Peter Pan’s Flight Changes Native American Figures

Theme Parks

Peter Pan is getting the PC treatment, but this one isn’t in the movies (yet); it’s at Disney World. Specifically, this is Peter Pan’s Flight, a ride in the Magic Kingdom that has been closed for renovations since July 8. The ride was set to reopen on August 21, but it’s done ahead of schedule and is now available to guests once again. Park enthusiasts have wondered what these renovations would entail, and now, BlogMickey.com has the answer: they were removing the Native American display and replacing it with one that I assume they feel is more culturally sensitive, or at least less insensitive. Blog Mickey has photos of the old figures and the new ones:

Funnily, Blog Mickey speculated that this would be the change Disney would make to Peter Pan’s Flight back in May, when Walt Disney Imagineering filed a permit to install “set elements” to the attraction, with frequent Disney collaborator InterAmerica Stage listed as the contractor. BlogMickey noted that the Native Americans, as depicted in Peter Pan, the movie, were removed from a ride-through video in Disneyland Paris in 2021. The new figures depict Native Americans that look more realistic, with the women performing what appears to be a dance while the men play music on a drum. You can see a video of Peter Pan’s Flight with the new Native American figures in the video below, also courtesy of Blog Mickey:

My biggest takeaway from the video is that Peter Pan’s Flight is really lame. That’s one boring attraction; the figures kind of twirl occasionally, and that’s it. I went on a version of this ride when I was a kid – it may not have even been called Peter Pan’s Flight at the time – and it was one of the really boring ones where you waited in line for two hours to move slowly through a dark room with bland visuals. (See also: Snow White.) If my memory is correct, which it very well may not be, they’ve jazzed it up a little since then, but it still kind of sucks. Peter Pan and Captain Hook are supposed to be fighting, but all they do is slightly move one arm, and they never connect with each other; there’s about five feet of space between these two guys who are supposed to be dueling to the death. This is the time-killer before Space Mountain or something (if that still exists), but it’s a poor stand-in for a snack bar.

In other words, it’s hard for me to get worked up over these changes. If it were the movie, I’d be pissed, because I don’t like altering art like that, no matter the reason. But it’s hardly a surprise; people have been complaining about the depiction of Native Americans in Peter Pan for years, and Disney’s been having a politically correct purge of its parks, even getting rid of Splash Mountain – the most popular theme park attraction on Earth – because waterfalls are racist now, or something like that. And again, this ride sucks so bad that I don’t imagine anyone really cares if some of the characters get a makeover. I do wonder if Disney went all-out and consulted experts in Native American culture to get the dance and clothes right; somehow, I doubt it. Regardless, it’s not the worst thing Disney has done to its parks of late by a wide margin; at least this ride appears to function properly, insofar as it does anything

Let us know what you think of the changes to Peter Pan’s Flight in the comments, and check out Park Hoppin’ for videos, news, and fun stuff on Disney World, Universal Orlando, and more from folks much more knowledgeable than myself!

Thanks again to BlogMickey.com for the images and video!