Disney isn't over their 'Wokeness' quite yet...

Splash Mountain opened in 1992 at Disneyland in Florida. It is set in a southern bayou, based on the 1946 film Song Of The South.

It it is being shut down due to its racist stereotypes and portrayal of African Americans in post-Civil War South. Song Of The South is a mix of live action, cartoons, and music, featuring an old black plantation laborer named Uncle Remus.

He entertains a white city boy with fables of talking animals. The movie is best known for the song Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah. The Disney attraction was a boat ride through different scenes during which visitors meet characters called Brer Bear, Fox and Rabbit.Its famous feature is a 50ft drop into the Briar Patch.

Disney CEO Bob Iger said in 2020: "I've felt, as long as I've been CEO, that 'Song of the South' was — even with a disclaimer — was just not appropriate in today's world." The new Tiana ride is a fitting replacement as The Princess And The Frog features Disney's first black princess.

Groups including the NAACP protested the film’s initial release. The movie is not available to the millions of subscribers of the company’s Disney Plus streaming service. A Change.org petition which called for the recasting stated: "While the ride is considered a beloved classic it’s history and storyline are steeped in extremely problematic and stereotypical racist tropes from the 1946 film Song of the South."

 

The petition continued that while the storyline of the ride was not an exact version of the film's plotline, the characters, songs, and locations were all main features of the ride. It added that Disney had removed Song Of The South from its library, and called for "all traces of this racist movie" go and Splash Mountain to be turned into a Princess And The Frog themed ride.