Re-branding Splash Mountain isn’t easy
Ride has long history of racial insensitivity
Disneyland had a problem. The “America Sings” show filled with singing audio animatronic animals often played to empty seats. Meanwhile, Disney’s Southern California competitors built new log rides that became instant fan favorites.
So Disneyland hatched a plan to save the animatronics while building its own version of a water ride, calling it Splash Mountain. Orlando’s version opened three years later in 1992.
“The biggest thing to understand — nobody ever intended to create a ride that was offensive. They were literally just looking for a theme for a flume,” said Jim Hill, a historian who often blogs and podcasts about Disney.
But now, during a national racial awakening, Disney is seeking to further distance itself from the ride inspired by a movie called “Song of the South.” The com
pany announced last month that Br’er Rabbit is disappearing to make room for the “The Princess and the Frog” featuring Tiana, Disney’s first Black princess.
Splash Mountain in its current form will be open this week as the Magic Kingdom emerges from the coronavirus pandemic shutdown. Disney has not released a timeline for moving forward, but Disney experts say the makeover will take a few years and also poses a new series of challenges.
Some say it’s long overdue for the company to change Splash Mountain. The ride’s storyline centering around Br’er Rabbit’s adventures from Disney’s 1946 film “Song of the South” spins a false myth of the Noble South, said Susan Peppers-Bates, a Stetson University associate philosophy professor.
“White people have loved and laughed at caricaturing Black people for a very long time. Splash Mountain has been a part of that,” said Peppers-Bates, director of the school’s Africana Studies Program. “Splash Mountain will feel very different if you are an African-American or a white person who knows anything about history.”
Yet, revising the attraction won’t be easy.
The ride was built with sturdy, sculpted concrete impenetrable to water damage, something Disney did after learning tough maintenance lessons with “It’s A Small World” and “Pirates of the Caribbean,” Hill said.
That means the existing space to work with could be trickier for construction crews, said Hill, who jokes the Imagineers outsmarted themselves.
Spending more on Splash Mountain — which cost $75 million to open in 1992 — is happening as Walt Disney Co. has already suffered tremendous losses from closing its global parks during the pandemic.
“This is going to have real financial impacts, and by investing in Splash Mountain, that means something else is not going to get built. Something else is not going to get fixed,” said Jim Korkis, a former Disney employee who has written multiple books on the company’s history, including “Who’s Afraid of the Song of the South?”
And Disney must also win over fans who aren’t as familiar with the songs from “Princess and the Frog,” a film that lacks the instantly recognizable hits from Disney’s other films, Korkis said.
“You still have people sing ‘Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah,’ even though the film [”Song of the South”] hasn’t been available since 1986,” he said.
Disney’s top Imagineer says “Princess and the Frog” was the right fit to take over the ride.
“Tiana is a modern, courageous, and empowered woman who pursues her dreams while never losing sight of what’s really important,” said Bob Weis, president of Walt Disney Imagineering, in an interview last month with Disney’s official fan club, D-23. “It’s a great story with a strong lead character, set against the backdrop of New Orleans and the Louisiana bayou.”
Shawn Rosell remembers childhood memories of riding Splash Mountain for the first time with his family. It’s a 52-foot soaking plunge that’s hard to forget.
“I still think it’s a fun ride,” said Rosell, 39, who is Black and a theme parks fan who actively comments on Disney on social media.
Grown up, he bought a bootleg copy of “Song of the
South” and later read the book that inspired the film by Joel Chandler Harris, a white author who recorded the stories of slaves.
Peppers-Bates, who is white, says Harris appropriated Black voices and dialect while he wrote about the adventures of Br’er Fox & Co.
Splash Mountain’s cheerfully catchy theme song “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” has origins tied to ministerial entertainers performing in blackface who mocked freed slaves, she said.
To know the history of Splash Mountain doesn’t ruin the ride, Rosell said. He describes it as adding complexity and layers so it “takes a different shape.”
“There’s a lot of Disney attractions that have a deeper story, but a lot of people see it at the surface,” he said. “Then you learn the history of it. … The innocence of it is taken away.”
Korkis argues that what makes “Song of the South” so controversial is that few have seen it.
The film was never released on home video in the United States, and Disney executive Bob Iger reiterated in March the movie will not appear on the Disney Plus streaming services, even with cultural disclaimers.
“Most people don’t consciously make the connection between Splash Mountain and the film,” Korkis said. “You don’t have any human characters at all. You have talking animals, which is very much the brand of Disney.”
Korkis said the film depicts the Reconstruction, so Black characters working in the fields are paid and earning money. In that era, it wasn’t uncommon for Hollywood films to portray racist stereotypes, but Disney’s film showed Black characters as sympathetic and likable, Korkis said.
Yet Korkis said it’s not surprising Disney Imagineers would look to update Splash Mountain to try to get more return visits from tourists.
Rosell celebrates Disney’s decision, saying it finally gives Princess Tiana the spotlight in her own ride and as a role model.
The return of Disney World comes during a time of racial reckoning. This summer, protestors voiced anger at George Floyd’s death at the hands of police in Minnesota and marched across the country, including in Central Florida. In the South, Confederate statues and flags were pulled down.
But some Disney fans have argued vehemently that Splash Mountain should be preserved. On social media, their comments urge the company to keep their favorite ride the same.
“Losing splash mountain is like losing a heritage!! Most people would miss it if it’s gone!!” one person responded on the Disney parks blog post that announced the change.
Yet, Disney has a history of constantly evolving and eliminating scenes in the rides that some deem offensive.
Take the Pirates of Caribbean, where a scene of pirates chasing women was reverted to put the women in charge and doing the chasing. The ride was updated again in 2018 with another feminist twist to make a redheaded woman a pirate in the revamped auction sequence.
“We have a longstanding history of enhancing attractions with ‘new magic,‘” Weis told D-23 last month. “We completely understand that these decisions aren’t always popular, but I think our biggest fans know that we care as much as they do.”