Why It’s Time For Princess Tiana to Preside Over The Laughing Place And Make it Almost Home

By Jim Shill

The Disney internet, aka the Disnernet, is brewing like the black cauldron with news that Splash Mountain, a beloved fixture of Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and Tokyo Disneyland for over 30 years now, is getting some much-needed refurbishments. So what kind of refurbishments is it getting?

First of all, let’s be honest. Have you actually watched Song of the South lately? Of course you haven’t. It’s not like driving a Ford. It’s 2021. Black filmmakers have sparked a virtual revolution since 1946. That revolution started all the way back in the late 1960s when the entire country was desegregated, making it less necessary for white producers like Walt Disney to feel the need to step in and tell other races’ stories for them. The New Disney is all about being inclusive, but sometimes inclusion makes it necessary to exclude. Now, as much as I personally admire Song of the South and its contributions to Disney history and film history, I can respect the fact that others do not. And no, you don’t have to be Black to be offended by Black stereotypes, but my not being Black means my opinion on the film doesn’t count unless it’s a negative one. And the opinions of white people only count if they agree with Black people. But only if they agree with the Black people who have negative opinions about it. Honestly, I’d rather watch movies with no Black people at all, such as ..., than have something that reinforces destructive myths about slavery and its aftermath. Walt’s intentions were good, but he wasn’t Black so they count for zip.

And as for the removal of “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” from the Disneyland entrance music loop, may I make a suggestion? How about they replace it with “Let it Go,” since everyone loves that song, it also won the Oscar, and since nothing empowered white girls who don’t need a man to be happy create can ever be problematic unless they’re from Australia and their name rhymes with Schmelen Schmeddy.

Wait, wait, wait, but what about Tiana, you might be asking yourself? She has a husband and her status as a Princess depends on it. Does that make her any less empowered or feminist? No it doesn’t; you see, she’s Black, so that automatically overrules everything else.

Disney's first Black Prince is also a frog for most of the movie.

Wait, wait, wait, but what about Uncle Remus? He’s Black, too. And not only that, but James Baskett was the first Black man to receive an Oscar.

Exactly. You hit the nail on the head. The first Black MAN to win an Oscar. He’s a man. Tiana is a woman. Checkmate. Spare me all your bull-you-know-what about Helen Reddy, Pete’s Dragon, and “until I make my brother understand” until you agree with this. I’m a man, too, and as a man, I feel it’s my responsibility to shame other men, even gay men despite my not being one myself, for not doing what they are told by highly powerful and well-connected heterosexual non-Jewish women of color, as long as that color is Black. And basic Black at that. And that makes me a better feminist than Helen Reddy. Ha ha ha, I beat you! Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah!

Wait, wait, wait, but why is the first Black Disney Princess getting a hand-me down ride? Isn't that kind of an insult? Actually, no. If a re-themed EPCOT ride was good enough for Anna and Elsa when Frozen made more money (so did Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel, now that I think about it), then this would be no different. Even so, Black women and white men are working together on this new, improved racism-free version of Splash Mountain. Just as Annie needed Disney to make it less like a 1930s-era proto-Victoria’s Secret fashion show, Disney needs Disney to Disneyfy Disney. Disney Disney Disney! Disney! Disney! Disney Disney! Wait, where was I? Oh, right. I’m as absent-minded as a professor. That got redone twice and the world didn’t end. Okay, it did end for Harry Anderson and Robin Williams who replaced the also-deceased Fred MacMurray, but everyone reading this (except my Gam-Gam in Heaven) is alive. And so is Tony Baxter-Birney, the original Imagineer behind Splash Mountain, working with Charita Bauer and Carmen Jones, both of whom are Black women of color, to make Splash Mountain woke so Disney won’t go broke. After all, it worked for Star Wars, Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, and especially Pete’s Dragon, the remake that shows why remakes are the lifeblood of the American movie industry and of western civilization itself, so it is necessary for Song of the South. That’s not even the only film version of Joel Grey Higgins’s stories about Uncle Remus. Ralph Bakshi made Coonskin in 1975, a darker, grittier, R-rated take on the story, and 2006 saw Universal’s direct-to-video The Adventures of Br’er Rabbit with repentant Jew-hater Nick Cannon and Lebanese-American comedian Wanda Sykes in a version that uses modern English instead of period-accurate-but-cringeworthy-to-modern-ears 19th century proto-Ebonics while dispensing with any live-action framing story.

Wait, wait, wait! What about The Princess and the Frog? Wasn’t that based on a Grimm Brothers story? And didn’t the Grimm Brothers also write an anti-semitic tale called The Jew in the Thorns? Yes, that’s technically true, but that’s not the point. Tiana is Black. The world is a carousel of color, wonderful, wonderful, color, which is why Disney is finally trying to be inclusive after years of catering mainly to straight white guys like me and their straight white wives and straight white children. None of the other post-Song of the South, pre-Princess and the Frog attempts at inclusion counted, which is why you don’t see anything devoted to Polly, that 1989 Debbie Allen made-for-TV musical that took the classic Pollyanna story and, to paraphrase the Rolling Stones, painted it Black. No disrespect to Hayley Mills or her Oscar-winning performance in that 1960 David Swift drama from Walt Disney, but to quote the President, “you ain’t Black,” and Keshia Knight Pulliam, who co-starred in a sitcom with a now-convicted rapist at the time, was and is. Nor do you see anything devoted to the TV-movie A Mother’s Courage: The Mary Thomas Story because this Mary, despite being real, Black, and played by Academy Award-nominated actress Alfre Woodard, could neither fly nor sing, even though none of that stopped her from winning an NAACP Image Award. And don’t count on any acknowledgement of 1991’s TV movie She Stood Alone where Mare Winningham played a teacher of a school for Black girls after the end of the Civil War. And don't even ask about 1976's Treasure of Matecumbe because Ron Miller.

  

Most of Disney's other films about Black people are obscure today.

Wait, wait, wait, but what about Queen of Katwe, Disney’s recent live-action movie about an African female chess player? That came and went without much fanfare. I don’t remember actually seeing it. I doubt you did, either. Not even out of guilt. And there won’t be much about it in the parks any time soon either. Chess is boring.

Walt once said, “Disneyland is always changing.” That means change is good because Walt said it’s good. And if Disney does it, that automatically makes it good. Except when it doesn’t. But Tiana makes food and food means happy, especially food with spoonfuls and spoonfuls of sugar in it, just like … said! Yum yum! Br’er Rabbit means slavery and slavery bad. Yuck yuck! And don’t bother pointing out that there is a brand of molasses called Br’er Rabbit, or that molasses has nutrients that sugar doesn’t. Molasses looks too much like tar to not be racist. Besides, the ride wasn’t actually put there when Walt was alive. It opened in 1989 in Disneyland and 1992 elsewhere. But there isn’t one in China, and if China doesn’t like something, then maybe we’d better be respectful of their cultural sensitivities, too, especially when they have billions of potential customers. Loyal, Brave, and True, remember?

Wait, wait, wait, but what about Japan? The Oriental Land Company said they like the characters the way they are and they don’t care about the connections to slavery. Well, first of all, they’re being racist against themselves by saying “Oriental” instead of “Asian.” That pretty much negates their argument. And second, whatever race the Japanese are, they aren’t Black, so this isn’t their history. And their history includes being friends with Hitler. I rest my case.

Wait, wait, wait, but what about Black people who don’t think the film is racist and don’t think the ride should be re-themed? Why don’t their opinions matter? Why didn’t Disney ask any of the family members of the cast and crew of Song of the South how to proceed after recent national tragedies? Why does Disney care more about white people getting offended on Black people’s behalf than the opinions of Black people who aren’t offended by it? What do you think I am, a mind reader?

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