Has anyone noticed that yesterday's press release about changes to the Pirates of the Caribbean attractions include all the parks that Disney Corp has direct control over? The Paris version will be changed first, and then Anaheim and Orlando in early 2018. (The Shanghai version is really a Pirates 2.0, and doesn't follow the narrative of the classic attraction).
There are four incarnations of the classic version of the attraction, the fourth (third built, chronologically) is at Tokyo Disneyland, and yesterday's press release did not mention the Tokyo version.
Why not? Tokyo Disneyland is owned by Oriental Land Company, which has final say over changes to the park. If they do not want to make changes to their version of pirates, they don't, pure and simple. By mid 2018, the only classic version of the ride left untouched by Disney Imagineering remaining will be in Japan. (Too bad the dialogue is all in Japanese, as are other classic attractions like Country Bear Jamboree and the Haunted Mansion.)
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But no one has talked about Tokyo Disneyland's version of Pirates on the front page. And the fact that it's not going to be changing. Because Disney doesn't own Tokyo Disneyland.
Here's a video of the Tokyo version from Attractions 360:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XCVskIbJg_E
I take some things back:
1) The ride is 90% in English, except for the talking skull before the drop.
2) Jack Sparrow is prominent in the ride.
BUT the Pirates are still chasing women in the looting scene, not women carrying trays of food. And one has no reason to think they will change the auction scene, either.
I have the perfect solution. Keep the scene with a few changes. Remove the Auction banner. Change one or two women into male prisoners. Turn the fat woman into the Captain's wife. The Redhead is a Madam of a brothel (or implied). Change the chase scene to tie into the previous scene by having the Pirates chase after the villagers, male or female, who might have valuable treasures. What's lost with the changes is the villainy of the Pirates. Introducing a female pirate is too politically correct and can't be explained to anyone's satisfaction.
I didn't create this thread to suggest ways to improve the Disneyland ride, although I'm sure lots of people have opinions about how to do that, or what elements they feel are personally objectionable, or should be untouchable by the park management and Imagineers.
All I wanted to point out is that the political correctness has not figured into changes at Tokyo's version of the ride (although the Jack Sparrow elements were added there) because Oriental Land Co. actually owns the park and is not beholden to Disney as far as being told to make changes to their attractions.
Now if people want to speculate why audiences in Japan haven't responded to the sexism and rape culture so obvious in the ride (sarcasm), that would be interesting. My personal feeling is that audiences in the States and in France never asked for the change. Rather, it was driven by Disney corporate or Imagineering desire for change.
Also, Japanese culture has a higher threshold in their popular culture for violence toward women (see certain Japanese manga if you really want to see rape culture in action), so what they see in Pirates seems mild in comparison.
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I mean, what can be said is on the front page about this!