Please don't throw me in that briar patch!
Posted on 01/01/2003 8:25:40 PM PST by B-Chan
I own a copy of a banned motion picture. I showed it to my wife and young son the other night. They agreed with me: censorship is bad...but it sure is fun watching something that no one else on your street is allowed to see.
The movie in question is Walt Disney's 1946 release Song of the South, starring James Baskett, Bobby Driscoll, Hattie McDaniel, and Ruth Warrick. Based on the famous African-American folk tales collected by journalist Joel Chandler Harris, Song of the South surrounds stunning animated adaptations of the classic Uncle Remus tales with a live-action "picture frame"; a sincerely felt parable in which the ancient wisdom contained in an old slave's fireside yarns builds a bridge between mother and son, between husband and wife, between black and white. Once a cherished part of America's cultural legacy, Chandler's stories are much less well known today than they ever have been--the same misguided forces that are currently conspiring to keep this film out of your hands have attached a thoroughly undeserved stigma to one of the world's great treasures...a book which is, in reality, a heritage all American's share together. And the film is one of Disney's best; the live portions are tenderly sketched (and feature Gregg Toland's luminous Technicolor photography), and the animated episodes rate with the finest work the studio ever produced. That this wonderful movie is so difficult to see these days is simply a crime.
The 1940's were, on the whole, a bit of a dry spell for Disney. The high-brow critics who had feted Walt and championed his work in the 1930's turned on him after Fantasia and the driving spirit of innovation which had characterized the pre-war years on Hyperion Ave. dried up amidst bitter labor disputes and hard times brought on by the loss of the lucrative overseas markets. The animated short subject in particular lost all of the luster audiences had come to expect from watching the elaborate Mickey Mouse films and the highly experimental Silly Symphonies of the previous decade. The live action arm of the studio (which in the 1950's would add new stars to Walt's crown with such classics as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Darby O'Gill and the Little People, and the remarkable True-Life Adventure films) was only just being born--at first, a mere expediency brought on by a wartime British law decreeing that all profits from American pictures shown in England must be spent in England. But Song of the South stands out from this lull as a genuine classic. Three of the original Remus tales --"Brer Rabbit Runs Away," "The Tar Baby," and "Brer Rabbit's Laughin' Place"--come to life with exceptional vividness. About these segments, Disney historian Leonard Maltin has written, "They have a joy, a cheerfulness about them that is absolutely irresistible, and, of course, they are populated with delightful songs, such as the Academy Award winner Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah and Everybody's Got a Laughin' Place...(this film) perfected the combination of animation and live-action to a height of perfection."
Unfortunately, Song of the South--a charming little picture without a mean bone in its body--somehow, in the last twenty years or so, got onto somebody's ideological -hit list. It was last given a timid, tentative theatrical re-release in 1986--whereupon one or two negative op-ed pieces from extremist sources caused the studio to rush out an abject apology and promise never to do it again. And sure enough, they've been as good as their word; the picture has not been seen since. It is conspicuously missing from Walt Disney Home Video's massively popular tape line-up and is never shown on television. Song of the South has been thoroughly suppressed. The contraband copy with which I polluted my family is an expensive laserdisc imported from Japan.
Exactly who is it that hates Song of the South so badly? I confess that I'm completely mystified. The only group I can think of that might have some semi-rational cause for doing so is the Ku Klux Klan. I do remember coming out of the theater so awed by James Baskett's performance (both as Remus and as voice-performer for about two dozen of the animal characters) that I walked all the way to my car wishing I wasn't so bland and...well, white. Yes, I, a lily-white Son of the Confederacy, found myself mourning the fact that I can't sound natural calling little kids "honeychile" and can't think up philosophy as profound as "You cain't run away from trouble, honey. Dey ain't no place dat fur." And from the KKK's point of view, this is obviously a deeply perverse and unnatural occurrence. Yes, that must be it. Believe it or not, there are people so immoral that they simply can't tolerate any film in which blacks are portrayed in such a heroic light.
Because make no mistake--Uncle Remus is certainly the hero of Song of the South; indeed, he's the only sympathetic character in the entire film over the age of seven and without fur. The beautiful Ruth Warrick (Citizen Kane's first wife in Welles' classic five years previous) played so many icy, repressed harridans in her first few years in Hollywood that she eventually stopped getting parts and had to retire from pictures; her plantation mistress here is another, and it seems completely impossible that someone might consider her Remus' superior. Her husband (played by Eric Rolf), who is ostensibly lord and master of this realm, is, in fact, the most passive character in the film. He abandons his wife and family for the sake of a "political" career in Atlanta...and only reclaims them after a dose of Remus' wisdom. Slave he may be, but nothing could be clearer than that Uncle Remus is possibly freer and certainly wiser and happier than his "masters."
In fact, this seems to be the point of the film. Song of the South goes to great lengths to contrast the strain and tension of life in the "big house" with the health, vitality, and spirituality of Remus' community. The white folks have their freedom, it's true--they use it to spin intricate webs of self-made bondage. Remus is a slave--and spends his time merely serving as prophet, priest, patriarch, and psychoanalyst to everybody on the plantation, black or white. This is not to say that Remus is happier as a slave that he would be free, nor that his political emancipation is a matter of irrelevance; merely that political freedom is not the only kind of freedom.
(Excerpt) Read more at wondersource.com ...
HOW TO BRING BACK SONG OF THE SOUTH
(The Six Step Process)
STEP 1:
Join the thousands of people who have added their name to the Song of the South Petition and are extremely dedicated in bringing back Disney's Song of the South (1946). To do this, all you have to do is e-mail me your full first and last name and also a middle initial (if applicable) or use the Quickform. I will publish it on the Song of the South Petition in about two to three weeks. Only you can help bring this movie back. SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR GO AHEAD AND E-MAIL ME OR GO TO THE Quickform.
STEP 2:
Let Disney know you want Song of the South to be released. Send a request to Disney's Movie Finder and let them know that you want Song of the South to be released on VHS and/or DVD. Thanks to Donald Miller we also have a phone number you can call to contact Buena Vista Home Entertainment: 1-800-723-4763 (Hours: 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM PST) and request the release of Song of the South to home video and DVD.
STEP 3:
Vote on Disney's Website to make Song of the South and Brer Rabbit #1!!
Vote for Song of the South as Favorite Animated Movie. Currently not in the top 10.
Vote for Song of the South as Favorite Musical. Currently not in the top 10.
Vote for Song of the South as Favorite Movie of the 1930's/40's. Currently #7!
Vote for Brer Rabbit as Favorite Classic Animated Character. Currently #2!
Step 4:
Nominate Song of the South to be added to the National Film Registry! See the vote page for instructions on how to send your nomination via mail, or you can send an email to sleg@loc.gov nominating Song of the South. Be sure to include why you feel that the film is significant culturally, historically, or aesthetically.
Step 5:
Enjoy UncleRemusPages.com. What else or you going to do while you're waiting for Song of the South to be released. I hope you enjoy this website as it is dedicated to Joel Chandler Harris and his stories. This website contains Song of the South film extras that can't be found anywhere on the Internet except here. Also, don't miss out on the many historical references, significant essays, articles and memorabilia contained here. Especially, Armand Gagnon's essay 'tales of Brer Rabbit, as spun by Uncle Remus (One viewers opinion)' which everyone should read.
STEP 6:
Tell as many people as you can about UncleRemusPages.com and how you are involved in supporting the re-release of Disney's Song of the South (1946).
Please don't throw me in that briar patch!
If it was an either/or, I’d take Amos N Andy over Song of the South. I bought some legal videotapes a few years ago and they were great. The whole series is available on bootleg DVD, but I’ve never pulled the trigger. I do have Song on a PAL videotape, but I’ve never had it converted. I saw it in the theater in the early ‘80s, though.
The cranky side of me wants to say, “We’re losing our republic! Who cares about SOTS?” ;-D
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