Disneyland is set to open its new attraction starring Tiana, the first Black Disney princess from the animated film "The Princess and the Frog," in all of its theme parks later this year to replace a former ride which, according to its critics, contained racist themes.
The Associated Press reported that the attraction, Tiana's Bayou Adventure, was supposed to replace Splash Mountain, which was based on the 1946 Disney film "Song of the South," which was alleged to contain racist cliches about African Americans and plantation life in the Southern states.
Disney's announcement to sunset the Splash Mountain attraction was made in the aftermath of the George Floyd protests in June 2020, saying at the time that it was already working on it. The protests that ensued was the push companies in the United States needed to reconsider or rename some legacy brands due to the protests.
In a statement Monday (June 10), Walt Disney Imagineering senior vice president for creative development Carmen Smith explained that the repurposing of the attraction was an attempt to look at the attractions in order to tell new stories while making sure "everybody feels included."
Experiencing the New Disney Ride
Meanwhile, USA Today consumer travel reporter Eve Chen shared her experience as one of the first to try the new ride out.
Chen stressed that Tiana's Bayou Adventure was entirely different from Splash Mountain, saying that, while there are some remnants of the previous attraction, it was entirely remodeled to fit the story of "The Princess and the Frog."
The attraction also included an employee-owned cooperative called "Tiana's Foods" to both empower the people working on the ride, as well as to reflect the timeline in the film, where cooperatives were able to empower the historically disenfranchised.
Tiana's Bayou Adventure would open in Disneyland Florida on June 28, while the one in California would be opened later this year.
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"Song of the South" is a film that mixes live action, animation, and music, with the story centering on an older Black man working at a plantation and telling fables about talking animals to a white city boy. The film was criticized in recent years, claiming that it contained racist stereotypes, and has neither been released in theaters in decades nor included in the streaming service Disney+.
Disney has been accused of racism for films made in earlier decades, which prompted them to make reparations by casting actors of color or of a cultural background other than European in remakes of its classics like "The Little Mermaid" and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
However, according to Texas State University English professor Katie Kapurch, the repurposing of the Splash Mountain attraction into Tiana's Bayou Adventure made an unintended connection between the 1940s film with the early 2000s cartoon flick.
She added that the stories in both "Song of the South" and "The Princess and the Frog" were mostly silent on the racial realities of the segregated eras they depict, and by merely replacing the attraction's labeling instead of dismantling it completely and building a new one was a "metaphor of structural racism."
On the other hand, Smith insisted that it was never Disney's intention to perpetuate stereotypes or misconceptions.
Walt Disney Imagineering executive creative producer Charita Carter added that they also intended to tell stories for its global audience in accordance with current social trends and circumstances.
Ted Robledo, the Imagineer who is in charge of Tiana's Bayou Adventure, also said that the controversy regarding the attraction change was "pretty removed" from identity politics and adjacent issues.
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