Splash Mountain - an inconvenient sploosh

Overheal

https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2020/06/11/disneys-splash-mountain-ride-is-based-song-south-petitioners-want-change-that/




While there is no response from Disney a petition online is calling for splash mountain to be re-themed to reflect Princess and the Frog, instead of Song of the South. The Walt Disney Company has been very supportive of the protest movement however so it’s safe to say they’re looking at the issue.

Most people who have been on splash mountain I would say by a large margin have never even heard of Song of the South, and probably fewer than that would have remembered the character of Uncle Remus, a black post-abolition crop-sharer that reminisces about ‘them good old days’ living under chattel slavery, afaik. Needless to say it’s one of those things that once you’re informed of it is really cringeworthy and unsettling. Disney removed depictions of Remus and ‘tar baby’ eons ago, but imo that effort is really poor.

If anything if they decide to refresh the theme in a year or two I imagine they could come up with some really neat modern spectacle to enhance the rides as well. I’m not necessarily on board with attempts to make the refresh princess and the frog specifically, it looks like it has its own potential for content objections, from an imagineering perspective the ride mechanisms and design lends itself to being efficiently converted to a frog and bayou centric movie theme.

ohnonotgmail

I've been on splash mountain and had no idea it was connected to Song of the south.