By: Giselle Carvente & Tania Becerril
Just what on earth is going on at Disneyland?
Have you ever heard of Song of the South? Yeah me either, but that is what the Disney ride, Splash Mountain, is based on. The movie, which came out in 1946, is a combination of live action and animation that follows a young boy, Johnny, who is moving with his mother to his grandmother's plantation. This is where he learns many life sessions from Uncle Remus told in stories about Br’er Rabbit who tries to avoid Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear. The biggest issue that people have against the movie is that it’s racist. The movie depicts many racist stereotypes, also exaggerates the black characters' dialect, and portrays an idealized plantation life. Not ideal for a family ride in the “happiest place on earth” right?
Understandably, once people started to find out about what this ride was based on, they got very upset, organized, signed petitions, and put a bunch of pressure on Disney, which eventually resulted in the theme park begrudgingly closing it down and changing it to be (hopefully) less racist this time around.
End of story, right? Happiness is restored at the Magical Kingdom? You’d think so, but there were some die hard fans of Splash Mountain who just can’t help themselves and have taken to social media to share their (racist) opinion against the change to Splash Mountain and have been getting a lot of attention and press about their displeasure about these contemporary updates to the ride.
Splash Mountain has quite the fanbase. Many fans were fuming when finding out that Splash Mountain was going to be reborn as Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. Splash Mountain fans went on a rampage all over social media to express their anger and frustration, to the point where there was practically smoke coming out of their ears. A petition on change.org was created to save Splash Mountain and is approaching 100,000 signatures. A fanatic stated, “The story behind Splash Mountain will likely never be known to 99% of riders. Rather, it's a cute ride with animal characters. Please don’t redo this ride.” The tone deaf fans are continuously trying to make excuses for the racist film.
The fans have gone to the extent of collecting the water from Splash Mountain and either keeping it or selling it to the devastated Splash Mountain fans. A Disney fan is selling 6 oz of the “sacred” Splash Mountain water for $199.99. The fan’s “proof” is a picture of the water in a jar being held in front of the Splash Mountain ride which isn’t even guaranteed to be from the ride but hey if they have the funds then so be it. It has caused many Disney fans to be scammed out of hundreds of dollars because of their odd obsession with this racist ride.
Another fan even went to the extent of naming their child after the infamous ride. Disney Adults are out of control. The child’s mom, Kara, stated, “I saw the name ‘Briar,’ and I’d never heard of it. I really love nature names, and it reminded me of the little briar patch on the Splash Mountain ride…I’ve never seen ‘Song of the South’, she continued. I know it’s very controversial and terrible; I just like the ride.” The name serves as a tribute to the ride, DisDining.com revealed, “Kara’s favorite ride at Disney World, and she’s sad about the closing of the iconic, 30-year-old attraction”. Although the child’s name isn’t Splash Mountain the child name is still based on the iconic attraction. All I know is that this child will get bullied because of their fanatic Disney mom (please learn from these peoples mistakes and don't name your child something utterly ridiculous).
Now, this might be a little off topic, but Splash Mountain is very scary in general. Picture this, you are going through a dark tunnel and you see animatronics singing and talking, they are moving very oddly then it goes completely dark again after you pass them. Then you meet more animatronics who are laughing which sounds almost sinister and as you are going up right before the drop you see a rabbit tied up with a shadow of a fox nearby, you can assume the worst is about to happen. Then there is the drop, it is scary to many and this is supposed to be a children’s ride. This ride can probably traumatize little kids after getting on it. As someone said “ they creep me out during the whole ride, making me want to go down the drop faster.”
In conclusion, people are blowing this out of proportion, people are so upset about Splash Mountain being renovated and being turned into Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. It’s not that big of a deal as the ride will just have a different theme but overall will remain the same. There will still be a big drop, you will still get wet. It will just be a talking frog instead of a talking rabbit - everything will be fine.The most important thing to take into consideration of this renovation is that Disney is trying to correct their previous wrongdoings to do better, even though they had to be pressured into it.