News Splash Mountain retheme to Princess and the Frog - Tiana's Bayou Adventure

[LittleBuford]

I don’t say there’s no issues with the film; but the Bre’r characters existed before SoTS, and surely should exist after that. They’re just critters. It’s the storytelling vehicles and or/devices that Disney used and surrounded them with that are what to me can be found offensive.

Let’s ask a hypothetical; let’s say that in SoTS Remus told tales of Steamboat Willie ( Mickey’s ) antics with Goofy and Donald in the laughing place. Is there doubt Disney would reject calls to eliminate rides featuring Mickey, because he happened to be used in unfortunate contextual setting in a film? Would calls to cancel Disney’s most famous character be reasonable? Why do you think Disney went through the trouble of excising every live action SoTS reference, but used the Bre’r characters? Because they’re just that, animal critter characters with no inherent racism or stereotyping. They existed beforehand in old stories, were utilized by Disney in an unfortunate film and setting, and have been used again, not just in SM.

The key thing to my mind is that the characters as they appear in the parks are the characters as known from Song of the South. There's just no getting around that. The stories' longer history seems irrelevant to me, just as the content of J. M. Barrie's play has little bearing on whether the Indian scene in Peter Pan's Flight should be changed or not.

I'm not really sure what to make of your hypothetical question. Mickey, Goofy, and Donald were already well established and much loved by the time Song of the South was made; had they (inexplicably) appeared in it, their reputations would not have suffered any lasting damage, because no-one today would associate them to any great degree with the film. (I can say this with reasonable certainty given that Mickey and pals have featured in plenty of problematic content over the years.) The Brer characters, by contrast, entered Disney's stable with and because of Song of the South; they cannot be disassociated from it.

 

[LittleBuford]

The Disney Br'er characters aren't *just* critters, they themselves are racist stereotypes. If you can't see that, it's probably because you don't want to and you have convinced yourself otherwise.

I don't agree. Other posters have said this citing their accents, but African-American Vernacular English is a perfectly valid form of English.

 

[harryk]

Disney should release the SOtS again so that the whole public can see it again and decide if there is a problem.

 

[DisneyDodo]

@Phil12 I stand corrected on the “nobody claims” assertion, but the claim itself is still truly bonkers and wasn’t even included in the petition that seemed to spark this decision (or at least significantly accelerate its announcement).

 

[skypilot2922]

I don't agree. Other posters have said this citing their accents, but African-American Vernacular English is a perfectly valid form of English.

Also called BEV - Black English Vernacular which led to whats now called Ebonics

 

[TikibirdLand]

The Disney Br'er characters aren't *just* critters, they themselves are racist stereotypes. If you can't see that, it's probably because you don't want to and you have convinced yourself otherwise.

Sorry. guess I'm blind to your assertion. Could you please elaborate? I truly want to understand this position...

 

[Mystery1932]

I’ve always loved the idea of Disney having ‘deep cut’ rides. When they use old IP that it just sitting around unused, then it’s suddenly used in a theme park attraction, I love that. Splash Mountain is the epitome of that.

I am also as nostalgic as the next person and I am not personally offended by the use of Song of the South. If it were up to me, the theme stays.

But it’s not up to me and a lot of people do have a problem with it. Plus, the most important thing for me is that Splash Mountain is a premier attraction at the most visited theme park on earth and it was filled with old animatronics 30 years ago when it was built. It desperately needs an overhaul to bring the ride up to the standards of the day.

If a rethemeing of a long ignored ride is what’s required to make Splash Mountain’s ride experience and effects relevant again, so be it.

 

[Roger_the_pianist]

Sorry. guess I'm blind to your assertion. Could you please elaborate? I truly want to understand this position...

The animated sequences of Song of the South are essentially animated minstrel shows. The songs dwell heavily in the minstrel idiom as do the characters and especially their dialects. And of course the tar baby sequence is a big cringe, and Br'er Rabbit himself ends up in blackface when he is covered in tar as he abuses the tar baby, clearly made to resemble a black child.

People will argue as they have in these past pages that the tar baby is only a *metaphor* for a *sticky situation*...but I don't buy that. People will also argue that the dialects are vaguely southern, but they are full of stereotype that means more towards black dialects. I find them just as bad as the Dumbo crows, but since the animals fur is not black like the crows feathers people make a distinction. The dialect was even worse in the Disney storybook of the Uncle Remus tales, and I never have compared it to the original Joel Chandler Harris. That would be an interesting comparison unless Disney just reprinted the original material with Disney illustrations, which I am not sure is the case.

Imagine Disney were to release just the animated sections as shorts on Disney+
.. The Tar Baby sequence on a modern streaming service? Would be insane.

I posted the tar baby sequence here for people who hadn't seen it or hadn't seen it in a while, but it got removed. It's easily found on YouTube.

 

[LittleBuford]

The songs dwell heavily in the minstrel idiom as do the characters and especially their dialects.

They are voiced by Black actors. AAVE is a perfectly respectable variety of English.

 

[Roger_the_pianist]

They are voiced by Black actors. AAVE is a perfectly respectable variety of English.

Does anyone honestly think this kind of dialect would fly in anything made today?

People who want some kind of reboot of the characters...I have no idea what you think they would look and sound like.

 

[TikibirdLand]

The animated sequences of Song of the South are essentially animated minstrel shows. The songs dwell heavily in the minstrel idiom as do the characters and especially their dialects. And of course the tar baby sequence is a big cringe, and Br'er Rabbit himself ends up in blackface when he is covered in tar as he abuses the tar baby, clearly made to resemble a black child.

People will argue as they have in these past pages that the tar baby is only a *metaphor* for a *sticky situation*...but I don't buy that. People will also argue that the dialects are vaguely southern, but they are full of stereotype that means more towards black dialects. I find them just as bad as the Dumbo crows, but since the animals fur is not black like the crows feathers people make a distinction. The dialect was even worse in the Disney storybook of the Uncle Remus tales, and I never have compared it to the original Joel Chandler Harris. That would be an interesting comparison unless Disney just reprinted the original material with Disney illustrations, which I am not sure is the case.

Imagine Disney were to release just the animated sections as shorts on Disney+
.. The Tar Baby sequence on a modern streaming service? Would be insane.

I posted the tar baby sequence here for people who hadn't seen it or hadn't seen it in a while, but it got removed. It's easily found on YouTube.

I do see your point regarding the tar baby sequence. However, that story is pretty close to Harris' portayal of that story. Of course, we have no original source material to compare his writing to the spoken word of those providing the stories.
Regarding the black dialects; my understanding is that there is documentation in Harris' book that seem to indicate that style. Other examples can be found in books of the same period. But Harris genuinely tried to capture southern Georgia black dialect of the period. Indeed, the foreward to his book discusses just this subject. I don't think you'd hear much difference in that speech and what Disney depicts vocally. Would be curious if you can.

 

[UNCgolf]

The animated sequences of Song of the South are essentially animated minstrel shows. The songs dwell heavily in the minstrel idiom as do the characters and especially their dialects. And of course the tar baby sequence is a big cringe, and Br'er Rabbit himself ends up in blackface when he is covered in tar as he abuses the tar baby, clearly made to resemble a black child.

People will argue as they have in these past pages that the tar baby is only a *metaphor* for a *sticky situation*...but I don't buy that. People will also argue that the dialects are vaguely southern, but they are full of stereotype that means more towards black dialects. I find them just as bad as the Dumbo crows, but since the animals fur is not black like the crows feathers people make a distinction. The dialect was even worse in the Disney storybook of the Uncle Remus tales, and I never have compared it to the original Joel Chandler Harris. That would be an interesting comparison unless Disney just reprinted the original material with Disney illustrations, which I am not sure is the case.

Imagine Disney were to release just the animated sections as shorts on Disney+
.. The Tar Baby sequence on a modern streaming service? Would be insane.

I posted the tar baby sequence here for people who hadn't seen it or hadn't seen it in a while, but it got removed. It's easily found on YouTube.

The tar baby story itself (in many forms) has a long history in story/myth in numerous cultures around the world. There's nothing inherently racist about it.

That doesn't mean the specific depiction in Song of the South isn't problematic, though.

 

[LittleBuford]

Does anyone honestly think this kind of dialect would fly in anything made today?

People who want some kind of reboot of the characters...I have no idea what you think they would look and sound like.

They are speaking a historical form of AAVE; it’s a cartoonish version of Remus’s own accent. I doubt the characters would be handled that way today because of the associations with slavery, but the accent itself existed and is related to forms of AAVE spoken today.

 

[Roger_the_pianist]

I'd go as far to say that Splash Mountain is based more on the tar baby sequence than anything else, although the tar baby doesn't appear. The figure is replaced with a honey trap, but the climax of the tar baby story and the ride is the toss into the briar patch...

 

[Roger_the_pianist]

They are speaking a historical form of AAVE; it’s a cartoonish version of Remus’s own accent. I doubt the characters would be handled that way today because of the associations with slavery, but the accent itself existed and is related to forms of AAVE spoken today.

I will say I believe there was very little historical context for the dialects, it was only a play for laughs.

 

[UNCgolf]

I'd go as far to say that Splash Mountain is based more on the tar baby sequence than anything else, although the tar baby doesn't appear. The figure is replaced with a honey trap, but the climax of the tar baby story and the ride is the toss into the briar patch...

Which is why the ride itself doesn't really have serious problems, absent any potential issues with the dialect -- that tar baby/honey trap thing and the toss into the briar patch exists in numerous folk tales. There's record of a Cherokee story called The Rabbit and the Tar Wolf that is very similar to the Splash Mountain plot. A rabbit gets trapped in a tar wolf (set up by other animals to catch him because he was stealing water), then tricks the other animals into tossing him into a thicket which is actually the rabbit's home.

 

[LittleBuford]

I will say I believe there was very little historical context for the dialects, it was only a play for laughs.

I agree that the accent has been played (inappropriately) for laughs, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t have a real-life existence. (Consider the Cockney accent for another example of this phenomenon—there are many more.) I don’t find the accent’s use for the Brer characters derisive or inherently offensive, though I recognise the broader issues associated with it in other contexts.

 

[Roger_the_pianist]

@LittleBuford I would say the country bears play into dialect on a sour level. The show, although whimsical and entertaining, spoofs country music and implies that people (in this case bears) who play and enjoy country music are mostly stupid.

I think the bigger problem with the future of the Bears is the same as why Chuckee Cheese has phased out animatronic shows: in big part to Five Nights at Freddies creating a lore of horror around animatronic characters in kids minds.

 

[LittleBuford]

@LittleBuford I would say the country bears play into dialect on a sour level. The show, although whimsical and entertaining, spoofs country music and implies that people (in this case bears) who play and enjoy country music are mostly stupid.

I view it as a very affectionate, well-intentioned parody. Most of the characters are voiced by actual country singers.

 

[GoneForGood]

Does anyone honestly think this kind of dialect would fly in anything made today?

People who want some kind of reboot of the characters...I have no idea what you think they would look and sound like.

Similar to the way the universal DTV film handled it.

Maybe even consult the storytellers at the Wren's Nest, and countless other Black and Indigenous voices who still share the stories to this day, about how we feel these characters could be brought into modern times?