Jim looks at the history of the attraction, the film it is based on and would a theme change work?
I got blindsided last week when I suddenly got requests from podcasters, websites and local reporters to comment on the initiative to re-theme the Disney theme park attraction Splash Mountain—that was inspired by the movie Song of the South—to the Disney animated feature The Princess and the Frog.
I assume I was contacted because I wrote the book Who’s Afraid of the Song of the South and have previously talked about the film at events.
Song of the South has always been a controversial Disney film, which is why the company voluntarily pulled it from theatrical distribution in 1986 and has never released it on any version of home media.
As a result, many misunderstandings about the movie and its content have been generated over the decades since people have had difficulty seeing it and must rely on false representations from others. Filmmaker Spike Lee considers the film racist, but admitted to Disney Legend Floyd Norman he had never seen it when he made that decision.
[…]
