The Br’er characters that once defined one of Walt Disney World Resort‘s most iconic rides are back in view, reigniting a long-running debate about Disney’s complicated relationship with Song of the South (1946).
A Film Disney Would Rather Forget
Song of the South has been effectively off-limits for nearly four decades. The Walt Disney Company pulled the 1946 film from theatrical circulation in 1986 and has kept it out of public view ever since. When Disney+ launched, then-CEO Bob Iger made the position official, declaring the film “not appropriate for today’s world” and confirming it would never appear on the streaming service. The commitment extended to the theme parks, as Splash Mountain, the attraction most directly tied to the film’s Br’er characters, was replaced at both Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort by Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
The reasons behind that decision are easy to see. The film portrays Uncle Remus, played by James Baskett, as a Black sharecropper in the post-Civil War South who happily tells stories about the Br’er animals to the white children on his plantation. The NAACP protested the film’s 1946 release for its sanitized depiction of life for Black Americans on sharecropping plantations. Baskett himself was denied entry to the film’s Atlanta premiere due to segregation and was ineligible for a standard Oscar because of his race.
Even “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah,” the film’s most famous song, carries loaded meaning, framing the plantation as Uncle Remus’s comfortable “home sweet home” rather than a place of exploitation, and its title draws from a historically offensive term. Disney has acknowledged the film belongs to a racist chapter of American history that has no place in its current brand identity.
Back on Display at Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Despite the company’s stance, Br’er Rabbit, Br’er Bear, and Br’er Fox are currently visible to guests at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The three characters appear on a stylized 1955 map of Disneyland Park displayed within the Walt Disney Presents walkthrough exhibit:
The prop was on display at the Disneyland Opera House before being relocated to Hollywood Studios in 2023. While a separate Song of the South reference was removed from the exhibit roughly a year and a half ago, the map featuring the Br’er trio remains on display.
Walt Disney Imagineering also recently referenced Song of the South in a video about the animation technology behind the latest Pixar film Hoppers (2026). The film’s robot animals drew inspiration from several Disney audio-animatronic figures, including birds that once called Splash Mountain home.
Do you prefer Tiana’s Bayou Adventure or the original Splash Mountain? Share your thoughts with Disney Dining in the comments!
I am glad to hear Song of the South characters are in displayed yet Disney went to far PC removing Walt and Roy Disney’s, and ImagEnginnering crews’ characters which helped Disney parks expand! I won’t be visiting Disney parks as prices are out of reach of young Walt Disney’s wallet- read why HE and Roy built Disneyland and Disneyworld!