Those are still super popular films, and those attractions are the sort of classic the fans would not stand any changing of. You should have read the moans and bitching about the reskinning even of this ride.
Why did they change Its a Bugs Life into Avengers campus? Why reskin the Tower of Terror? The California Screaming? Why did the Swiss Family treehouse change into Tarzan’s treehouse/? Submarine Voyage to Finding Nemo? etec etc- In fact pretty much ALL of DCA has been reskinned or rethemed- San Fransokyo, Pixar Pier, etc.
Yes a few much loved original Walt Disney classics they dont dare to change.
There is an excellent podcast series called “Six Degrees of Song of the South,” part of the You Must Remember This podcast, which looks at the lesser-know history of early Hollywood. It’s six episodes and thoroughly digs into various aspects of the SOTS story, including a full episode just on Splash Mountain, how it came to be, etc. It was released in 2019/2020, so it’s not up to date on the newest SOTS or Splash Mountain developments, but for those really interested in educating yourselves on the SOTS origin story and its checkered history at Disney, I highly recommend it.
It was from that podcast that I learned that the NAACP and other civil rights groups opposed the film right out of the gate. Condemnation of the film did not start with retroactive political correctness like many would like us to believe.
Yes, me as well. The podcast is heavily researched and includes contemporaneous reactions to the film at its initial release as well as subsequent re-releases. I cannot recommend it highly enough for anyone truly interested in understanding this film.
I think other posters have illustrated why already, but the subservient and doting nature of the poor, struggling black characters to the rich, white plantation owners despite the clear discrimination they still are subjected to. It may not take place during slavery, but the black characters in the movie are still portrayed as little better than slaves.
If you still can’t see the racism in the movie after all the replies and the criticism of the movie even in its time, then I can’t help you.
Yes, the NAACP and other civil rights groups opposed the film right out of the gate- without actually seeing the film. They assumed, like many did- that the black actors were slaves. Did the Podcast mention that?
Like the subservient and doting nature of employees to their boss?
No employees should act that way to their boss, regardless of who they are. Those kinds of attitudes just lead to further exploitation, which was the new normal after slavery ended.
Or they assumed that a movie made in 1946, depicting a historical period with black people working on a plantation, and primarily aimed for a white American audience would depict an inaccurate version of reality where black people were well treated and contented.
I’m not seeing in that any definite implication that Walter White mistakenly believed that the action of SotS was taking place during the slavery era. Certainly, AFAICT, the Uncle Remus character is an ex-slave, and is working on a former slave plantation for a former slaveholder family, and is telling the children stories about what it was like back in the “old days” when the children (who are now his employers) used to come and listen to his tales.
So yeah, I can see that being plausibly and accurately described as giving “the impression of an idyllic master-slave relationship”. Nowhere does it necessarily imply that Walter White believed that the events of the movie’s main plot were taking place before the Civil War.
Disney historian Jim Korkis, in his 2012 book Who’s Afraid of Song of the South, alleged that White and June Blythe, the director of the American Council on Race Relations, were denied requests to see a treatment for the film.[12] When the film was first released, White telegraphed major newspapers around the country with the following statement, erroneously claiming that the film depicted an antebellum setting:
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People recognizes in Song of the South remarkable artistic merit in the music and in the combination of living actors and the cartoon technique. It regrets, however, that in an effort neither to offend audiences in the north or south, the production helps to perpetuate a dangerously glorified picture of slavery. Making use of the beautiful Uncle Remus folklore, Song of the South unfortunately gives the impression of an idyllic master–slave relationship which is a distortion of the facts.[14]
White had not seen the film; his statement was allegedly based on memos he received from two NAACP staff members, Norma Jensen and Hope Spingarn, who attended a press screening on November 20, 1946. Jensen had written the film was “so artistically beautiful that it is difficult to be provoked over the clichés,”
Making use of the beautiful Uncle Remus folklore, Song of the South unfortunately gives the impression of an idyllic master–slave relationship which is a distortion of the facts. White had not seen the film;
Do you act subservient and doting towards your boss‽ I sure as hell never did. Nor did anyone who ever reported to me. That would have been weird and inappropriate.
For what it’s worth, the original script was set in the Antebellum, and later drafts moved the time period to reconstruction. Even at the time, many of the writers realized the issues, but Disney was unwilling to make a more nuanced and progressive film.
One is when a work is reflective of the (racist, sexist, whatever) norms of its time. That of course can bad but it also is not reasonable to require a work to reflect future values. The problem there is that the society of its time was racist/sexist/etc. …
I think it is different when work is created in a time of changing values specifically incorporating tropes that reinforce the regressive norms that some in power felt were under attack.