and how they all silenced all objections of voices of color... it just solidifies that for me. It was an epic fail from the beginning.
This pretty much hits it on the head - the overarching issue is the marginalization of POC voices in mass media, which is
very much alive today. It goes beyond the Black experience, but extends to other marginalized communities. I find that, sometimes, the debate over a ride like Splash Mountain functions as a proxy for a much broader discussion as to what extent people are willing to go to to acknowledge what many of us POCs have known for a long time now.
It's an uncomfortable discussion, it's much easier to blame the person being marginalized than it is to take a critical look at something. Not necessarily in this thread, but I see it in the concurrent WDW thread - someone actually reacted with "haha" on my opinion about SOS being problematic as the source material, someone else said I should just not go to
Disneyland/WDW period because everything is offensive (that was the equivalent of sneering at someone and saying "all lives matter"), and other people still just say "don't ride it if it offends you" which, to me, just smacks of exclusion.
I've said this before, but I'll repeat it anyway. Is Splash Mountain racist? No. Is a majority of the source material racist? Absolutely yes. Was it an enjoyable movie for many? Of course. Do most people know the connection between ride and movie? No. Is that an excuse? No.
Bob Iger knew it when he said SOS will never be released, but he also knew re-theming a "classic" (1989/1992) ride involved moving mountains (pun intended). What was deemed an adequate enough firewall in 1983 (when the ride was first proposed) falls apart today, that was literally a generation+ ago, I don't expect societal norms to stay static over 37 years.
I often see arguments shutting down the idea of a retheme for the sake of history. My argument is this... Walt said "Disneyland is your land" (Disney, 1955) and I take that literally. These parks are the product of "the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America" (
ibid). To me, at least, keeping the derivative ride of a racist, 74 year old film goes against both of these truisms.
If Disney can remove sexual assault from POTC and reassign blame for the burning cabin from Native Americans without sacrificing the soul of the park, it can and should take a closer look at Splash Mountain and sever the connection with such a problematic movie.