I guess my question for the people who are upset is "what is it about the ride that you love so much?"
* If it's the mechanics of it, the flume, the getting nice and wet on a hot day, then congratulations! That won't change!
* If it's the catchy song: I get that. I have a serious love-hate relationship with a song that has lyrics that go against everything I believe in...but it's so catchy I can't stop humming it. It's also possible to enjoy a song devoid of context, so go right ahead. The good news is that no one is going to stop you from listening to or singing or whistling it. And have you listened to "When We're Human" from Princess and the Frog? It's pretty catchy and hummable, too.
*If it's the theming itself, the specific story you see as you ride through...then we need to talk about that.
I see (both here and elsewhere) a lot of people saying that the ride itself isn't racist, and that even though the movie itself was incredibly offensive the ride is just fun and lighthearted and doesn't have those problematic elements in it. Therefore, the logic goes, why should we change it?
Because saying "What? We made it less racist, why aren't you people happy yet?" is part of the problem.
There is a reverence for history at the parks, particularly at
Disneyland (where Walt was!) but also clearly at Disney World. That's fine and good, but just because you take out the most offensive bit of an era doesn't mean you aren't still longing for a time when people of colour, LGBT+ people, non-Christian people, and generally all the "other" folks were silent.
I say this as a gay Jewish person from a multi-ethnic, multi-racial family. I love going to the parks. But there are elements scattered throughout, particularly in the castle parks, that make me very uncomfortable because of their overt yearning for a "better" and "simpler" time that was much worse for myself, my family, and most of my friends.
When you wish for the "simpler time" of Main Street USA, you're not just talking about somewhere everyone knew their neighbours and people didn't lock their doors. You're talking about a time and place that coincided with the reemergence of white dominance after Reconstruction, a time when the confederate statues were popping up like daisies. And those two sides of 1910 small town America aren't coincidental, they're intertwined. (Certainly in Missouri, the state that gave rise to the Brown v Board decision.) Similarly, when we talk about the "simpler time" inherent to Disney parks, we're talking about being kids, about this sort of 1950s "wholesomeness" and "simplicity" that is always contrasted against the "turmoil" of the 60s when people were standing up and demanding to be counted and treated with respect. It's white kids playing cowboys and indians in the yard and fantastic adventures to "exotic" lands where savages with blow-darts are behind every tree.
(Speaking of which, does this mean we can finally get rid of the random Native American figures throughout the parks? How did no one change them when moving everything for the DL Railroad redo a year ago? Why is this still a thing?)
Any time we don't have to talk about uncomfortable concepts feels "simpler." Any time we can go about our merry lives and not worry about unlearning what we've been taught is "simpler." That doesn't mean it's something we should aspire to, or that being forced to grow is a bad thing.
The same holds true here. "This
used to be fine!" Well, no, it was never fine. It was always from a racist movie and contained seriously cringe-worthy elements (tar baby? Really?). We're just finally at a tipping point where people who are uncomfortable with it are a critical mass enough to generate change.
So no: the ride itself may not have been inherently triggering or racist. But that ride, like a lot of other things in the parks, are microaggressions that add up like a series of individual grains of sand in your shoe over the course of the day. It's a sign to people of colour that "we liked it a whole lot better when you were quiet." That, in our mental image of an idealized world, it would look a lot more like the Jim Crow south than like anywhere modern. Not on purpose, not because any of us think that we hate people who are unlike ourselves, but because it's a lot "simpler" to not have to worry about things like that and just do what we want, regardless of how it makes other people feel.
