Walt Disney World has removed one of the final nods to the controversial Song of the South movie from its theme parks at an exhibit about the life and work of Walt Disney. The Walt Disney Presents exhibit is broken down into multiple parts, showcasing the life and work of a man who would change the entertainment industry forever, and lead to the creation of the world’s most popular theme parks. In a section of the exhibit focused on movie making, there used to be a reference to the controversial Song of the South movie. That reference has been recently removed and replaced. We made it out to Disney’s Hollywood Studios recently to take a look at the change.

Earlier this year, as the Tiana’s Bayou Adventure attraction was set to open, the Song of the South reference remained in Walt Disney Presents. Even though the company had decided that the movie wasn’t fit for release to the public, a reference to the film remained in the only exhibit about Walt Disney at the most visited theme park destination in the world. The existence of the reference at a time when an entire attraction was being reimagined underscored a 2022 article that I wrote titled ‘I’ is for Inconsistent, Not Inclusion.

In short, I was hopeful that the company would be consistent when applying new Diversity & Inclusion rules at its theme parks. The thought was that if the Song of the South movie was deemed unacceptable to put on Disney+ or release publicly, even with a disclaimer, it has no business being in Disney’s theme parks. Even Disney CEO Bob Iger said that Disney would not consider making the film available to watch.

I’ve felt as long as I’ve been CEO that Song of the South — even with a disclaimer — was just not appropriate in today’s world…It’s just hard, given the depictions in some of those films, to bring them out today without in some form or another offending people, so we’ve decided not to do that.

As always, Disney is a large ship that moves slowly, but they have made some positive recent steps toward more consistency, most recently changing a scene in the Peter Pan’s Flight attraction to remove negative stereotypes of Native Americans.

Now, Disney is apparently ready to continue efforts to be more consistent in their application of Diversity & Inclusion initiatives, removing the Song of the South reference from Walt Disney Presents. As you can see in our photos below, the reference that contained animated and real characters from the Song of the South movie have been replaced by animated characters from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949).

BlogMickey.com has reached out to Walt Disney World for comment on the change, and we will update this article with more information should they respond.

As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!