Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/12/walt-disney-worlds-newest-ride-tianas-bayou-adventure.html
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That sounds like a wonderful and well thought out re-do. Plus you still get soaked at the end (seriously – I had to sit in Frontierland drying out my shoes and socks after).
Disneyland has really been upping its game on the queues. Rise of the Rebellion also has engaging stuff to look at as you make your way through.
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My last visit to Disneyland (maybe 20-25 years ago) will be my last. We stayed for the fireworks having young people with us. The exit crowd was almost unbearable, not to mention even dangerous.
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It was decided by Disney a few years ago that because the movie Song of South, about a former slave on a plantation entertaining a white boy with tales of forest creatures, was racially problematic,
It sucks they bobbled that screwed up the whole idea so poorly, because Br’er Rabbit stories are some darn good folk lore.
Still, the new right looks really cool. I am sure the kids (and kids at heart) will love it.
Kinda hard for some of us without a certain kind of privilege to separate out the racist elements of an entertainment franchise, especially one that had a nasty history of leaning into racist tropes and stereotypes (until someone realized that could hurt their revenue stream.)
Contrary to that title, some of us do not have the luxury of ‘forgetting.’
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Yes, DISNEY’S SONGS OF THE SOUTH IS A LOT RACIST.
A good idea for a project would be for a Black director/production company to create new content based on traditional African folklore like Br’er Rabbit, minus the ‘racist gaze’ that the Disney version is tainted with…
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To clarify: The original Br’er Rabbit stories are an amalgamation of African and indigenous Caribbean stories told through oral traditions in the South. They aren’t racist.
Disney’s presentation of the stories through Song of the South, is.
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Yeah, this sounds pretty fun and great write-up, gives a good picture of the ride.
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I’m just saying “bobbled” might not have been the best choice of words…
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Indeed; such a cutesy description is quite insufficient when it comes to talking about the overt racism that Disney willfully perpetuated for decades.
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I want to second this, especially given the amount of time I now spend there living about 20 minutes from the parks. I fully expected a corporate circling of the wagons after the Desantis shitstorm that came up over Disney trying to be inclusive, but the opposite happened - the Pride colours, paintings and rhetoric only increased last year, and both last year and this year Disney agreed to donate 100% of their pride merch proceeds to LGBTQ+ organizations in Florida.
Doing all of that while also intentionally trying to diversify traditionally white princesses and heros in their movie division, and also this change to Splash Mountain, must be a hell of an uphill battle internally when there is almost certainly a not-insigificant population of Disney customers saying “Quit it Disney, stay in your lane and stop pushing diversity front-and-center” - and for that, I give them kudos where it is due.
On a much-less-important-than-racism-and-intolerance-but-still-important scale, they are doing the same things modernizing their programs for customers living with disabilities, or offering vegetarian/vegan options at 100% of their restaurants and resorts, they really do seem to be trying, at least in their “parks and experiences” division, to be inclusive to everyone.
I’m reminded by something Cory once said in response to him being a huge fan of the Imagineers and the Parks while simultaneously such a critic of Disney’s media and music divisions. Paraphrased, it’s essentially that Disney is way too huge to treat as a monolith, that there are a lot of people internally who really do want to do the right thing, and that the Parks are one place that seems to get that more right than wrong.
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We all contain multitudes.
I can acknowledge that Disney has made lots of positive changes over the years, and they employ many talented and decent people… while still embodying all the tenets of corporate evil.
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That might be the best description of them I’ve heard yet, and I heartily agree 
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Thank you.
You know I have a meme:
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I’m looking forward to taking my son on this ride someday, but I feel like Disney missed a step by not including Dr. Facilier in the attraction. The lead up to the drop is missing tension, and having the “Shadow Man” at the top with a bunch of chanting masks would have been a spectacular build up.
I guess I just like a little spooky fun in my dark rides. Pretty much every other Disney ride (with the exception of maybe Small World) has some sort of villain or dark moment to add tension.
Ah well.
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Excellent idea. But maybe based on this…
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Got a gif for that one too;
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I recently listened the the deep dive that the “You Must Remember This” podcast did on Song of the South:
https://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/episodes/2019/11/26/songofthesoutharchive
It’s an exhaustive look at the history of the film, and talks a good deal about John Chandler Harris, the white guy that wrote the book that Song of the South was based on. He made his fortune on he Br’er Rabbit stories, and their provenance is still being debated. These are his retellings, or re-imaginings of stories he heard during the time he spent in the slave quarters of Turnwold Plantation. And while he would have been a pretty progressive Southerner of the time, these are still stories told through his lens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Chandler_Harris
The podcast is worth a listen, though if you are prone to earworms, that fucking song will get stuck in your head, fair warning.
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Exploitation and appropriation; that train is never late.
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