Disney made a LOT of...uh, problematic...movies, but none quite so indefensible as Song of the South, a Reconstruction movie in which a formerly enslaved man tells a young, wealthy white boy about how nice things were during the slavery era.

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When was this movie made, you ask? During the 20s? Perhaps the 30s? No, 1946. Walt knew it would be trouble - so much so that he actually hired a blacklisted Communist to do a pass on the screenplay in hopes that this would deflect criticism.

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"See, a Red worked on it! It can't be reactionary!"

You know what's weirder and more terrible than Song of the South, though?

Splash.

Mountain.

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Splash Mountain, which opened in 1989, was supposed to just be a great, fun flume ride. But then @Michael_Eisner was annointed CEO of Disney in 85, having fended off corporate raiders who wanted to break the company up for parts.

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And he looked at this flume ride on the drawing board and said, "Shit, we should theme this thing for that super-racist movie that we're now so officially embarrassed about that we no longer allow theaters to screen it and that we will never release on VHS."

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"If there's one thing the kids LOVE, it's minstrelsy. This thing will SLAY."

The compromise that Splash Mountain struck was to only include Br'er Fox, Bear and Rabbit, and to expunge Uncle Remus entirely.

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( Uncle Remus still haunts the ride, in a series of grossly offensive quotations on signs in the queue that rhapsodize over the living conditions of enslaved people)

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Which brings us to 2020 and ::gestures vaguely:: all of this.

This is the moment, as @tiahsoka says, for a "Disney retheme splash mountain challenge!"

https://twitter.com/tiahsoka/status/1270181896454934529

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Tia's challenge has attracted many excellent contenders, but none so good as @FreddyFromBatuu, a castmember who proposes "Princess and the Frog was made to replace Splash Mountain. The Laughing plece is replaced with the Other Side."

https://twitter.com/FreddyFromBatuu/status/1270193107934441472

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To which I say:

FUCK.

YES.

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If you want to learn (lots) more about Song of the South, the canonical source is @KarinaLongworth's superb You Must Remember This podcast series on the movie:

http://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/episodes/2019/10/21/six-degrees-of-song-of-the-south-episode-1-disneys-most-controversial-film

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Longworth makes some very discomfiting comments on the whole area of Disneyland that includes Splash Mountain, starting with New Orleans Square, themed for the time in which NOLA was the continent's most notorious slave market.

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And including my beloved Haunted Mansion, which, as Longworth points out, is an antebellum mansion, between a slavery-era New Orleans Square and Splash Mountain, a celebration of slavery, and which is full of the ghosts of white people.

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Which offers you this chilling challenge: to retheme the Haunted Mansion!

eof/