BuzzedPotatoHead89
Well-Known Member
To be fair, the stories of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz have the same message. There's no place like home, after all.
Yes, I understand the racial context is different in the movie Song of the South. However, in the context of animatronic animals, I'm not sure that the message is much different than the other two stories. At least, I don't think that's how most people "read" Splash Mountain and why this is such a controversy for some. In any case, this change was just a matter of time. The Song of the South origins of the ride were always a ticking time bomb, IMO.
This is how I feel. I think the ride in a silo (despite the “accents” and supposed innuendos) really is just a pretty innocuous water flume loosely based on characters from a film most people would’ve forgotten existed had it not been for the advent of social media/internet. Under Eisner “Zip a de do da” and the Brer portions of the movies really existed as severable characters in the Disney media universe in the 90s and early 00s even while SoTS remained firmly in the vault.
Eventually though, the Brer carrot juice isn’t worth the squeeze anymore and with SoTS slowly losing marketability and given country’s consciousness on the troubling backstory of the film, it just wasn’t a suitable “backdrop” to the ride. And any way you squeeze it SoTS at best is really a very mediocre film by Disney standards with some pretty cringey parts for modern audiences.
Princess and the Frog simply works better within the theme at Disneyland and is more marketable for the company as they attempt to garner new generations of fans who grew up on the film and of course, most importantly, “for synergy”, can watch it on Disney+ with their Tiana and Louis plush.