Posted on 05/31/2023 3:07:45 AM PDT by DallasBiff
“Song of the South” counts among its ensemble Hattie McDaniel, the “Gone With the Wind” star and first Black entertainer to win an Academy Award. In a 1947 interview, she told the American publication The Criterion, “If I had for one moment considered any part of the picture degrading or harmful to my people, I would not have appeared therein.” Her co-star James Baskett echoed her support of the film, saying, “I believe that certain groups are doing my race more harm in seeking to create dissension than can ever possibly come out of the ‘Song of the South.’”
(Excerpt) Read more at indiewire.com ...
It is a nice movie with some truly "African-American" folk tales. I put it that way because the stories are not really from Africa but they are stories that were reworked to tell black children in America. They are unique, rather rare and possibly would have mostly vanished if they had not been written down and then integrated into this movie.
There seems to be a vicious hatred of people who write things down. You see it in people who complain about Snorri Sturluson, Ovid, the Brothers Grimm, even poor old Homer. Apparently it is a sin to write down oral tales but it is also a sin when you don't write down every version and a ever greater sin if they think you added or took away some part whether you did or didn't.
Personally I think people just like hate on stuff.
This seems to be a common misconception. But the movie is post Civil War.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962) is a classic western with characters Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), Ransom Stoddard (Jimmy Stewart), Hallie Jackson later Stoddard (Vera Miles), Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), Dutton Peabody (Edmond O'Brien) and Link Appleyard (Andy Devine). There were other members of the cast who were not then famous but became famous later.
There was also a black character Pompey (Woody Strode). He was portrayed as illiterate but also running a livery stable and carrying a long rifle. In several confrontations with Valence and his gang, Pompey uses that rifle to back up Doniphon. The only thing Pompey can't do is vote. But then, at that time, neither could any of the women. Stoddard is portrayed as opening a school for all the illiterates including Hallie. I won't go into the plot of the original except to say it was NOT about race but a battle between the ranchers and farmers vis-a-vis statehood.
The local Little Theater recently did a stage production of a play by the same name. It was written in 2014 by a Brit(!) named Jethro Compton. That should have been my woke warning.
The independent black Pompey character was changed to a similarly illiterate black character called Jim 'The Reverend' Mosten who mopped the floor at Hallie's saloon. As in the original, Stoddard starts a school to teach all the illiterates to read. Liberty Valence rides into town and lynches the black Mosten for learning to read and has a shootout with Stoddard for teaching him.
Because today, race can be the only plot line. I keep thinking Disney will release a woke Song of the South where the black characters sing about... well, I'll stop there.
I think you can, given that the sentiment of the preponderance of racism was presumed to be very much on one side back then.
It was a different time.
This is what happens when you let the Marxists drive an issue, and they are always the first to get in the drivers seat.
I never said that it was right or even accurate for that time. I said it was a prevailing attitude. As you properly point out, that does not make it right.
Didn't Pres Trump say something like that and he got castigated for it?
By the way, we may differ on the cause, but I think we agree on the effect.
I found a number of copies of “Song Of The South” on bitchute.com even watched the first third last night.
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