Posted on 03/25/2007 7:43:17 AM PDT by Ellesu
ORLANDO, Fla. - Walt Disney Co.'s 1946 film "Song of the South" was historic. It was Disney's first big live-action picture and produced one of the company's most famous songs _ the Oscar-winning "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah." It also carries the story line of the Splash Mountain rides at its theme parks.
But the movie remains hidden in the Disney archives _ never released on video in the United States and criticized as racist for its depiction of Southern plantation blacks. The film's 60th anniversary passed last year without a whisper of official rerelease, which is unusual for Disney, but President and CEO Bob Iger recently said the company was reconsidering.
The film's reissue would surely spark debate, but it could also sell big. Nearly 115,000 people have signed an online petition urging Disney to make the movie available, and out-of-print international copies routinely sell online for $50-$90, some even more than $100.
Iger was answering a shareholder's inquiry about the movie for the second year in a row at Disney's annual meeting in New Orleans. This month the Disney chief made a rerelease sound more possible.
"The question of 'Song of the South' comes up periodically, in fact it was raised at last year's annual meeting ..." Iger said. "And since that time, we've decided to take a look at it again because we've had numerous requests about bringing it out. Our concern was that a film that was made so many decades ago being brought out today perhaps could be either misinterpreted or that it would be somewhat challenging in terms of providing the appropriate context."
"Song of the South" was re-shown in theaters in 1956, 1972 and 1986. Both animated and live-action, it tells the story of a young white boy, Johnny, who goes to live on his grandparents' Georgia plantation when his parents split up. Johnny is charmed by Uncle Remus _ a popular black servant _ and his fables of Brer Rabbit, Brer Bear and Brer Fox, which are actual black folk tales.
Remus' stories include the famous "tar baby," a phrase Republican presidential hopefuls John McCain and Mitt Romney were recently criticized for using to describe difficult situations. In "Song of the South," it was a trick Brer Fox and Brer Bear used to catch the rabbit _ dressing a lump of hot tar as a person to ensnare their prey. To some, it is now a derogatory term for blacks, regardless of context.
The movie doesn't reveal whether it takes place before or after the Civil War, and never refers to blacks on the plantation as slaves. It makes clear they work for the family, living down dirt roads in wood shacks while the white characters stay in a mansion. Remus and other black characters' dialogue is full of "ain't nevers," "ain't nobodys," "you tells," and "dem days's."
"In today's environment, 'Song of the South' probably doesn't have a lot of meaning, especially to the younger audiences," said James Pappas, associate professor of African-American Studies at the University of New York at Buffalo. "Older audiences probably would have more of a connection with the stereotypes, which were considered harmless at the time."
Pappas said it's not clear that the movie is intentionally racist, but it inappropriately projects Remus as a happy, laughing storyteller even though he's a plantation worker.
"Gone with the Wind," produced seven years earlier, endured the same criticism and even shares a common actress (Hattie McDaniel, who won an Oscar for "Gone" for playing the house slave "Mammy").
However, Pappas said he thinks the movie should be rereleased because of its historical significance. He said it should be prefaced, and closed, with present-day statements.
"I think it's important that these images are shown today so that especially young people can understand this historical context for some of the blatant stereotyping that's done today," Pappas said.
From a financial standpoint, Iger acknowledged last year that Disney stood to gain from rereleasing "Song." The company's movies are popular with collectors, and Disney has kept sales strong by tightly controlling when they're available.
Christian Willis, a 26-year-old IT administrator in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., started a "Song" fan site in 1999 to showcase memorabilia. He soon expanded it into a clearinghouse for information on the movie that now averages more than 800 hits a day and manages the online petition.
Willis said he doesn't think the movie is racist, just from a different time.
"Stereotypes did exist on the screen," he said. "But if you look at other films of that time period, I think 'Song of the South' was really quite tame in that regard. I think Disney did make an effort to show African Americans in a more positive light."
Though Willis is hopeful, there's still no telling when _ or if _ the movie could come out (beyond its copyright lapsing decades from now).
For this story, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Disney's distribution arm, issued a statement: "Song of the South is one of a handful of titles that has not seen a home distribution window. To this point, we have not discounted nor committed to any distribution window concerning this title."
On the Net:
"Song of the South" fan page: http://www.songofthesouth.net
A service of the Associated Press(AP)
"In today's environment, 'Song of the South' probably doesn't have a lot of meaning, especially to the younger audiences," said James Pappas, associate professor of African-American Studies at the University of New York at Buffalo. "Older audiences probably would have more of a connection with the stereotypes, which were considered harmless at the time."
He did.
Wow - I used to have that book as a kid. Brings back some fond memories for me. Thanks for posting the picture.
See! I was right!
Me, too. Was there any controversy surrounding that release? At the time I only read the funny pages.
As luck would have it, I've come across a few of the Brer Rabbit books that Disney put out in the seventies, and always make a point of bringing them home. There is nothing even a bit offensive about them, and my daughter (just shy of six) loves them- I usually end up reading them to her five or six times in the course of a day or two. They are also useful for explaining that not all people speak the language in exactly the way we do.
Whatever the origin of these stories, they seem to have a universal theme.
I've never seen Song of The South (that I can remember- born in '64), but I've always wanted to- and I believe that my girl would love it!
It is the customer service people. The lowest paid in the building.
I am familiar with Jolson's conservatism and with the fact that he campaigned for Harding in 1920.
What do you think I am?
Unfortunately, I know from personal experience that poor whites deeply resent the sympathy showered on Blacks while they either get none are are treates as if they are the rich rapists of the rest of the world. I wish this were not true. If your experience is different, then I thank G-d for it. At any rate, at the risk of sounding like an old-time populist (which I'm not) or maybe Jim Goad, it would please me greatly if poor whites and Blacks joined forces against the limousine liberals who have inherited Ole Massa's tactic of divide-and-conquer.
Anyway the two poor boys respected the black mans authority, it was the effeminately dressed, rich, white boy that drew their hostility, not the blacks.
I'm glad to hear it. It's been so long since I've seen SOTS that I had even forgotten there were poor white children "villains" in it at all. I certainly don't remember all the vagueries of the plot (and having read the original stories by Harris the movie didn't impress me that much to begin with). My apologies for forgetting this detail, and cograts to the makers of the movies for not making the poor white kids into neo-Nazis or something (thought such a thing wasn't done so much in those days anyway).
I still have a complaint that poor whites and/or "rednecks" are often pictured as bullies. I'm a po' buckruh and I was never a bully. I'm personally sick and tired of "poor little rich kids" being picked on by big, bad, mean poor kids.
Yes, this is true! The little Golden Book version of Little Black Sambo that I had as a child portrayed him as an Indian child. The clothes described in the story are found in India. Tigers are also found in India. It has always been frustrating to me that Sambo was thought of as "Negro".
The thing is, liberals want Blacks to be "rednecks" (ie, militantly racialist/race patriotic, anti-intellectual, religious (maybe?), and to butcher the English language with anachronistic dialects of English from various parts of the British Isles. They apparently want poor white kids to be full of self-hatred and shame, and yet highly educated, intellectal, and enlightened. In other words, they want poor white kids to be white liberals while they want Black kids to be WWII Japan-style fascists (WWII Japan-style fascism having buried Soviet-style Communism as what's best for the "oppressed" of the world).
I'm a huge Jolson fan, by the way. He truly was "America's greatest entertainer".
Unfortunately (and I point this out merely because of your conservative Catholicism) Jolson was a Mason, and one reason he endorsed Harding may have been Harding's membership in that organization (though many US Presidents have also been Masons). The Catholic Encyclopedia said that it was under Harding that Masonry reached its all time highest influence in the US.
It's an interesting bit of historical trivia that the old time entertainers were very often Masons and members of other secret fraternities. Other examples of vaudvillian/old time entertainer Masons include the original Amos and Andy (Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll), Bert Williams (a Black man initiated in Scotland, since no white American lodge would have done such a thing back then), Emmett Kelley, and Red Skelton.
The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks started out as a fraternity of actors, btw.
I do believe that is what one of my favorite political pundits, Ann Coulter, attempts to do...:)
Like the one where Porky Pig says "Son of a B---"
Don't be so sure! For every racial/ethnic slur liberals want to outlaw, they want to destigmatize an obscenity (in the name of "free speech," which protects obscenities but not ethnic slurs, because both the suppression of the obscenity and the use of the ethnic slur represent the hegemony of the "guilty" predominant culture).
I think that's supposed to be, "don't know nothin' 'bout Brer Rabbit and de briar patch."
It must have been shown on cable sometime because I have a tape of it that I had recorded on my VCR.
"I'm glad to hear it. It's been so long since I've seen SOTS that I had even forgotten there were poor white children "villains" in it at all. "
I just watched it for the first time since childhood, about 6 or 8 weeks ago, it is a very sweet and wise movie and should be re released.
Another movie you may like is called "The Southerner" made in the 40s, I think of it as closer to my mom's family story than the left wing " The Grapes of Wrath"
While both movies show times of her life, "The Southerner" better captures the noble and decent spirit of her family.
If you haven't read the book "The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats"
by Jim Goad, you should take a look at it.
I'd Like to see Disney Make an updated movie about Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and call it "Song of the Louse", in which those two louts are truly lampooned.
BTW Song of the South is a great movie. I enjoy it, especially the tar baby/briar patch stuff.
VEry well stated. If we lose our fables...we lose a lot.
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