Disney Announces Redesign of Splash Mountain
Splash Mountain, a Disney Theme Park staple ride, is undergoing a design change in response to complaints about its association with the movie Song of the South. Disney announced in an assertion on Thursday that the ride would be "re-themed" to recognition at the 2009 animated film The Princess and the Frog.
A Change.Org petition says that the log flume trip — versions of which are in Disney parks in Florida, California, and Japan — is "steeped in extremely problematic and stereotypical racist tropes," from the 1946 film. That petition, which known as for the redesign announced Thursday, has acquired extra than 20,000 signatures. While the announcement made clean that Splash Mountain might be redesigned in Disneyland and Disney World, it did not point out the model of the trip that exists in Tokyo.
Former Disney CEO Bob Iger has mentioned that Song of the South, whose characters are depicted within the animatronic part of the ride, is "now not suitable in today's world." Iger stated in March that the movie, which combines live-movement and animation elements and is set on a Georgia plantation after the Civil War, would now not be blanketed at the company's Disney+ platform.
In 1946, when the movie was released by way of Disney, the NAACP strongly disapproved of the movie, pronouncing that "in an effort neither to offend audiences in the North or South, the production allows to perpetuate a dangerously glorified picture of slavery...[the film] unfortunately offers the influence of an idyllic master-slave relationship which is a distortion of the facts."
Disney parks formerly modified the famous ride Pirates of the Caribbean, casting off its misogynist depiction of a "bridal auction" in 2017. In Disney's assertion, spokesman Michael Ramirez said that the re-theming of Splash Mountain had been in the works since last year, but nodded to its relevance to discussions of race in America.
"The retheming of Splash Mountain is of specific importance today," Ramirez stated in Disney's assertion. It is an inclusive new concept that every one of our visitors can connect with and be, and it speaks to the range of the thousands and thousands of those who go to our parks each year. "