PREVIOUS COVERAGE: City Council approves Disneyland Forward plan
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: The nearly $2 billion plan received approval from the Anaheim City Council.
ANAHEIM, California. – Disney plans to modernize the Peter Pan’s Flight attraction at Disneyland to remove what it sees as stereotypical portrayal of indigenous peoples.
The move follows a recent upgrade to the attraction at Disney World Resort in Orlando, where Disney’s Imagineers updated a scene featuring the Never Land Tribe by removing a chief wearing a headdress and several warriors sitting around a fire drumming, along with Tiger Lily.
The updated scene now shows Tiger Lily and her mother performing a dance around the fire while other tribe members play a ceremonial drum.
Disneyland officials told the New York Post that changes to Disneyland’s version of the attraction will likely be similar and that the company’s “Imagineers” are focusing on “thoughtful” changes to be made within an unspecified time frame.
Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Peter Pan’s Flight was updated in 1983 as part of a more comprehensive modernization of Disney’s Fantasyland. Tiger Lily and the Neverland Tribe played a more important role than in the original attraction.
Peter Pan’s Flight at Disneyland is one of the original attractions that debuted on the theme park’s opening day in 1955.
Disney has taken several steps in recent years to remove potentially insensitive content or warn viewers.
The entertainment giant has added content warnings regarding the use of racist stereotypes and references in some of its films, including “Peter Pan.”
In the original 1953 Disney film, Native Americans were referred to as “redskins” and Peter and the Lost Boys were shown dancing wearing headdresses.
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When viewers tune into the film on the Disney+ streaming platform, a disclaimer alerts them to the depictions: “These stereotypes were wrong then and they remain wrong today.”
Disney has also replaced the popular Splash Mountain rides at Disneyland in California and the Magic Kingdom in Florida.
The original attractions were based on the 1946 Disney film “Song of the South,” which was criticized as racist due to its stereotypical portrayal of African Americans in the post-Civil War South.
It has since been relaunched and renamed “Tiana’s Bayou Adventure,” premiered at the Magic Kingdom earlier this summer, and is scheduled to open at Disneyland in mid-November.
