SANTA ANA, Calif. — Disneyland visitors riding Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will float through a swamp illuminated by fireflies while being serenaded by audio-animatronic critters playing zydeco music on instruments fashioned from objects found in the bayou when the attraction opens in 2024, officials announced last week.
Disneyland announced in 2020 that Splash Mountain would be rethemed to the 2009 animated hit “The Princess and the Frog” after complaints about the ride’s original theme, based on the 1946 movie “Song of the South,” which has been criticized for perpetuating negative stereotypes about Black people. The movie, an adaptation of the “Uncle Remus” stories of the plantation-era South, has never been released on home video and is not available on the Disney+ streaming service.
Calls to change the ride’s theme intensified in 2020 amid the protests that followed the death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will feature its titular heroine and other characters as they celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
