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One of the original Disney Channel stars has been reunited with her Disney family recently, but apparently the singer’s work is still too “controversial” in certain places — and we’re not talking about her more risque songs or music videos!
An uplifting song that Hannah Montana actress Miley Cyrus sang with her godmother Dolly Parton for her 2017 Younger Now album, called “Rainbowland,” has just been banned in a Wisconsin school.
According to Newsweek, at least one parent from a Wisconsin public school is furious about the forced ban. Sarah Schneidler’s first-grade daughter was meant to perform the song, alongside other songs like “Here Comes the Sun” and “What a Wonderful World”, in an upcoming concert at the Heyer Elementary School.
The children were looking forward to singing “Rainbowland”, but after two parents complained about the song, the Waukesha public school’s “music teacher, principal and central office administrator” banned it.
Schneidler explained in an interview with CNN that “in the song, there is a lyric that says, ‘different colors, every [kind] coming together,’ and in Waukesha, there’s been a lot of pressure to get rid of things like that, [such as] talk of diversity and talk of inclusion.”
One of the teachers from the school was also upset by the ban. “The School District of Waukesha has really cracked down on anything LGBTQ+,” the teacher, Leigh Radichel Tracy, said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “So this song being an ‘issue’ has not in any way come as a surprise”.
“All that Miley and Dolly are saying is that they want to live in a world that is accepting, with no judgment and where people can be who they want to be,” the teacher added. “It’s so sad that this is seen as a ‘controversial issue’ by the School District of Waukesha. It’s a song about a beautiful place of acceptance.”
“My students were just devastated,” another teacher, Melissa Tempel, said in an NPR interview. “They really liked this song, and we had already begun singing it.”
Jim Sebert, the superintendent of the School District of Waukesha, defended the ban by saying that the song “could be perceived as controversial.”
According to one of the song’s singers, country music legend Dolly Parton, the “Rainbowland” song is just meant to remind everyone that “we could love one another a little better or be a little kinder.”
“It’s really just about dreaming and hoping that we could all do better. It’s a good song for the times right now,” Parton said on the Taste of Country podcast back in 2017.
Credit: Disney
Her duet partner and goddaughter Miley Cyrus echoed the sentiment in a conversation with Ellen DeGeneres back in 2017 as well, saying that the song’s message is this: “if all of us are so different and we all look so different and different shades of humanity, what a rainbow we could really be and live in that land and celebrate it.”
Miley Cyrus’s Happy Hippie nonprofit was quick to reach out and comfort the Wisconsin school’s students promptly. Happy Hippie Tweeted the following: “To the inspiring first grade students at Heyer Elementary, keep being YOU. We believe in our Happy Hippie heart that you’ll be the ones to brush the judgment and fear aside and make all of us more understanding and accepting.”
To the inspiring first grade students at Heyer Elementary, keep being YOU. We believe in our Happy Hippie heart that you’ll be the ones to brush the judgment and fear aside and make all of us more understanding and accepting 🌈
— Happy Hippie Foundation (@happyhippiefdn) March 29, 2023
A rainbow emoji was also added to the Tweet, making it clear that the “Rainbowland” ban was the elephant in the room (and, of course, Miley Cyrus retweeted the message).
In addition, Happy Hippie said the following: “in honor & celebration of your BRIGHT future Happy Hippie is making a donation to @lessprejudice to help make classrooms more inclusive!”
In honor & celebration of your BRIGHT future Happy Hippie is making a donation to @lessprejudice to help make classrooms more inclusive! 💛💛💛
— Happy Hippie Foundation (@happyhippiefdn) March 29, 2023
Happy Hippie (which is the nonprofit created by Miley Cyrus to help “homeless youth, LGBTQ+ youth, and other vulnerable populations”) also declared that “when our founder @mileycyrus and her fairy godmother @dollyparton wrote [Rainbowland] together, they meant it.”
Do you think that this Disney Channel icon’s song is “controversial”?
