A recent report alleges that Disney removed Tinker Bell meet-and-greets from its Disney World Florida park, due to the character being considered “problematic” by the company.
This may not be unconnected to findings from a 2022 New York Times report.
It reported that Disney had launched a “Stories Matter” team that was designed to “ensure (our content) accurately represents our global audiences.”
The team’s job was to find specific stories and characters that could be problematic and explain the potential issues with them.
Disney executives took issue with both Tinker Bell and Captain Hook, the former for body image and jealousy concerns and the latter for ableism.
While those findings may explain why the character is no longer available for meet and greets, she is reportedly still available at Disneyland in California.
Tinkerbell is still a part of the Happily Ever After fireworks display that takes place every night at Magic Kingdom, so it’s not as if her presence has been removed from the parks entirely.
While the Stories Matter team did find that Tinkerbell was problematic, the decision to remove her from the park may have had nothing to do with that finding.
However, Tinkerbell is not banished from Disneyland yet but it’s simply not part of the character meet-and-greet lineup at the moment.
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