Credit: DisneyIn 1986, The Walt Disney Company allowed Song of the South (1946) to be screened in movie theaters for the final time before locking it behind the Disney vault. In 2020, former Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed the film would never come to Disney+, calling it “not appropriate for today’s world.”
Just a few years later, Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort replaced the attraction inspired by the movie, Splash Mountain, with Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
Now, though, guests can find a reference to the widely-banned and racist film at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
What’s Wrong With Song of the South (1946)?
Song of the South was one of Walt Disney Studios’ earliest projects that combined live-action with hand-drawn animation. The film stars James Baskett as Uncle Remus, a Black sharecropper living in the post-Civil War South who bonds with the white children on his plantation by telling stories about the Br’er animals.
Despite the Song of the South nostalgia, particularly among Splash Mountain fans, the movie was controversial even upon its 1946 release. Baskett was not allowed to attend the film premiere, as it was in segregated Atlanta, and wasn’t eligible for a real Oscar due to his race. The NAACP protested the movie’s release due to its sanitized depiction of Black Americans’ lives on sharecropping plantations.
Even the iconic “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” song features offensive themes, portraying Uncle Remus (portrayed through Br’er Rabbit on Splash Mountain) as safer and happier in his “home sweet home” on the plantation, where he is taken advantage of, rather than somewhere he can work and live independently and equally. The song’s title also borrows from the offensive term “Zip Coon.”
Between outdated language and a whitewashed view of post-Civil War life for formerly enslaved people, Song of the South is a relic of a more racist time in the United States, and even Disney agrees that it has no place in modern society.
Reference to Controversial Film at Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Despite removing Splash Mountain years ago, Walt Disney World Resort has kept a reference to Song of the South at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Although one reference to the film was removed a year and a half ago, three of the Br’er characters remain on a map of Disneyland Park as it was in 1955.
This prop was on display in the Disneyland Opera House until 2023, when it was moved to the Walt Disney Presents walkthrough exhibit at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. As visible in this photo from WDWNT, the map features a stylized border with several iconic Disney characters, including Br’er Rabbit, Br’er Bear, and Br’er Fox.
Walt Disney Imagineering also recently referenced Song of the South in a video about the technology in the newest Pixar film, Hoppers (2026). Animators drew inspiration for the robot animals in the film from several audio-animatronic animals, including multiple birds from Splash Mountain.
Should Walt Disney World Resort remove this reference to Song of the South from Disney’s Hollywood Studios? Share your opinion with Inside the Magic in the comments!