Let's lay everything out on the table. No one thinks that the attraction is racist or that any of the characters on the attraction are racist. The problem is that in today's society there is a narrative being pushed that the movie that the attraction is based on is racist (I've included a very interesting perspective on that below). But none of the alleged racist parts of the movie are included anywhere on the attraction. In fact, Splash Mountain is one of the most happy, fun-loving attractions in all of Disneyland.
So Disney wants to replace one of the most happy, fun-loving attractions with an attraction based on one of the darkest Disney movies since The Black Cauldron. My kids leave Splash Mountain singing "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" and "How Do You Do?" for the rest of the day. They won't even watch The Princess and the Frog because they don't like the scariness/darkness of it.
One of the reason's Galaxy's Edge was a flop in the beginning was the lack of music in the area compared with the rest of Disneyland. The music from Song of the South is happy, energizing, upbeat, and catchy - a perfect fit for Disneyland. The music from Princess and the Frog - blah.
This will end up being a disaster for Disney if they actually go through with this. Changing out one of the most beloved attractions and replacing it with a dark, uninspiring theme? What is Disney thinking? They are becoming their own worst enemy. Clearly the wrong people are making the decisions for Disney right now.
*As mentioned above, here is an interesting perspective on race and the movie, Song of the South:
Floyd Norman was an artist, writer, and an award winning black filmmaker. He worked for Disney from 1956 until 1966, animating such films as Sleeping Beauty, The Sword in the Stone, Mary Poppins, and the Jungle Book. After leaving Disney, he created his own studio called Vignette Films where he focused more on educational films about black history, juvenile justice, social studies, etc.
In February 2005 he was interviewed by Celbi Vagner Pegoraro about his time working for Disney. One of the questions centered around the movie "Song of the South." Here is the question and the response, unedited, as it appeared in the book Walt's People Volume 3:
Pegoraro: What do you think of Song of the South?
Norman: I guess people interpret the stories by Joel Chandler Harris in many different ways. I always saw the characters of Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, and Br'er Bear as southern in orgin. Whether they were black or white was not really an issue, because in the old south, both whites and blacks spoke with the same dialect.
Adding to that, I don't see Song of the South as white culture or black culture. Rather to me it's always been about American Southern culture. I think people make too much of what were simple stories told to entertain and sometimes educate children. As I wrote in my column, I've shown this wonderful Disney film to black audiences and they loved the movie. I suppose there are many people out there with their own agendas who are making way too much out of a simple movie about a wonderful old storyteller who loved children. The whole issue of racism is overblown.
