According to CNN, the log flume ride was based on the 1946 movie “Song of the South,” which was notorious for racial stereotypes of Black people and romanticized portrayals of the antebellum South.
Because Splash Mountain was connected to such a film, a Change.org petition surfaced online calling on Disney to change the ride’s theme from “Song of the South” to “The Princess and the Frog,” the movie featuring Disney’s first Black princess.
“The classic log flume ride Splash Mountain is featured in Disneyland, Disney World and Tokyo Disneyland,” the petition read.
Splash Mountain has been a premiere ride at Disney parks since it was first created in 1989.
Disney said that the new ride, which the company has been developing since last year, will pick up from the “final kiss” scene from “Princess and the Frog” where Princess Tiana and her trumpet-playing alligator Louis take “a musical adventure.”
