Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise has consistently departed the park’s Adventureland area since 1955 and is today one of the remaining attractions on the opening day that Walt Disney himself oversees.
But culture often moves faster than decades-old mechanical hippos.
On Monday, the Walt Disney Co. announced that it was embarking on what many consider to be a lengthy course correction for the Jungle Cruise. Numerous changes are planned to make the attraction feel more inclusive and less racially sensitive in the depiction of other cultures.
The move follows numerous updates from older attractions such as Splash Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean, all done to remove the outdated tablets that can shrink at best, and racist at worst. Already this year, the company revealed that Splash Mountain, originally inspired by the critics in the racist film “Song of the South”, received a make-up with the theme “The Princess and the Frog”, the film in which Disney’s first black princess appears.
The Jungle Cruise, as one of Disneyland’s attractions on the opening day proposed by the park’s patriarch, will likely be viewed with a more protective lens by the company’s large fan. Yet the ride has been under constant evolution since its inception. Its early influence was taken from Disney’s own nature documentaries and the 1951 film “The African Queen”, a favorite of former Disneyland designer Harper Goff.
His initial conception as “The Jungle Rivers of the World” leaned slightly more educationally than the more humor-driven idea of today. The ride’s unpleasant tribal depictions, largely inspired by images from Papua New Guinea, were added in the years following the opening. These vignettes of the Jungle Cruise portray indigenous people essentially as tourist attraction, attackers or cannibals.
Draft art for the redesigned “trapped safari” scene of the Jungle Cruise.
(Walt Disney Imagineering)
‘Horrifyingly racist’ was a description of one of Disney’s own counterparts in the theme park. This is how different Jungle Cruise scenes are featured in an essay by the theme entertainment company Thinkwell Group that was published shortly after Disney announced the changes to Splash Mountain.
In 1957, a javelin-waving war party was added to the Jungle Cruise, as was the character “Trader Sam”, a dark-colored man dressed in striped clothes today. Disney tiki rods – one on each coast – are named after the character who deals in stereotypes. He exchanges you ‘two of his heads for one of you’.
“As Imagineers, it is our responsibility to ensure that experiences we create, and stories we share, reflect the voices and perspectives of the world around us,” Carmen Smith said in a statement from Disney. Smith is the executive director of creative development and inclusion at Walt Disney Imagineering, the company’s division responsible for theme parking experiences.
Concept art previewing Disney showed a remake of the “trapped safari” scene, in which adventurers scramble up a tree to avoid the horn of a rhino. In the current state of Disneyland, a white traveler is at the top, while native safari guides are in a more dangerous position. The rethought scene, initially dreamed up by master Disney animator designer Marc Davis as an advertisement for the ride, features exclusively unlucky participants in a previous Jungle Cruise boat tour.
Changes, Disney stressed, are being made independent of an upcoming Jungle Cruise-inspired film starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. Expect all scenes containing distasteful portrayals of indigenous characters to be updated, a Disney spokesman said, although details of possible adaptations to the war party scene and the Trader Sam finale have not yet been shared.
No matter how silly and exaggerated the Jungle Cruise may be, it has long been criticized as the adventure through an imperialist lens. Non-Americans are portrayed as submissive or cruel. Although the ride is a collage of Asia, Africa and South America, human figures in the regions are portrayed as exotic, violent and humorous humor, which was troublesome in the fifties and sixties and today smells of racism.
It is also a view that clashes with the broader cultural Disney theme park mission, which has shifted over the decades from cartoon-like and simplistic depictions of other cultures to a brand with a more global perspective. When Walt Disney World opened Animal Kingdom in 1998, Africa and Asia were displayed in a more reverent light, enhancing only the outdated cultural depictions of the Jungle Cruise.
Disney expects the changes to be complete this year at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World in Florida, where the ride is currently open. The company adds that timelines could be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, as Disneyland has been closed for nearly a year. Even with the lifting of Gov.’s home orders. Newsom this week, Disneyland may remain closed for some time to come.
When you are done, the story of attraction will be adapted. Guests will follow the abuse of a Jungle Cruise tour incorrectly walk and see a glimpse of the recent expedition. For example, expect an old Jungle Cruise boat to be overtaken by monkeys, as the new scenes are designed to add fresh life, activity and characters to the attraction, while also fueling more funny jokes from the travel guides.
“When we’re considering making changes to a classic attraction, we focus on ways to ‘plus’ the experience,” said Chris Beatty, creative director at Walt Disney Imagineering. “The captains of the Jungle Cruise bring guests of all ages reverent humor, and we are excited to contribute to this legacy – along with a new animated skipper figure – by celebrating their adventures and influence.”
Although the ride has long been hampered after excursions in the past that ended badly, Disney plans to add figurines that will represent other tourists, and as Beatty noted, a not-so-successful skipper. This move will help dismantle Disney’s goal of removing stick caricatures and, in Disney’s words, ‘negative portrayals of indigenous people’.
“For the first time ever, the captain’s role will not only be that of a lively, experienced and witty guide, but will also be represented by a performance figure in the attraction itself,” said Kevin Lively, a story editor at Walt Disney Imagineering. said.
For those who follow the parks, the changes should not be entirely unexpected, especially with a film starring Johnson and Blunt destined for theatrical distribution. “The Jungle Cruise”, like many recent films affected by pandemic-related closures, has been postponed from the 2020 release date to one next summer.
Remarkably, however, Disney in this case is not waiting to see how the audience responds to the picture. Consider this an indication that Disney is aware that the ride’s cultural makeup is a necessity that is more urgent than marketing calendars may allow. A Disney spokesman also says the new figurines will not represent characters in the film.
None of the modified scenes were in the Jungle Cruise at the opening of Disneyland in July 1955, although the ride would have looked completely different from the contemporary audience.
Animals were scarce then – only seven hippos and eight crocodiles were present in the water according to the documentation of the park’s opening year – and the extensive vegetation had not yet grown to disguise nearby buildings. Many of the ride’s most beloved scenes, such as the elaborate elephant bath, were dreamed up by sculptor Imagine Davis, who was added in the 1960s.
Long-time fans of the attraction may see a few nods to retired boats in the new scenes, but the goal is a more inclusive ride that reduces folly. Lively says, “Finally the jungle gets the last laugh.”