The ride’s current theme, while not explicitly…problematic, from a race perspective, is related to a movie that has some serious problems in that regard, and the redesign to The Princess and the Frog was clearly chosen not only because it works thematically, but because that film features Disney’s only African-American Princess character.
The transition of Splash Mountain is one element of this new focus on inclusion.
For decades the Disney company has based its employee training around the “four keys.”
Earlier this year, a fifth key was added, inclusion.