Criticized Drill Team Performance Prompts Response from Disney

The Walt Disney Company has recently been under scrutiny for its delayed response to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Now, the company is facing a new controversy about a recent performance in Disney World.

Each year, many high school marching bands and drill teams visit Disney World to take part in competitions and perform for guests. These performances take place on various stages, including Main Street, U.S.A., itself. One performance, which took place recently, has prompted backlash from guests and Disney fans.

The Port Neches-Groves High School marching band and drill team (from Port Neches, Texas) performed in Disney World’s Magic Kingdom recently. The band’s mascot is the “Indians,” and members of the drill team are known as the “Indianettes.” Usually, the group wears war bonnets when performing, but a Disney employee asked them to remove these prior to their Disney World show.

During the show, the drill team performed a chant that included insensitive and offensive language, including the phrase “scalp ’em, Indians, scalp ’em.” The team also performed a parody of a Native American dance. The show has been criticized by both guests who saw the performance and others who saw videos or heard of it later, including Tara Houska, an Ojibwe tribal attorney, advocate, and co-founder of “Not Your Mascots.” Houska responded to the event with a tweet. Houska criticized Disney for hosting the performance in the park.

Cuz a bunch of kids in fringe chanting “scalp ‘em Indians, scalp ‘em” is honor, right?

And any Natives who attend @pngisd should prolly just accept their classmates dehumanizing them cuz “tradition”, right?

Shame on @DisneyParks hosting this. Nostalgic racism is RACISM. pic.twitter.com/ELsJHRgJlw

— tara houska ᔖᐳᐌᑴ (@zhaabowekwe) March 18, 2022

The Orlando Sentinel reported that Houska also made this statement: “You see not only this really obviously racist chant being said and a bunch of presumably non-Native people wearing fringe and putting their hands over their mouths and doing ‘war whoops’ or whatever. There’s that, and then there’s all the people that are cheering them on … who are tacitly saying, ‘This is okay.’”

Since the event, Disney has responded with this statement: “We regret this performance took place as it did not reflect the audition tape that was submitted. We have immediately put measures in place to ensure performances reflect the auditions” (Scott Gustin). Disney did not specify what the new measures would be, but we can expect to see stricter rules when it comes to high school performances in the parks.

According to Click Orlando, the Port Neches-Groves High School has said that they are “aware of the concern regarding the performance of our band and Indianettes at Disney World.” The school also commented with this statement:  “We are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in our school district. Our district is nearing 100 years old, and our Board of Trustees is committed to always making the best decisions for our students, staff, and the communities of Port Neches and Groves.”

According to CNN, the high school said that this year’s performance was the 8th time that the Drill Team has done that routine in Disney World. A spokesperson said, “[Disney doesn’t] ask what you’re going to do as far as a performance. It’s just contest video and they see the uniforms. They asked for nothing else. This is the same performance we’ve done all eight times.”

UPDATE: The Florida Indigenous Alliance is now advocating for Disney World to ban performances from all schools with a Native American mascot in the parks, according to WESH2. Disney has not responded to this request.

Click Orlando also noted that the Cherokee Nation has reached out to Port Neches-Groves High School repeatedly and requested that they stop using “offensive imagery, chanting, symbolism, and other practices.” The school has not responded to their requests.

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