This Christmas we made our annual trek to Disneyland. As former long time Southern California residents and annual pass holders we’ve been to Disneyland literally hundreds of times. We moved in 2021 to be closer to family but have made an annual holiday tradition of treating the kids to a Disney Christmas vacation.
Whether you’ve been a hundred times or are experiencing Disneyland for the first time there is a sense of wonderment as you enter the gate and walk out onto Main Street. Every time we go there is something new, and that is my design. Walt Disney himself once said that “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” He didn’t know how right he was.
In the last 70 years the park has grown and changed. There have been new rides and new hotels. There was so much imagination that they even built a whole new theme park, Disney’s California Adventure. This spurned the construction of a giant parking structure and the Downtown Disney shopping district with all new restaurants and stores.
Sometimes the changes are made because of declining interest in a ride or attraction. Such was the case with the Monsanto’s Plastic House of the Future which once stood at the entrance to Tomorrowland where the Astro Orbiter is now located. The Adventure Thru Inner Space ride was replaced in 1987 by Star Tours, unquestionably a much more popular ride.
New rides have been built to attract more visitors, such as with the 1979 debut of Big Thunder Mountain or the Indiana Jones ride in 1995. In 2003 an entire new ‘Land’ was built with the opening of Toon Town.
There have also been updates and what is called “re-theming” or “re-imagined.” This is the process of putting a new spin on an old ride as when the Take Flight ride became the Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. A ride also might get an “overlay” like how the Haunted Mansion becomes the Haunted Mansion Holiday by adding frightfully festive touches from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Not all changes to the park have been well received
Disneyland is a business. To make money they tailor their product to have the widest appeal possible. But there is no way to make everyone happy. Some people will love a ride the way it was the day it opened, while others embrace the creative changes. Not all changes, however, have been well received.
In recent years Disney has been making changes to rides in response to changes in society and culture. This started in 1997 with the changing of scenes on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride depicting the objectification of women. In 2021 the Jungle Cruise ride was updated to remove racially and culturally insensitive depictions.
When those rides were built those scenes were more socially acceptable. And Disney actually spent a lot of time and money to ensure historical and cultural accuracy. Of course if you look at photos from opening day you will see that the crowd was overwhelming white, as were all of the public facing park employees. It was 1955, a decade before the civil rights movement. Times have changed. Demographics have changed. What was once acceptable is no more.
This bring us to Splash Mountain. The water flume ride themed for the 1946 Disney movie Song of the South. A live action and semi-animated musical which helps to perpetuate a dangerously glorified picture of slavery. So offensive was the movie that Disney pulled it from public release in 1986. Yet Disney seemed completely oblivious to this when three years later in 1989 they featured characters from the movie in Splash Mountain.
In 2020 Disney announced that it would re-theme the Splash Mountain ride at Walt Disney World and Disneyland after the murder of George Floyd. Conservatives have labeled these updates as “woke.” A term which Republicans struggle to define, but they use negatively to describe ideas, viewpoints, and policy changes that they believe would radically and negatively alter society. And by society they mean a country dominated and controlled by white Christian men.
When Disney announced the changes to the ride of the same name at the Magic Kingdom in Florida. Governor Ron Desantis, culture warrior and all around awful human being, filed a law suit to attempt to stop the re-theming of Splash Mountain to Tiana’s Bayou claiming that it was a historical landmark.
After a year long closure the re-imagined Splash Mountain opened as Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. Named after the 2009 Disney movie The Princess and the Frog. Last week I took my family to Disneyland for our annual holiday vacation and we rode Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
Outwardly it looks the same, save for the sign. The ride itself has not changed. It uses the same tracks and log cars. All the drops are still there, you still get soaked. Afterward you can still purchase a picture of yourself on the ride from the PhotoPass booth. And you can still, and should, purchase a poncho prior to getting in line!
The story line depicts Tiana and her alligator friend Louis on a journey through the bayou to find a group of animal musicians to perform at her Mardi Gras celebration. Nine minutes after we sat down in our log we exited, our clothes now drenched because we didn’t buy ponchos. I’d ridden Splash Mountain dozens of times and yet after riding Tiana’s Bayou I didn’t feel a sense of loss. I wasn’t outraged by the re-theming. We were all just shouting and laughing, and shivering from the cold water.
No one laments the loss of the Journey Thru Inner Space when they exit the line of Star Tours. You don’t get off of Big Thunder Mountain and bemoan the closure of the Rainbow Mountain Mine Train ride. And most people don’t even realize that the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge land was once a petting farm. Life changes. Times change. And Disneyland changes with those times. In my mind, any change which makes the park more inclusive is a good one.