Disney’s Splash Mountain overhaul features black princess Tiana

ORLANDO – In the summer of 2020, as a reckoning on racial justice swept the country, The Walt Disney Co said it would rip out Splash Mountain, a wildly popular flume ride with a racist backstory.

Some people cheered, saying the move was long overdue: After 31 years at Disneyland in California and 28 at Walt Disney World in Florida, the attraction – with its animal minstrels from the movie Song Of The South (1946) – had to go.

Now, Disney is rolling out Splash Mountain’s replacement, which is based on The Princess And The Frog, the 2009 animated musical that introduced Disney’s first black princess.

The light-hearted new ride, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, will open to the public on June 28 at Walt Disney World, with a similar version to arrive at Disneyland by the end of 2024.

It is a historic moment for Disney. After 69 years in the theme park business, the company will have a marquee attraction based on a black character.

“For young black children, it is, of course, a wonderful and amazing way to show representation,” said American actress Anika Noni Rose, who voices Tiana in the film and recorded new lines for the ride. “For children who don’t look like Tiana, it is a way to open their eyes.”

Disney has remade rides before

, often to howls from devotees, but this particular overhaul is especially delicate.

In recent years, Disney has found itself enmeshed in nationwide debates over diversity and inclusive initiatives, with prominent Republican politicians and conservative media pundits pointing to Disney as an example of corporate political correctness run amok.

The pressure has started to die down, in part because Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is no longer running for president and attacking “Woke Disney” at campaign stops. Mr Robert Iger, Disney’s chief executive, has also repeatedly said he has moved Disney away from “agenda-driven” content.

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure could drag Disney back onto the cultural battlefield or it could provide more evidence that the debate has moved on.

“Our parks are treasured, and our fans care deeply about how they evolve and change – just as we do,” Mr Josh D’Amaro, Disney’s theme park chair, said in an interview.

“One thing fans always tell me is, ‘If you change it, promise to make it even better.’ And I think we’ve delivered on that promise with Tiana.”

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure uses the same ride tracks as Splash Mountain, and riders still travel in vehicles made to look like hollowed-out logs. But everything else has been redesigned. Instead of a suspenseful story involving Br’er Rabbit getting tossed into a briar patch, the new attraction focuses on a Mardi Gras party: Tiana and her pal Louis, a trumpet-playing alligator, are searching for critters to form a band.

Halfway through, the jolly Mama Odie, a voodoo queen in The Princess And The Frog and now a “bayou fairy godmother”, casts a spell, supposedly shrinking riders to the size of fireflies.

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure also has a pointed new catchphrase: “Everybody’s welcome.”

Mr Ted Robledo, the attraction’s executive creative director, pointed out numerous inclusive touches – decorative items in Spanish and French, reflecting the multicultural history of New Orleans; a diversity of music (jazz, zydeco, blues) playing on the sound system.

“That’s a nod to the indigenous people in the region,” Mr Robledo said, referring to a Choctaw stickball racket in a diorama near the ride’s entrance.

“We’re always looking at ways to cast a wider net,” he said. “With the old property, for a variety of reasons, it wasn’t that relevant any more. It had kind of run its course.” NYTIMES