Hasbro CEO: We’re NOT Dropping Harry Potter! (News Bite)

0:005 a.m. I'm up with a crisp Celsius energy drink, running 12 miles today. Grab a green juice, quick change, and head to work. Meetings, workshops, one more Celsius, no slowing down. Working late, but obviously still meeting the girls for a little dancing. Celsius, live, fit, go. Grab a cold, refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now at Celsius.com. So Hasbro is defending their Harry Potter license and people are mad about it, right? So Hasbro did get the license for Harry Potter. They are going to be producing toys and games and I know early on the people at Wizards of the Coast were making a point to come out and say, hey guys, we're not going to do anything Harry Potter. That's not going to be their decision. If Hasbro decides they want to do Harry Potter magic cards or whatever, that's going to be something they're told to do, right? And this is a big company. Hasbro is a big company. I know people who aren't happy with JK Rowling have gotten smaller game

1:00developers canceled or attempted to cancel them or guilt them or shame them or whatever to drop the license or donate the money to charity or whatever. That's not going to work with a company like Hasbro. I'm sure they've gone after Lego, I'm sure they've gone after Universal, they've gone after Hershey Chocolate, whoever touches Harry Potter at this point, that sounds pretty bad. But you know what I'm saying. So now they're coming for Hasbro and they're deflecting, right? You know, deflector patronus. I don't know what variety has it. Harry Potter toy company CEO says we support diversity when asked about JK Rowling's transphobia, hurting people in the fandom, it's separating the art from the artist. So Chris Cox appeared on the Dakota podcast. It was asked about the recent deal with Warner Bros. Discovery for Harry Potter. The deal was met with some backlash as podcast host and the lay Patel related to Cox that Harry Potter author, JK Rowling has very loud politics. They're turning off a lot of younger consumers. Her transphobia is turning off lots of young consumers.

2:00Really, Hogwarts legacy sold a bunch and a lot of people are going to the wizarding world in the Universal theme parks. I'm just saying I don't think it's turning off as many people as you think it is. How do you make this decision when the creator of the property is actively reducing the fandom and hurting a lot of people in that fandom? For me, it's separating the art from the artist and going to what the core fans want, Cox responded. I'm not going to get into the politics around it other than to say we very strongly support diversity and inclusion inside of Hasbro. We are proud. We are proud of it and proud of the diversity of viewpoints and backgrounds we have in our employee base. Harry Potter is a wonderful franchise. It's done a great job of bringing joy to the world. Well, that's just it. That's how you shut these people down. You don't have to buy the stuff at all. You don't have to agree with JK Rowling, but the links that some of these people have gone to to try to cancel anybody who has anything to do with this show, with this currently being filmed with HBO. I know John Lithgow. They're going after him. They went after Michelle Gomez, who actually has been very vocal in her support of trans people. They went after her for doing

3:04the audiobook. I mean, it's kind of crazy. Just don't buy the stuff. It's not hard. Just don't buy it. If you don't want to support JK Rowling, don't buy it. But other people are going to for a hundred percent.