Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.
THE REDHEAD AT PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN IN MAGIC KINGDOM
By Jim Korkis
For fifty years, since 1967 at Disneyland, guests drifted by a scene in Pirates of the Caribbean in Disney parks where intimidating pirates are holding female captives and putting them on an auction block with a huge banner above their heads proclaiming, “Auction. Take a Wench for a Bride.”
Starting in 2018, no longer are the women auctioned off. The banner is changed to read “Auction. Surrender Ye Loot.” One of the most distinctive women in the scene, a self-assured redhead now known as Redd, has become a musket-carrying pirate with a bottle of rum on her hip, helping in overseeing the surrender of the town’s “loot” and auctioning it off to her fellow pirates.
Kathy Mangum, senior vice president of Walt Disney Imagineering, stated: “Our team thought long and hard about how to best update this scene. Given the redhead has long been a fan favorite, we wanted to keep her as a pivotal part of the story, so we made her a plundering pirate! We think this keeps to the original vision of the attraction as envisioned by Marc Davis, X Atencio and the other Disney legends who first brought this classic to life.” [The changes were already in motion before the #MeToo movement burst on the scene, becoming more poignantly well-timed because of that—Dave.]
Of course, the attraction was never meant to be historically correct. It is doubtful that pirates ever auctioned off women. It is more likely they simply took whatever they wanted by force whether it was loot or physical female companionship.
However, especially recently, the issue of sexual slavery has become a more prominent issue even though it has existed for centuries. Some claim that the attraction shows tacit approval of such an action, even if it is cloaked in the aura of fantasy and that the pirates get their tragic comeuppance.
Something that rarely occurs to guests is that the Redhead is the only female with the color red in the scene. Her clothes are more expensive, emphasizing a pronounced bust. Her hat is very stylish. She wears more make-up. She even originally had a beauty spot on her right cheek. She doesn’t reflect any of the awkwardness or fear of her fellow companions.
Even the auctioneer has to reprimand her, “Strike yer colors, ya brazen wench! No need to expose yer superstructure!”
Based on Davis’ original research and early sketches, she is obviously a popular and well-off lady of the night, the town prostitute, who is well aware of what her fate might be and is already negotiating to get top dollar, realizing that she is much smarter than whoever purchases her.
She is not a victim. In fact, she realizes that the drunker these unsavory scoundrels get, the more in control she can be of the situation, even to the point of being able to escape.
Marc Davis told me that he believed that after she was sold, she became a pirate herself and took over the ship. He suggested that the eye-patched woman wearing a pirate hat in the painting over the bar in the early part of the attraction was what happened to her in later years. However, her new costume in the new scene is much more demure than real life female pirates Anne Bonney and Mary Read, who Davis sketched for the original walk-through attraction.
Walt Disney had initially expressed some concerns to Imagineer Claude Coats about whether the scene was appropriate, but it was pointed out that the scene was purposely staged with humor so that the men seemed like raucous boys rather than real threats.
By putting up the banner to buy a bride, it transformed them from licentious reprobates to lonely men who couldn’t get a wife on their own. Whether any of this alleviates anything in this day and age is debatable.
* * * * *
Thanks, Jim! And come back next Friday for more from Jim Korkis!
In the meantime, check out his books, including his latest, More Secret Stories of Disneyland, and his Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew
, which reprints much material first written for this site, all published by Theme Park Press.
Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest!!
