OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher complimented Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during his Friday show. He said he believes the former 2024 GOP presidential contender was right about his reservations regarding ‘woke’ Disney.
In addition, Maher said that he believes “Drag Queen Story Hour,” where men dressed in drag are allowed to read to small children, “borders on abuse.”
The comedian’s remarks about DeSantis pertained to the governor’s accusations that Disney sexualizes children, Breitbart News reported.
After talking about the allegations of mistreatment of child stars by Nickelodeon in the “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV” documentary, Maher said the film “also exposed hypocrisy, because it must be pointed out that, when the evil Governor of Florida was saying the exact same thing about kids and creepy stuff at Disney that liberals now find intolerable at Nickelodeon, he was dismissed as a hick and a bigot.”
“But why would a kids’ content factory like Disney be all that different than the one at Nickelodeon? … [I]n 2021, Disney child star Alyson Stoner confessed she only ‘narrowly survived the toddler-to-trainwreck pipeline.‘ The next year, child star Cole Sprouse told The New York Times that young actresses at the Disney Channel were ‘heavily sexualized’ from an early age,” he continued.
“Willie Sutton said he robbed banks because that’s where the money is, and the reason we find pedophiles in the Boy Scouts and the rectory and kids’ TV is that’s where the kids are,” he continued. “DeSantis wasn’t wrong. But we’re so tribal now that the left will overlook child f**king if the guy from the wrong party calls it out. Sure, Nickelodeon messed up Amanda Bynes, but The Mickey Mouse Club was where Britney Spears got her start, and she’s perfectly fine. And get this: After Brian Peck, who was one of the lead creeps at Nickelodeon, served 16 months in prison for the molesting he did there, Disney hired him, naturally, to work on a children’s series.”
Maher continued:
And not just Hollywood. There are Instagram moms these days who are practically OnlyFans-ing their itty-bitty beauty queen daughters by having them wear skimpy bikinis and eat bananas to build social media stardom. …
And people who believe in social justice have agreed this is wrong and this is bad and exposing kids to an adult world of lurid costumes and garish makeup borders on abuse. Now, hurry up and get in the car. We’re late for drag queen story hour.
Not that there’s anything wrong with being a drag queen, but maybe it’s time to admit that, sometimes, drag queen story hour is more for the queen than the kids. Sure, kids love a clown, but does the clown have to have tits? … If you want kids to be more tolerant, why not have handicapped people read them stories? Kids are more likely to encounter disabled people than drag queens in life.
In July 2022, the GOP governor announced that his administration would be taking legal action against a Miami bar investigators say allowed minors and children in to watch drag queen shows involving scantily-clad performers.
According to documents obtained by The Daily Caller, his administration will file suit against the bar for allegedly allowing children to be exposed to sexually explicit content.
DeSantis talked about the complaint during a subsequent speech in Tampa while speaking out against ongoing cultural attempts to sexualize children.
“It used to be – people have different views about what they want to do as adults – but it used to be, you know, the kids are off limits,” DeSantis said. “No one wanted to bring the kids into any of this stuff, and we’ve got to get back to that.”
In a tweet containing a video clip of his remarks, DeSantis wrote: “Florida stands with parents to protect children. Exposing children to inappropriate sexualized content is wrong and the state will hold accountable those establishments that transgress this clear boundary.”
