArthur and psychologist James Dobson, two of the most influential evangelical leaders of the past half-century, passed away. MacArthur died on July 14 at the age of 86, followed by his friend Dobson on August 21 at 89. Their distinct but complementary approaches to faith and culture reshaped churches, families, and politics in profound ways.

Both men launched their ministries into the national spotlight in 1977, debuting radio programs at a time when evangelical broadcasting was entering a golden age. MacArthur’s verse-by-verse exposition of Scripture with “Grace to You” and Dobson’s biblical counsel on marriage and parenting with “Focus on the Family” would eventually reach tens of millions of households across the globe.

Troy Miller, president of the National Religious Broadcasters, told The Daily Wire that both men not only mastered radio but also foresaw the digital transition. “They were pioneers in adopting MP3s, moving into podcasts, and building digital platforms,” Miller said. “Grace to You and Focus on the Family became models for how to keep Christian teaching at the center of new technologies. And part of the legacy that these two men are going to leave was their insistence on being quality communicators, whatever the medium. Both of them worked very hard at their communication skills, whether it be preaching, speaking at conferences, or on the radio. They set the bar.”

Two Vocations, One Foundation

Although their ministries often intersected, MacArthur and Dobson took distinct paths to engaging culture. While the two men held the same positions on life, marriage, and sexuality, MacArthur avoided joining political coalitions, famously declining to sign the Manhattan Declaration, a 2009 statement that affirmed the sanctity of life and traditional marriage, because of his doctrinal differences with some of the statement’s authors.

Dobson, in contrast, leaned into politics. Not only was he one of the Manhattan Declaration’s most prominent signatories, in 1995, he also founded the Family Research Council, a Washington-based policy group that quickly became a central voice in the religious right.

Miller said the difference came down to vocation, not conviction. “John MacArthur understood he was a pastor,” he said. “That was his primary calling in life. And as a shepherd, his deepest desire was for people to understand the Word of God better. His expository preaching and teaching, his commentaries, his books were all meant to bring people closer to God. Dr. Dobson understood he was a psychologist. So he was concerned about culture and where culture was headed as a psychologist. They took these two different approaches, but behind both of them was a biblical foundation.”

Grace to You executive director Phil Johnson, who worked closely with MacArthur for more than 40 years, echoed that assessment. “John was always clear that he wasn’t opposed to political involvement by Christians and that there are Christians who are called to all sorts of vocations, including politics.” 

Dobson used his political vocation to tremendous effect.

Political science professor Hunter Baker, who first met Dobson while working as a religious liberty lobbyist, pointed out that by the late 1990s, the radio host had begun to eclipse the influence of the Moral Majority’s Jerry Falwell and the Christian Coalition’s Pat Robertson, in part, due to his academic credentials.

“Robertson and Falwell were essentially televangelists, and they had their influence. But then comes James Dobson. And a lot of people don’t remember this, but Dobson had an appointment at the USC Medical School as a child psychologist. He was there for 14 years in a very prestigious sort of position.” That credibility allowed Dobson to gain a hearing with audiences that would be less likely to tune into Robertson’s 700 Club or Falwell’s Old-Time Gospel Hour.

After he grew Focus on the Family into a cultural juggernaut, his mobilization of his Christian listeners helped secure the Republican Party’s transformation into a staunchly pro-life party.

“People want to think the Republican Party has always been this great pro-life party,” Baker said, “but Ronald Reagan was really the first one to decisively move in that direction. Yet his advisors were constantly wanting him to take pro-life rhetoric out of his speeches. And so that’s the Republican Party that Dobson was dealing with in the 90s. And in the late 1990s, Dobson, in his frustration, said, ‘I’m going to leave this party and I’m going to take as many people with me as I can.’ That was a threat that could not be ignored.”

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

After Dobson took his stand, Baker said, the GOP was forced to commit to the sanctity of life as a key issue. “I would argue that was really decisive. In 2008, even though he was the tremendously popular former mayor of New York City and viewed as a hero of 9/11, Rudy Giuliani got nowhere in that Republican primary process. Why? Because he would not become pro-life in order to run. Then, in 2012, Mitt Romney, who had previously been pro-choice, ran as a pro-life Republican. And I really put all of that at the feet of James Dobson more than anybody else.”

In 2016, Dobson would endorse Donald Trump at a time when few Christian leaders were willing to, helping to shore up Trump’s evangelical support that was vital to winning the election.

Standing Firm in Cultural Storms

Though MacArthur resisted joining formal political movements, when politics encroached on the church, he, too, did not hesitate to take a stand.

In 2018, when social justice and critical theory were infiltrating churches and ministries, MacArthur, just as he’d done when he publicly opposed segregation in the 1960s, spoke out. At the time, many nationally known pastors were promoting Black Lives Matter and its mission. MacArthur, in contrast, joined a statement against the Marxist ideology the movement is based on, explicitly rejecting “any teaching that encourages racial groups to view themselves as privileged oppressors or entitled victims of oppression.”

Courtesy John MacArthur

During the COVID-19 pandemic, he openly defied California’s restrictions on in-person worship, telling his congregation, “Whatever this virus is, it does not overpower First Amendment rights.” One of his final public acts came in 2022 when he sent a scathing letter to Governor Gavin Newsom addressing his use of Scripture to promote abortion:

[Y]ou revealed to the entire nation how thoroughly rebellious against God you are when you sponsored billboards across America promoting the slaughter of children, whom He creates in the womb (Psalm 139:13–16; Isaiah 45:9–12). You further compounded the wickedness of that murderous campaign with a reprehensible act of gross blasphemy, quoting the very words of Jesus from Mark 12:31 as if you could somehow twist His meaning and arrogate His name in favor of butchering unborn infants. You used the name and the words of Christ to promote the credo of Molech (Leviticus 20:1–5). It would be hard to imagine a greater sacrilege… My concern, Governor Newsom, is that your own soul lies in grave, eternal peril.

Johnson said both stances were consistent with MacArthur’s lifelong approach. “He believed the church must keep its focus on the gospel. And the letter to Newsom is a classic example of that because though he’s addressing a political leader, like John the Baptist did, with a very strong … gospel appeal.”

Generational Impact

Perhaps the clearest measure of MacArthur and Dobson’s legacies lies in the generations they shaped.

MacArthur’s influence can be seen in pulpits across the country. Thousands of pastors trained at the school he founded, The Master’s Seminary, or influenced by his preaching, now carry forward his model of expository preaching. Johnson shared that in his hometown of Tulsa, he once struggled to identify churches that offered sound, biblical preaching. Today, he said, he can point to many who trace their roots to MacArthur’s ministry. “All of them are connected somehow to John MacArthur. And that’s just one city. I think the whole country has benefited from the men who’ve been sent out from Master’s Seminary and men who’ve been influenced by people who’ve been influenced by John MacArthur.”

Thirty-two-year-old Nashville pastor, Jonny Ardavanis, is one such man. He recalled MacArthur’s advice when asked how to “pick your battles.” MacArthur’s answer was simple: “I pick every battle where gospel clarity and biblical authority are at stake.” Ardavanis said that principle continues to guide his ministry, and he believes the many comparisons to Charles Spurgeon that poured out on social media at news of MacArthur’s death were apt.

“Spurgeon is known as the prince of preachers, and John MacArthur is known for championing the authority and the sufficiency and the inerrancy of God’s word. That’s one of the things that John MacArthur really pushed on to the next generation of preachers—open up the Word of God and let it speak. It’s living and active…Both fought off the liberal drift of their day. Spurgeon was known for the downgrade controversy, where, at the time, the union was drifting in regards to the inerrancy and authority of God’s word. He stood staunch against that. MacArthur was known for the lordship debate, saying ‘Hey, you can’t call Jesus your savior without calling him your Lord,’ meaning that it was a rejection of cheap grace. And so both were known for preaching, but for standing firm on issues of doctrinal clarity.”

For Dobson, too, controversy was the cost of conviction, with critics frequently accusing him of turning from family counseling to the culture war. But Baker rejects that assessment. “People say Dobson spoiled his legacy by getting political,” he said, “but what if the issue had been slavery or segregation? We wouldn’t fault someone for standing up against those. Dobson saw abortion in that same category—a fundamental issue of justice.”

As Phil Johnson put it, “[MacArthur and Dobson] were both trying to stand astride the progress of history and say, ‘Wait a minute.’ They saw that a lot of what passed for progress was actually destructive, and they weren’t afraid to fight it.”

Jeff Fusco/Getty Images

A Shared Legacy

Since their deaths, many of MacArthur and Dobson’s listeners have expressed a measure of fear over what will happen to American Christianity now that the men they viewed as lions of the faith have gone. But Johnson feels that’s a failure to remember what both men taught.

“I understand,” he said, “because it seems like a string of men who we respect and trust, whose voices we want to hear have died. Yet I comfort myself with Christ’s words that he’s going to build his church and the gates of hell are not going to prevail against it. So he’ll raise up new voices and new people with new courage, people who actually are standing on the shoulders of these men. We lament the loss of their voices, but we also understand that all of them believed in the sovereignty of God, that they didn’t die by mistake, and that their time is in God’s hands and their shoes will be filled by someone who maybe we don’t even know yet that the Lord will raise up.”

Their voices may now be silent, but the pastors filling pulpits trained under MacArthur and the activists inspired by Dobson testify that their influence endures.