Daily Wire Launches Children’s Entertainment Company Bentkey
The Daily Wire has made another advancement in the culture wars. Yesterday, the 100th anniversary of Disney, the conservative media company launched its own children’s entertainment company, Bentkey. In a video introducing Bentkey, Daily Wire co-founder Jeremy Boreing said the company will not be about politics but “childhood, and wonder, and adventure… values, and all the things politics are built on later.” And Bentkey is hitting the ground running with an app that has “over 100 episodes” of various cartoons and live-action children’s shows available, with new episodes going up every Saturday morning. Additionally, Betkey is making movies, with its first being an adaptation of Snow White, called Snow White and the Evil Queen, which will be released in 2024. You can see Boreing’s introduction to Bentkey below:
Whatever your opinion of The Daily Wire, you have to admit that they’re putting their money where their mouth is, and putting themselves on the front line of the culture war. Offering an entertainment alternative is an important step, and they’ve done so with films like Shut In and Terror on the Prairie (for which they hired Gina Carano, whom Disney fired), as well as the documentary What is a Woman? Others have followed in their footsteps, like Breitbart with its satire My Son Hunter. Others have been around for a while, like Angel Studios, which released the wildly successful Sound of Freedom. (If I could make a request of them, it would be to try to work with S. Craig Zahler; their sensibilities would mesh well, and he’s a terrific filmmaker.) But The Daily Wire going in this direction is a big deal, and releasing children’s entertainment is the perfect next step. Sure, there’s an ideology behind it, but the same is true of mainstream entertainment now; in fact, I’d be willing to bet it’s more subtle in Bentkey productions than it is in Disney’s output over the last few years (unless you consider Hank Pym extolling the virtues of socialism subtle). And they’re off to a great start; the Bentkey app is already “the number one downloaded kids app” on Apple’s app store.
Making a Snow White adaptation their first movie is a stroke of genius. The talk of Hollywood for the last few months, outside of the strikes, has been Disney’s upcoming girlboss modernization of a timeless fairy tale starring an ungrateful brat who hates the story and belittles it every chance she gets. As Boreing says in the video, this is the movie that built Disney, a huge risk that is still paying off eighty-six years later. Releasing a traditional adaptation, one that embraces and celebrates the values and themes of the original story, at the same time Disney is desecrating it is not just a thrown gauntlet but a clear mission statement for Bentkey. Nothing against Jeremy Boreing, but his promises in a YouTube video don’t mean much to the average person; a demonstration, however, can say everything. It’s deliciously poetic that Disney gift-wrapped this opportunity for The Daily Wire, sending the clearest signal of their hatred for American culture (I know Snow White the fairy tale is not American, but the movie is, and has been an indelible part of our entertainment landscape and shared childhoods since it was made) and allowing Bentkey to counter that. I don’t know if the plan is to release the film theatrically (it should be), and I’m sure Hollywood and the media will do everything they can to prevent Snow White and the Evil Queen from ever seeing the inside of a theater, but can you imagine if this beats Disney’s obnoxious remake at the box office? It’s possible; Sound of Freedom out-earned Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny domestically, and the buzz around Disney’s new and improved Snow White is not exactly positive. 2024 is going to be an interesting year for American pop culture, perhaps even more so than 2023 has been.
