Splash/Song of the South
 

Not to start a “Why Song of the South should/shouldn’t be released” but why was Splash Mountain themed for a movie that had little hope of ever being re-released?

I watched Song of the South this weekend with my daughter. She kept saying, “Oh now I get it”. Since she had never been able to see the movie before she never really got what was happening in the ride. Something about a rabbit and people singing she guessed. She’s 10 so I’m guessing there’s a large group of younger people going on the ride that have absolutely no idea what the story is.

So why theme a ride to a story that no one’s going to ever be able to see?

It's an Eisner thang.
If rumor is correct, his son picked the ride out while he and daddy were touring some Imagineer work area. He asked him which he thought would be most fun...
So sayeth the rumor mill.

and they had all those spare animatronics left over from America Sings.

What's even more ridiculous, according to rumor anyway, is why they named it SPLASH Mt.

Hint. It has nothing to do with Song of the South.

Catchy song that everyone was familiar with, characters that fit relatively well with the proposed area's theming, and a whole bunch of spare animal animatroincs due to America Sings shutting down. Sounds perfect to me.

Because they were hoping that once Daryl Hannah's 15 minutes were up she'd be willing to live in the ride as a permanent human animatronic?

The thing about Splash Mountain and Song of the South is pretty much all of the controversy surrounding the movie (and while it is valid controversy it also shouldn't prevent re-release of the movie so long as Holiday Inn plays on TV every year) is due to the live action portions and not the animated portions. The ride includes nothing from the live actions segments of the movie.

Even if they won't release the whole movie I would love to see them at least release the animation.

Well, I do hope Disney does release SotS. I can't remember having seen it, except endless loops of Zip-aDee-Doo-Dah and that was always delightful to me. Of course, I'm not an African American. Now, if they add some kind of contemporary intro to the film, what's the big deal? I'm not sure what is so offensive about it since I've not seen it.

American film is rife with non-PC material, a good deal of which has been or is still currently available on DVD and in libraries. Birth of a Nation is an obvious example. Naturally, this film does not get the rental a Disney film would. I think presented with taste and consideration they could do it.

Alex, I love Holiday Inn (but not really the Abraham blackface number, not one of Bing Crosby's more stellar moments) Then again, what's the Mickey and Judy Busby Berkeley blackface number? Then there is Al Jolson in Going to Heaven on a Mule, now that IS offensive.

Do we know if Song of the South is even in the discussion of being released pipeline?

I've seen it, and the ironic thing is that the offense is that it makes post-bellum black life look too good. Its biggest problem is that it glosses over the hardships most black people faced, making an extended family of black servants in the emply of white landowners look like nothing but happy-go-lucky folks without a care in the world. At least, that's my read. Yeah, a bit ignorant of the harsh reality (what Disney movie isn't?), but it's not like there were actors in black face or anything that portrayed black Americans as inferior. If it were any other studio, it wouldn't be an issue, but Disney knows that it's under a microscope and even the slightest offense, especially at this point where it's been played up so much, can cause major headaches.

The complaint isn't so much that the movie portrays the life of the former slaves as too good but rather it portrays the former slaves as too passive and the former slaveowners as too benevolent. As if slavery were just a jolly experiment that everybody had decided to move on from.

The other important thing to remember about the controversy is that it is not a "modern" invention. The NAACP picketed and boycotted the movie when it was released in 1946, what's changed is how much Disney cares whether the NAACP is upset.

I'm still waiting for an "Uncle Remus" face character in Critter Country.