how a racist carousel plunged Disney into a culture war

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As the plastic log boat accelerated through the darkness, a chirping voice sounded from a loudspeaker: Enjoy your last splash! Continuing to pick up speed, the canal took a bend. In the meantime, there was an animatronic fox. Where is this Brer Rabbit? he inquired in a troweled Southern accent.

Brer Rabbit is the hero of Walt Disney’s 1946 musical Song of the South. But few of the thousands of people who lined up for more than three hours for the final day of the ride at Splash Mountain theme park in Disney World in Orlando on January 22 will have had a direct experience of the film. Song of the South was widely condemned for celebrating slavery-era stereotypes of African Americans. Disney has removed it since the mid-80s.

Yet despite the companies’ determination to erase all traces of Song of the South, Brer Rabbit’s spirit has survived on the three Splash Mountain rides it operates in parks in Orlando, Anaheim California and Tokyo. . Splash Mountain is best known for its final set-piece, in which parkgoers slalom down a 27-meter simulated whitewater rapid. However, the attraction whose Californian original cost $75 million to develop is first and foremost a love letter to Brer Rabbit. Or, at least, the Song of the Souths version, which bastardized a character from the African-American folk tradition.

He’s all over Splash Mountain. Just like his enemies Brer Fox and Brer Bear. With its theme song, Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah. Or at least they were. This week, Disney finally shuttered one of its most controversial rides, nearly 34 years since it opened. In an acknowledgment of Song of the South’s racist roots, the company will turn Splash Mountain into the more inclusive Tianas Bayou adventure, inspired by the 2009 animation The Princess and the Frog. California Splash Mountain needs to be re-themed in the same way.

Disney parks have become the final frontier in America’s endless culture wars. The company reportedly quietly made plans to reboot Splash Mountain some time ago. However, the case came to a head in 2020. Following the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests, Disneyland employees demanded that the ride be revamped.

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