If you’ve been skim-reading the headlines lately, you may remember reading something about how signing up for a Disney+ account gives the Walt Disney Company the legal right to kill you. That might sound like a plot point straight out of “BoJack Horseman,” but it does have some basis in truth, and Disney’s new resident rascal Deadpool made a risqué joke about it while on the job at Disneyland Resort in Anaheim.
The story emerged after Dr. Kanokporn “Amy” Tangsuan died of an allergic reaction after eating at Raglan Road Irish Pub in Florida’s Walt Disney World, despite being repeatedly assured by a waiter that her meal was allergen-free. When Dr. Tangsuan’s husband, Jeffrey Piccolo, filed a $50,000 wrongful death lawsuit against Disney, court documents show that Disney filed a motion to send the case to arbitration instead. Among the documents cited was a Disney+ Subscriber Agreement that Mr. Piccolo had assented to in 2019 when signing up for a free trial of Disney+, which states that any disputes against Disney are “subject to a class action waiver and must be resolved by individual binding arbitration.”
Now, I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t comment on the legal validity of this defense. However, I do know a fair bit about writing headlines, and Disney responding to a wrongful death lawsuit with “well, you should have read the Disney+ terms and conditions” is a headline writer’s dream come true. A total PR disaster ensued and Disney hastily reversed course, withdrawing the motion to settle via arbitration. The company has framed this as an act of magnanimity, and therefore maintains the right to pull the “Disney+ Terms and Conditions” card for any future death disputes.
“With such unique circumstances as the ones in this case, we believe this situation warrants a sensitive approach,” Disney Experiences chairman Josh D’Amaro said in a statement to CNN. “As such, we’ve decided to waive our right to arbitration and have the matter proceed in court.”
Disney’s Deadpool clowns the Disney+ terms and conditions
The Merc with a Mouth doesn’t appear to be pulling his punches in “Deadpool & Wolverine.” He openly acknowledges the fact that he and Wolverine are joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe at “a bit of a low point,” and at one point pleads with Marvel Studios to quit trying to make the multiverse thing work. Now it seems that Disneyland Resort Anaheim’s Deadpool has taken these jokes as a challenge and is aiming to one-up them.
TikTok user Kaitie shared a video of a comedy routine between the resort’s Deadpool and Wolverine performers, in which Deadpool quips that “Cinderpool was late [to the big battle] because he had to read every single page in the terms and conditions when he signed up for Disney+.” The audience responds with a ripple of slightly shocked laughter, and when Wolverine says, “I don’t get it,” Deadpool slyly replies, “They do.”
This is definitely right on the edge of bad taste comedy, to the extent that it’s kind of fascinating. On the one hand, the joke really doesn’t fit with Disney’s statement about taking “a sensitive approach” to the situation. In the unlikely scenario that this joke was approved by Disney higher-ups, it would mean the company is turning Dr. Tangsuan’s death into entertainment fodder for paying customers, adding insult to fatal injury while the family’s grief is still fresh.
Assuming the far more likely scenario that the Deadpool performer (or the writer who penned this sketch) simply tried to slip the gag in under the radar, there’s already speculation that they’ll be fired (or worse) before the week is out. However, the line is actually quite cleverly drafted to allow for plausible deniability; this Deadpool could simply claim that he was just making a classic joke about terms and conditions being too long for anyone to actually read. Alternatively, he could argue that he was staying in character as Disney’s new resident court jester.
If both of those defenses fail, at least he’ll always have the fallback option of selling used cars.
