Disney closing splash mountain ride over " Song of the South " link
- Thread starter jamesvanderwulf
- Start date
Just saw on the news that people waited in line for almost 4 hours the last couple days to for this ride. I liJed the ride, but holy shit.
I wouldn't even say that, necessarily. There is the academic & activist class that represents a very small percentage of any demographic, and they make all the noise over stuff like this, generally.
Disney’s changing a ride I like.
Who do I report this injustice to?
Disney caused this by stating it was a big enough to change it. You don't expect people to have opinions? Disney did.
It was setting and depictions of black people that harken back to a bigoted era, not necessarily the plot.Plot
JOHNNY AND GINNY, JUST BEFORE HIS ATTEMPTED MURDER AT THE HANDS OF BULLIES
Much of the movie follows this pattern: Johnny, a young boy born of a wealthy plantation owner in post Civil-War South, suffers at the hands of an absent father, hillbilly redneck bullies, and an overbearing mother, and has no one to turn to. He takes solace in the stories of – we assume – a former slave named Uncle Remus. His mother, born of an era where this type of fraternizing was Not Ok™, tries her best to keep Johnny and Uncle Remus apart. She doesn’t like the influence Remus’ stories are having on her son.
Now, in that first clip, we see Uncle Remus comforting Johnny and Ginny who had been bullied (the two bullies were actually Ginny’s older brothers). Uncle Remus literally steps in at the last second to save Johnny from serious injury at the hands of the bullies.
There are several themes in this movie that children can relate to: bullies, unfair mothers, stories of talking animals. As adults, we can see the impact that Remus is having on Johnny – when Ginny is distraught at the ruination of her dress, Johnny even attempts to lower his voice to sound like Uncle Remus as he recounts one of the earlier stories in the film.
JOHNNY FINDS A MUCH-NEEDED MENTOR
At the end of the day, it’s Uncle Remus’ character and charm that wins over the day. His influence is far greater than the latent racism of the 19th century plantation, and even Johnny’s mother comes to understand that the wisdom and kindness of Uncle Remus transcends the racial isolationism she has come to count on.
That’s the plot. There is no racism in the plot.
Is Disney's 'Song of the South' Really A Problem?
Disney will not release Song of the South on Disney+, no matter what. This is a shame.jmetz.com
Always thought a Disney princess-themed brothel would do pretty well.
The movie pretty much sucks, and is at least somewhere between racially offensive and racist throughout, so I don't see much reason to cape up for the movie at all. This is not some great work of film that is being cancelled over a now unfortunate sequence or depiction. The only reason anyone remembers it today is the racism. Nobody remembers The Sword and the Rose, and when has anyone ever bemoaned that they have never seen So Dear To My Heart? It's stupid for some people to treat it like an indispensable classic, when it's very dispensable.
That said, I have some fond memories of the B'rer Rabbit cartoons, which I saw pretty regularly as a kid, disconnected from the movie. Didn't even realize they were part of the movie for a long time. I think that's a little dicier to erase that completely, and the Joel Chandler Harris stories. Yes, is it demeaning to have African folk stories filtered through rich, racist authors? Of course.
But at the same time, historically, that's what you had when you had it. And for generations of black children, those stories were some of the only stories that were "theirs" i popular culture. First you get no representation, then you get problematic representation, then hopefully good representation.
I happened to drive by the Joel Chandler Harris museum in Eatonton, GA when we were driving through. It was a cool log house, and I was kind of curious how they played this. Turns out that the volunteer docent was a very old poor black lady. And she was extremely knowledgeable about Harris and his works, and talked about how important those stories had been to her as a child and to her mother, when she was a child.
I don't know...you can drop The Song of the South down a mine shaft, but I think the B'rer Rabbit stories need quite a bit more nuance and care before they're full on cancelled, as they are a meaningful part of African American culture as well.
That said, I have some fond memories of the B'rer Rabbit cartoons, which I saw pretty regularly as a kid, disconnected from the movie. Didn't even realize they were part of the movie for a long time. I think that's a little dicier to erase that completely, and the Joel Chandler Harris stories. Yes, is it demeaning to have African folk stories filtered through rich, racist authors? Of course.
But at the same time, historically, that's what you had when you had it. And for generations of black children, those stories were some of the only stories that were "theirs" i popular culture. First you get no representation, then you get problematic representation, then hopefully good representation.
I happened to drive by the Joel Chandler Harris museum in Eatonton, GA when we were driving through. It was a cool log house, and I was kind of curious how they played this. Turns out that the volunteer docent was a very old poor black lady. And she was extremely knowledgeable about Harris and his works, and talked about how important those stories had been to her as a child and to her mother, when she was a child.
I don't know...you can drop The Song of the South down a mine shaft, but I think the B'rer Rabbit stories need quite a bit more nuance and care before they're full on cancelled, as they are a meaningful part of African American culture as well.
Meh, more faux rage. Disney made a business decision. They should have yanked out a bunch of stuff like this ride 10+ years ago and put in attractions that connect with people under the age of 70. My only question is will DeSantis cram through a law forcing Disney to keep the ride open?
When is the last time you were at Disney? You told me I was off kilter last week, and yet you want to see some gal from Joplin, MO, flip up her Cardinals shirt to show her flabby old boobs?
The black people in line must be on the GOP payroll right? This was from Disney's site.
Or I guess you can keep arguing that real black people hated the ride, that's entertaining too at some level.
Is she the dead one, or the one Trump knew? Need to clear that up for Trad and his fauxrage so he knows which leading African American thinkers want this ride to stay open, and perhaps convince Disney to create a statue garden with all historic figures that the woke people forced out of public spaces.
It’s probably been 15 years since my last trip there. But from the photos I remember seeing back in the day, it wasn’t just flabby old boobs on display for the camera.
The weird thing is Disney scrubbed this movie from distribution in the 80s but decided to keep the ride.
The black people in line must be on the GOP payroll right? This was from Disney's site.
Or I guess you can keep arguing that real black people hated the ride, that's entertaining too at some level.
That's a logical fallacy. It doesn't take into account how many black people didn't want to ride it due to the racism nor does it take into account that some might have been riding it just to decide for themselves if it was racist or not and came out convinced it was.
Right. Much more important than being able to traceback the creation of a bit of art to an era that was racist or to a parent work that had racist themes is what the remaining bit of art is and how it is interpreted broadly today. If it's true that most black people today find the ride a negative reminder of bygone era or of the original works itself, then so be it. But if it that isn't the case and it's broadly accepted and it's the activist class finding a "path back to racism" then that's a different matter.
Nazi Germany gave us Volkswagon. Obviously it's just a car and nobody cares today that it is tinged with that origin story.
Volkswagen is founded
On May 28, 1937, the government of Germany—then under the control of Adolf Hitler of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party—forms a new state-owned automobile
www.history.com
So, we can't have any depictions of Southern life in the post-Civil War era? How messed up is that?
- Sep 13, 2002
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This is a favorite rhetorical game of conservatives. They find a couple outliers and use that as a cudgel to say an issue is not supported.
See global warming/climate change as another good example. Or the pandemic. You find a couple "experts" (typically someone paid for a "study") that are contrary to the vast majority of scientific or expert consensus, then hammer over and over and over that it isn't a "settled" issue and we need to keep just "asking questions." Using that tactic, they can delay and deter needed changes almost indefinitely.
And? They made the movie, then banned it, then decided to keep the ride based on it.
It never was all about Song of the South. The ride borrowed some characters from the movie and a few scenes. If it were some immersive song of the south experience, and focused on the negative stuff, this would be a different conversation. Functionally, it was just a few of the characters and a few scenes from the movie.
Splash Mountain - Wikipedia
It never was all about Song of the South. The ride borrowed some characters from the movie and a few scenes. If it were some immersive song of the south experience, and focused on the negative stuff, this would be a different conversation. Functionally, it was just a few of the characters and a few scenes from the movie.
Splash Mountain - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Fair enough. . . still time for a change.
Especially when you can re-theme it after a movie that kids today are watching or have at least seen.
There are no negative parts of the movie. That's kinda the point. It pretends master and slaves live in harmony.It never was all about Song of the South. The ride borrowed some characters from the movie and a few scenes. If it were some immersive song of the south experience, and focused on the negative stuff, this would be a different conversation. Functionally, it was just a few of the characters and a few scenes from the movie.
Splash Mountain - Wikipedia
I'm not necessarily against a change and I have no attachment to the ride. My only point is if that nobody is associating the mechanic rabbits and bears and songs on that ride with the negative racial projections of the original film, then it's not causing trouble and doesn't need to be changed. It's just a non issue.
That part isn't clear. In the scenario in which people aren't actually offended, what you have is moreso a small minority of people looking for a problem to solve. And I suppose you could argue that they act as some sort of enlighteners, but even then, that seems a stretch. Art and music and what this is is subjective -- it has no more inherent meaning than how people actually interpret it.
And my point is it was a strange decision to develop and open a ride that was based on a movie that was already controversial.
Again there are no negative parts of the movie. Uncle Remus appears perfectly happy to be property. He even has a song about it.
The B'rer Rabbit stories existed long before the movie and exist today. It's their association to the movie - which is definitively racist - that's problematic.
There's nothing inherently racist about the ride. In fact, it's been sanitized - there's no Tar Baby, allowed. I think they subbed a bee's nest. It's the association with the movie. And most likely are unaware of that association since Disney pulled the movie in the mid-80's and there's not even a Disney authorized copy out on the market. Anyone who's seen the movie in the past 30+ years has seen a bootleg copy.
Exactly. My interest is in not blackballing the stories in an effort to blackball Harris or the movie.
I don't care about the movie or the ride...but was there anything to the ride that associated it with Song of the South other than the cartoon elements?
The dialect might seem problematic, if you don’t explain where Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox came from.
I kinda don't. The ride is based on a movie based on whitewashing.Then why do you have trouble with the movie?
You understand my point.
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