Fans Are Trying To Get Disney to Change Splash Mountain to a Moana or Princess and the Frog Ride

Was hoping for Moana.. Owell..

@Professor Zoom
True. It's quite okay to discontinue etc.
It's just that alot of company's are in a Cover Your A%# cya.. Mode just to appease the Twitter mob..

 

Of the three mentioned here, I actually liked Zootopia as the best choice. I love that movie, and don't think it gets the kind attention it deserves.

 

Twitter is just another way to call shit out that should've been called out ages ago. Song of the South was racist when it was made, it didn't suddenly become so. Blackface was always racist, it didn't suddenly become so.

Maybe the mob should be appeased.

 

Sometimes.. Twitter is useful for some things but 80% bullcrap and not represenitive of the actually people.. Just the loudest.. Which is not always right.

Just like to say again.. This particular case is fine, it's a racist crap..

 

Disney didn't decide to do this based on a petition, because that's not how design R&D works.

 

wouldn't be at all surprised if there were already talks about something along these lines already going on before the petition, but the petition pretty clearly played some role in the announcement. It's not a coincidence they announced the change to exactly what people wanted in the petition, just a few days after it came out.

 

Nope.

This changeover plan has been in active development for a year or more (I've heard reports of plans being developed beginning 3 years ago).

The petition had absolutely nothing to do with this, and it's mere coincidence that the timing of the announcement just happens to coincide with a new uptick in social clamor regarding racism.

 

Twitter activists are often right, because they are often representing the views of marginalized people whom traditional media ignored because of the white supremacist values that permeate our culture at every level.

The fact that they make you uncomfortable does not make them wrong.

 

Well shit; not the retheme that I wanted. RIP bunnies and rabbits.

 

80% of everything is crap.

 

Has anyone in this thread actually seen the movie in the last 30 years? I include myself in that. It seems like the reputation just keeps growing. The impression I get from statement by people who have seen it recently is the issue with the movie boils down to the fact that the black characters, who, I remind you, are not slaves (it's post civil war), are happy and show no ill will towards the plantation owners/white people. Because Disney movies are totally known for their realistic depictions of historical settings. I get why this is a problem (whitewashing might not be the right term, but you get the idea), but I'm not sure racist is the right descriptor either. But again I haven't seen the movie recently to have a first hand opinion.

And before you bring up the Tar Baby issue, that term has an interesting history with no racial elements, despite some people mistakenly believing it to be a slur (like the makers of the Roots remake).

 

^ I've procured copies out of curiosity and because my stepfather specifically asked when he couldn't find it. That's basically it I think, it's more the systemic problems than the overt.

 

I'd really recommend listening the You Must Remember This podcast I linked earlier. She goes into the contemporaneous responses to the film.

I don't think I ever saw the whole film, I remember seeing clips as a kid, specifically the Zip Pa Dee Do Dah sequence, but I was young and didn't recognize the coding in the representation -- just a happy old black man, happy to be working for his former masters.

 

The timeframe of the film is textually ambiguous. The idea it's post-Civil War comes from promotional materials, not the film itself.

More than that: They are happy to live and work on a plantation under the power of white people, and they are depicted as subservient to white people and happy in their subservience. The relationship being depicted in such a dynamic is identical to the relationship depicted in pro-slavery propaganda.

Realism is not the issue. Perpetuation of the "happy slave" concept is the problem.

"Whitewashing" and "racist" are absolutely the right descriptors here, and I'm not sure how anyone could argue otherwise.

 

There's no evidence that the announcement is a coincidence.

 

I see, that makes sense. I was thinking more about the direct depictions of the characters rather than the overall air of willing subservience.

 

I find it very, very hard to believe that it was.

 

Yes, there is.

The official announcement indicates that this reskinning plan for Splash Mountain has been in the works for an entire year, and other reporting on the project has indicated that it may have been in the works beginning 3 years ago.

Disney had already been planning to change Splash Mountain's theme long before people started signing a petition asking them to do so, and long before the deaths of George Floyd and others prompted this uptick in protests over racial inequality and race-based controversy.

 

I'm honestly suprised they ever went with Song of the South in the first place. For all the obvious reasons, plus its just not one that is not well remembered, anyway.

 

Zip a Dee Doo Dah is well remembered though, maybe that was a factor? Wasn't it a theme song on Wonderful World of Disney, the old one? I was surprised to find it's still around and kicking even now.
https://video.disney.com/watch/disneyjunior-zippity-doo-dah-4cd36f1eecb78e6364a2bd15