MIAMI – The newly converted and long-troubled flume ride at Walt Disney World has reportedly been cleansed of New Orleans Voodoo. The ride itself has a very problematic history already and reports suggest that Disney has removed Voodoo references to try and appease Christian guests to the theme park.
Disney has a long history of acquiring and reshaping cultural stories, often transforming them to the extent that many people believe the Disney version is the original. This practice has led to the term “Disneyfication” becoming a pejorative.
Princess Tiana via Disney Movies
Disney’s Splash Mountain is one of the blatant examples. The ride faced controversy due to its association with the 1946 film Song of the South, which has been criticized for its portrayal of race relations in the post-Civil War South. The ride debuted at Disneyland in 1989 and at Walt Disney World in 1992. In 2020, a Change.org petition garnered over 21,000 signatures, urging Disney to re-theme the ride. In June 2020, Disney announced plans to re-theme Splash Mountain to The Princess and the Frog. Consequently, Disney World closed Splash Mountain in January 2023 for redesign, planning to reopen it in late 2024 as Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
“The Princess and the Frog” was released in 2009 as an animated musical film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and referencing the poem, Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The film is set in 1920s New Orleans and tells the story of Tiana, a hardworking and ambitious young Black woman – Disney’s first Black princess, by the way- who dreams of opening a restaurant. Tiana’s life takes an unexpected turn when she meets Prince Naveen, who has been transformed into a frog by Dr. Facilier, a Voodoo practitioner.
In a twist on the classic fairy tale, Naveen convinces Tiana to kiss him to break the spell, but instead of turning him back into a human, Tiana also becomes a frog. The two then embark on a journey through the Louisiana Bayou to find a way to become human again.
The film was criticized upon its release for its uninformed representation of New Orleans Voodoo.
Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado, Ph.D., who was named provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at The University of Scranton wrote in 2010 that
The terms Voodoo, Hoodoo, and conjuring are used interchangeably throughout. In the end, one is presented with an evil religion that will ultimately fail. I did not expect critical race analysis or a sophisticated presentation of Voodoo when I walked into the theater. It is, after all, Disney. I did not expect such a blatant, racist, and misinformed presentation of Voodoo, however. The reduction of religion to magic is also reaffirmed in the curious absence of Catholicism in the film.
The film is still on the minds of Vodouyizans.
Manbo DeRosier is a practitioner in South Florida who spoke with TWH. She says she generally enjoys Disney and visits the parks. “I enjoy them but there’s much wrong there,” she said [translated]. “The film was New Orleans Voodoo and a terrible depiction of it and all the practices including the Vodou of Haiti, Ocha, Ifá, and all these sister spiritual paths of West Africa.”
Manbo DeRosier said that the film just promoted stereotypes so she could not imagine the new ride being much different. “Most notably, the Lwas are not described justly or honorably. They are depicted as wicked and spiteful spirits, and that is just the start of it. Disney should be ashamed.” She added that the film and Disney had an opportunity to destigmatize a community but failed. “It does not educate. It does not heal. Some might say it is just a movie but movies can help create change.”
Author and Voodoo priestess, Lilith Dorsey agreed. “I think there are lots of problematic and stereotypical components of The Princess and The Frog, things we have seen for way too long from Hollywood,” they told TWH. “However, representation matters and for many young Black and Brown children a Princess from New Orleans was something to smile about. Hopefully, more accurate representations will find their way to Disney soon.”
The original film was criticized also for portraying Voodoo.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure opened on June 28, 2024, at the Magic Kingdom in Orlando and is scheduled to open later in 2024 at Disneyland. The remake cost Disney $150 million with jazz and zydeco background music and a welcome to a “Celebration of Family and Friends of New Orleans”. The transformation seems to appease Christian visitors objecting to the presence of Voodoo.
As Christianity Today warned parents in its review of the film in 2009, “Voodoo/black magic elements are pervasive throughout.” Christianity Today Reviewer Annie Young Frisbie wrote,
But it’s the use of voodoo that ultimately reveals the movie’s hollow, thoughtless core. Shadowman is engaging in black magic, and the scenes where he speaks to his “friends on the other side” contain many horror elements. It’s very clear that he’s trafficking in evil… Mama Odie knows voodoo, too, but her magic is more of the prosaic, homegrown kind. In a production number that evokes gospel music but with Jesus neatly stripped away, Mama Odie offers up a defiantly American church of the self. “
In typical Disney fashion, the company has discreetly minimized the film’s voodoo portrayal, which had offended some evangelical Christian theatergoers.
Disney Parks has offered a preview of the new ride via YouTube:
Mama Odie has been transformed into a “bayou fairy godmother” and other magical characters like Dr. Facilier, removed altogether. As a reminder, the entire story is supposed to be based on Voodoo. Disney, implicitly — and conveniently — explains in promotional material the new ride’s absence of voodoo by stating that the ride and the new series pick up the story after the movie ends.
Mark I. Pinsky, author of “The Gospel According to Disney: Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust” wrote in The Hill,
In addition to mollifying religious conservatives, reframing “The Princess and the Frog” with the new ride may also represent the latest step in the rapprochement between Iger and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The two have been at loggerheads for over two years, ostensibly over the company’s critical response to DeSantis’s “Don’t Say Gay” legislation. In response, DeSantis used what he called Disney’s “woke” agenda as a political punching bag in his abortive presidential run and acted to seize control of the company’s local governmental agency.
The changes and apparent capitulation to Christians may have surprised some in the media, but Manbo DesRosier was not surprised. “We have been misunderstood by white culture for centuries and we always lose out when money is involved. I am not surprised.”
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