Social Media Erupts Over Disney Closing Splash Mountain Ride
Thousands of angry fans have lashed out against Walt Disney Studios for caving to “woke” culture as the company’s theme parks have transitioned the iconic—but racially controversial—ride Splash Mountain into a new adventure from The Princess and the Frog.
The Splash Mountain ride was based off a movie called Song of the South, which featured Disney’s first Black character, and to date is the only Disney movie to be retired from the studio’s catalog due to criticisms about the depiction of Black Americans in the post-slavery era.
The movie is a culmination of books about a character called Uncle Remus telling African American folktales and based off books written by John Chandler Harris, a white author, in the 19th century. (Harris’ stories were so popular at the time that he became friends with Mark Twain and was invited to the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt). Harris admitted being inspired by the stories told by enslaved Black people he encountered while working as a printer’s apprentice on a plantation in Georgia.