Disney Fans Demand Suicidal Reference To Be Removed From Haunted Mansion

The Haunted Mansion is an iconic ride at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. It also has versions within other Disney Parks around the world.

Filled with grim grinning ghosts, singing busts, wall-to-wall creeps, hot and cold running chills, and of course, the Ghost Host, the Haunted Mansion draws in Guest after Guest as they visit the 999 happy haunts while aboard a doom buggy.

However, there is one aspect of the ride that fans want to see removed.

In the Haunted Mansion pre-show, Guests gather in the stretching room where they see four portraits, which as the room stretches, reveal the true fate of the subjects in the paintings. The room has no windows and no doors, which offers Guests a chilling challenge.. to find a way out.

The Ghost Host then informs Guests that there is "always his way" which then leads to the lights going out, revealing a dead body hanging above everyone's heads hinting that this individual committed suicide after being stuck in the stretching room for too long.

For the past few years, fans have been asking Disney to remove the hanging body from the stretching room as it is disturbing, while others petition for Disney to keep it.

Now, another petition is making its rounds asking Disney to, once again, make changes to the stretching room pre-show.

One Disney fan took to change.org to start a petition to ask Disney to change the stretching room of The Haunted Mansion. 

They began by telling a "traumatic" experience they endured when they were younger. "Let me recount my traumatic experience while visiting Disneyland with my family," the person wrote in the petition. "I had just lost my 13-year-old daughter to suicide just four months prior, and my 9-year-old daughter was struggling with PTSD."

She continued to explain, "My sweet sister in law decided to fly us to California to visit family and get our minds off of things. Friends spoiled us with tickets to the happiest place on earth hoping to to turn our mourning into joy for just a moment. Half way through the day, we decided to go on the Haunted Mansion ride, thinking it would be a slow and harmless ride for our 9 year old daughter. However, the first scene we encountered was a hanging corpse, which was triggering for our entire family."

The fan then went on to say how this can be triggering for many individuals and has no place at Walt Disney World or Disneyland Parks. "Depicting a body hanging from a noose is not appropriate for the happiest place on earth. It trivializes suicide and is gruesome," they wrote. "Additionally, it ties in with the history of lynching, which is not something that should be celebrated or made light of."

The petition is just a few months old and has nearly 200 signatures. In 2021, Disney did state that they are aware of the complaints regarding the hanging scene in the Haunted Mansion attraction. "Recently, some have called for the removal of a hanging scene in the Haunted Mansion, noting its association with suicide and lynchings," the Los Angeles Times reported. "Disney has heard those complaints, but for now, the scene will remain unchanged. 'It’s been discussed for sure,' says Disney’s Michele Hobbs, who managed the Haunted Mansion refurbishment. 'It’s definitely something that we’re thinking about'."