I’d always thought this was a given? The ride at WDW makes this even more obvious IIRC.
—And THAT is the point. The problem isn’t whether it is historical or not, but that it is “played for laughs.”
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That’s also one of the key differences between the implied rape in the ride and the threatened rape in the first movie. In an early scene Elizabeth is hiding in a closet, clearly terrified of the two murderous pirates who would presumably be happy to rape her. But it’s played as a scary scene rather than a funny scene (at least until she lights one of them of fire with her bedwarmer).
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Not upset, really. just a little disappointed. When all entertainment must promote a narrow set of political views or be banned, the quality of it suffers. I am pretty sure that in the decades that the ride has been open, few if any people have gone into either piracy or the business of sexual slavery because of the ride.
Piracy has traditionally included many activities that we would not want our kids to emulate. Pirates who always do the wisest and morally correct things, and in the safest way possible, are boring pirates. They also shoot guns, get muddy drunk, and commit arson. They steal things and stab people. They do not wear helmets when bicycling.
I have a number of historical accounts of piracy in my library. There is a print hanging in my dining room entitled 'Pirates of the Mediterranean playing at dice for prisoners". It is more or less the auction scene from the ride.
Many people have one or two things that they take very seriously and don’t want anyone joking about. If we let whoever claims to be the most offended have creative control in our society, we are going to lose out in the long run.
What do you think they will demand be changed about Splash Mountain?
As a person who has been under threat from, and in physical conflict with actual pirates, I find nothing offensive about the ride.
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Imagineer, 1965: We’ve got the plans for our new ride drawn up! It’s got spooky caves, swashbuckling skeletons, cannon battles, pillaging pirates, burning towns, singing buccaneers, water ramps, and a gunfight set among barrels of high explosives!
Park Director: Does it have rape?
Imagineer: Excuse me?
Park Director: You know, does it explicitly depict some form of sexual slavery?
Imagineer: Uh… no?
Park Director: BOOOORRRINNNGGGG
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If Disneyland was supposed to be historically accurate, then I suppose you might have an argument. But not only is it not supposed to be (instead depicting the sometimes nonexistent “golden ages” of various times, like a fictional golden age of Hollywood in Hollywood Studios, for example). However, this is no longer the case for the Pirates ride (if it ever was), because now the ride is designed to depict the fantastical world in the movies that it spawned, not historical pirates.
Great! None of that has anything to do with Disney’s attempt to create a fun-filled pirate-themed adventure ride.
You could probably give a shot at creating “Anachronistic Pirate’s Park” though, complete with most every sea traveller having scurvy, food being terrible oversalted crap, and women companions being auctioned at the entrance for single male guests in period-correct attire. No guarantees on economic viability, though.
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You are right on a number of levels. The banner at the auction at least reads “Auction- Take a Wench for a Bride”, which is very different from historic or present sexual slavery by pirates or raiders.
I guess we find ourselves pushed into a situation where if you oppose sanitizing all controversial elements of entertainment, you can be accused of (in this case) supporting the idea of sexual slavery. But I think that is a disingenuous argument.
I mentioned the print because one of the commenters mentioned traits normally associated with pirates. I have to assume that the original designers of the ride probably had read the literature both on fictional and historical accounts of pirates.
There was quite a bit of rape in “Yellowbeard” as well.
I know enough about the historic facts of piracy that I do not want to experience it in any realistic manner. Or any sort of seafaring life from that era. I have had quite enough of that already.
So the inclusion of the word “bride” is supposed to negate the fact that a line of bound, weeping women are being sold at market by men brandishing weapons?
Look, I get how something like this could have made it into a family-themed ride built in the 1960s, but c’mon. If you can’t understand why Disney would want to retool that scene then I don’t know what else to say.
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Not a kid’s movie, dude.
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Nothing has been banned. Disney made the choice to remove the scene themselves. “Quality” is highly subjective, presumably Disney believes the changed quality to be more marketable than before.[quote=“Max_Blancke, post:105, topic:103869”]
I am pretty sure that in the decades that the ride has been open, few if any people have gone into either piracy or the business of sexual slavery because of the ride.
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Probably not, but I don’t think anyone ever felt that was a possibility. Instead, they were uncomfortable with the scene itself and the idea that the audience was supposed to find it funny. As a pre-teen I remember imagining myself as one of those women, and feeling confused and uncomfortable. It’s not really the sort of feeling one expects at an “amusement park”.
I don’t think anyone has disagreed with this.
There’s still plenty of unsafe, immoral, and unwise fun in the ride.[quote=“Max_Blancke, post:105, topic:103869”]
They also shoot guns, get muddy drunk, and commit arson. They steal things and stab people. They do not wear helmets when bicycling.
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Yep, all of that remains in the ride, save the cycling.
Cool.
I looked it up. Not my cup of tea as I can’t help but empathize with the distressed women and the despair on their faces.
Who is “we”? Who gets to decide if offense is valid? As for creative control, Disney had and still has it over the entire franchise. If depictions of implied rape and human trafficking are big draws for entertainment, I’d expect to more in family parks ,not less.
Great. It’s odd to me that you find the changes to be distressing. If you’re offended by them, vote with your feet!
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Happily, all of those things (depicted as cartoonishly as possible) are staying in the ride, and are clearly not going anywhere, as it’s one of the most popular theme park rides in the world. Only the bit depicting selling women is being changed. I’m all for nostalgia and not censoring things, but it’s a bit hard to justify human trafficking.
I mean, if they were going for actual historical accuracy, they’d depict shanghaiing young boys, but this isn’t supposed to be historically accurate. It’s supposed to be goofy entertainment… and in 2017 selling women is considered less goofy and fun than it was in the 60s.
Who is “they”? There’s no scenes of women being sold in Splash Mountain, nor anything remotely objectionable.
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Maybe Disney could be convinced to add this educational tune to the ride:
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By “they”, I guess I mean those people who are perpetually offended, and always looking for something to ban.
like these people: http://msmagazine.com/blog/2010/10/22/disney-ride-still-makes-light-of-sex-slavery/
I would have said before this controversy that there is nothing objectionable about “Pirates”, but one must never underestimate people’s abilities to find offense. Of course it is Disney’s right to update the rides. Sometimes it is an improvement, sometimes it is akin to sacrilege, such as when the Enchanted Tiki Room was under new management.
Splash mountain is based on "Song of the South’, which was based on the stories of Joel Chandler Harris, and were not uncontroversial. I have a copy of the film, which is still available in Japan. The ride that got me as a kid was Snow White’s Scary Adventures. That witch just kept popping out at you. And she sounded to me like she smoked a lot.
Yeah, and you would have been wrong. You don’t object to it. Others can, and do. You can find no fault with ruffians treating women as property to be bought and sold, as an amusing part of a theme park ride intended to be enjoyed by children. Okay, fine. If you have a daughter, you can explain to her what makes the scene funny. You can explain to her what the purchasers will do with their newly acquired “property.” You can explain to her why some of those women are crying. You can explain to her why you wanted her to see that in the first place: because it’s “fun.”
One must never underestimate the depths of depravity some people would fight to normalize in the name of nostalgia for an outdated sexist joke.
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The controversial parts of Song of the South are largely the depiction of post-war sharecroppers as happy and singing, and the Tar Baby scene being seen as racist. None of that is in Splash Mountain, so I think we’re good. Frankly I’ve always thought it totally bizarre that one of the more popular rides in the parks is based on a movie most people haven’t been able to see. I wish they’d just release it with some kind of commentary or framing about the context of its content so it wouldn’t have such a toxic reputation. It’s got a lot of beautiful animation and is very worthwhile.
I think it’s one thing to not personally find it offensive, and another to not understand why many people find a scene depicting the sale of women into sexual slavery a bit uncomfortable to say the least. This isn’t something people suddenly are getting the vapors over in 2017; the awkwardness of that scene’s been commented on for decades. Cripes, I remember my mom thinking it was pretty gross when I first went back in '86.
I give Disney credit for taking a bold move like this that’ll inevitably anger a lot of purists (who’re still fuming about Johnny Depp being added, a decade ago) rather than half-ass it by just removing the weeping, tied-up women or something. Fitting a new scene in and matching the tone of the ride is no small challenge but I think it’ll be an improvement.
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The annual tradition in Seattle uses to be for the Seafair pirates to “kidnap” the queen of the parade, and vanish with her for a few hours. The unspoken part of this “joke” was that they would have gang raped her. This tradition faded out, I wish I knew the final year… now I’m looking forward for the whole seafair mess to fade into history as well.
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I’ve seen a lot of people getting bent out of shape about the ‘political correctness’ of this change, and complaining that it’s sanitizing history. Of course, if they wanted to really be historically accurate: https://books.google.com/books/about/Sodomy_and_the_Pirate_Tradition.html?id=dP0EgSo3sjoC
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Notice how nobody gives Robert Louis Stevenson a hard time for the “Politically Correct” choice to omit any scenes of Jim getting sodomized by Long John Silver.
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Not a good blurb to the book, sadly.
Pirates are among the most heavily romanticized and fabled characters in history. From Bluebeard to Captain Hook, they have been the subject of countless movies, books, children’s tales, even a world-famous amusement park ride.
Bluebeard wasn’t a pirate. He also isn’t a suitable subject for a Disney ride.
Still, I look forward to offering the anti-PC brigade a compromise of an all male pirate orgy scene before the women market one.
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I don’t think Captain Hook was either (at least the pirate Hook, Wikipedia notes a real-life one in 1900…). That part’s probably setting up the “romanticized and fabled” part for comparison to the reality.
