Song Of The South DVD

[zeroapoc]

Peter Pan is ridiculously racist too and Disney has no problem releasing and marketing it.

The crows in Dumbo are a pretty offensive black caricature as well.

 

[Thundarr]

Because in the film it's never said they have been emancipated, only up until the end you know that they are when Uncle Remus leaves on his own towards the end of the film.

What is considered racist is Br'er Rabbit covered in tar from a baby made of tar, called a tar baby, which black people have be called since the Uncle Remu's book was written.

In 2006 at the Disney Shareholders meeting Ovits was asked by a woman in the audience if they are ever going to release this film and he said no they aren't.

Some animation historians have dubbed the animation in the film to be the best ever done at Disney.

James Baskett who played Uncle Remus in the 1946 film received a honorary Oscar that year for playing Uncle Remus, and died 4 months later.

The tar baby made an appearance in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Disney actually wanted to put the date of the story in the opening of the film, but that got vetoed for some stupid reason.

I see your point about the Tar Baby story. It had been so long since I've seen the film I had almost forgotten about that.

However, neither of these things necessarily has to prevent the film from ever being released in the US/Canada on DVD/BR. If George Lucas can re-release the original Star Wars Trilogy with a bunch of added/altered scenes, why can't Disney?

For the confusion over the time period of the story? Just add the date of the story in the very opening of the film like Walt wanted to do in the first place!

As for the Tar Baby story? Well there's two ways to go about fixing that. The first, and easiest, is to simply cut that part out of the film all together. Only problem with that is it may disrupt the movie's narrative flow.

The second fix is more complicated, but with today's technology shouldn't be too damn hard. I remember that I used to have the Bre'r Rabbit & The Tar Baby as one of my Disney Read-Along books (those were the books that came with the a small record that you could listen to while following the story along in the book, the idea being to help kids with their reading by them looking at the words as the story is being read to them). Anyway, in the Read-Along book version, they changed the tar to glue. Thus Bre'r Rabbit is in the same sticky situation as in the original (pardon the pun), but without the unfortunate racial connotations. So, aside from laziness, what's stopping Disney from making a similar change to the original film? They would have to redo some of the voice acting, changing the word "tar" to "glue". But other than that, and digitally changing the black tar into white glue, that's it. Done! Exact same story, only a little more PC.

 

[Thundarr]

I saw the film once when it was up on youtube (before it was promptly taken down) and I don't get how it was racist.I mean at all.Yeah,it's from that "gone with the wind" style of bygone film making,but I don't remember anything being offensive.Remus is shown to be a caring and wise man.The little white boy has a little black boy as a friend.The white kid's mother doesn't speak disrespectfully towards Remus.

I personally wouldn't call it a masterpiece.(the cartoon parts were the best parts IMO)But,I don't really see how this film being available would send race relations back 100 years.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating racism or slavery. In fact, both make me sick. However I was confused as to why a children's movie by Disney would be deemed one of the most offensive and racist films ever made. I had to look the criticisms up on the Internet in order to find out what all the controversy was about, and that left me with more questions than answers.

Okay, I can kinda see the point with the Tar Baby story. But I've already written that this is a (relatively) easy fix. But everything else?

One of the reasons given as to why it's so offensive is that the black people in the story seem to be happy with their lives as slaves. Well, as I wrote in my earlier post, they weren't slaves. The story takes place AFTER the civil war, meaning that they're all emancipated. Fixing this confusion is as easy as including the date of the story in the movie's opening, the way Walt Disney originally intended it. And even if the story was set BEFORE the war, and they WERE slaves, surely SOME slave owners in the south treated their slaves well. "Geez! The slaves at the ranch next door are starved half to death, made to live in filth, wear rags that do little to protect them from the cold, and are beaten mercilessly almost every day. Me? I've got good clothes, live in a warm house, am well fed, and only get beaten when I misbehave (which ain't often). I might be a slave, but damn life could be a whole lot worse!"

Another complaint, the black people acted like a bunch of uneducated hicks. Well, in 1870 black people were, for the most part, a bunch of uneducated hicks (at least in the south). So that's not so much being racist as historically accurate. Also, even Jeff Foxworthy (a white guy) admits in one of his stand up comedy acts that "The Southern accent isn't the world's most intelligent sounding accent". So naturally a bunch of people speaking with a southern drawl are going to sound less intelligent, or at least uneducated. And as I said before, how else are a bunch of recently emancipated slaves in the deep south supposed to sound? That not being racist, it's being historically accurate.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

The crows in Dumbo are a pretty offensive black caricature as well.

Yes, that's right. The main one is even named Jim Crow.

There was also Sunflower from Fantasia, but she eventually ended up getting cut out completely in recent releases.

 

[Human Torch]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating racism or slavery. In fact, both make me sick. However I was confused as to why a children's movie by Disney would be deemed one of the most offensive and racist films ever made. I had to look the criticisms up on the Internet in order to find out what all the controversy was about, and that left me with more questions than answers.

Okay, I can kinda see the point with the Tar Baby story. But I've already written that this is a (relatively) easy fix. But everything else?

One of the reasons given as to why it's so offensive is that the black people in the story seem to be happy with their lives as slaves. Well, as I wrote in my earlier post, they weren't slaves. The story takes place AFTER the civil war, meaning that they're all emancipated. Fixing this confusion is as easy as including the date of the story in the movie's opening, the way Walt Disney originally intended it. And even if the story was set BEFORE the war, and they WERE slaves, surely SOME slave owners in the south treated their slaves well. "Geez! The slaves at the ranch next door are starved half to death, made to live in filth, wear rags that do little to protect them from the cold, and are beaten mercilessly almost every day. Me? I've got good clothes, live in a warm house, am well fed, and only get beaten when I misbehave (which ain't often). I might be a slave, but damn life could be a whole lot worse!"

Another complaint, the black people acted like a bunch of uneducated hicks. Well, in 1870 black people were, for the most part, a bunch of uneducated hicks (at least in the south). So that's not so much being racist as historically accurate. Also, even Jeff Foxworthy (a white guy) admits in one of his stand up comedy acts that "The Southern accent isn't the world's most intelligent sounding accent". So naturally a bunch of people speaking with a southern drawl are going to sound less intelligent, or at least uneducated. And as I said before, how else are a bunch of recently emancipated slaves in the deep south supposed to sound? That not being racist, it's being historically accurate.

Oh sure,I get what you're saying.That's why I agreed with you.


I think the whole 'Tar Baby' issue is a strawman.I mean,it ain't the N word.I've never heard people use the term to refer to blacks,and I doubt by kids watching this film it would lead to a new generation of people using the term.


The simplest thing would be to do what's been done to every outdated film/cartoon that may be deemed 'mildly offensive' and slap a label on it that says "For the Mature collector-may include material deemed offensive by modern sensibilities" or what have you,and you're good to go.

Personally,my biggest gripe is the fact that Amos 'N Andy's tv series isn't out on DVD.This is another case of several generations missing out on something classic,because the NAACP deemed it 'inappropriate' in the 60's,when in reality it's completely harmless.

 

[Thundarr]

FYI, I just found the complete movie on You Tube, posted by "Superlv1CM", so if anyone wants to take a stroll down memory lane, log onto You Tube now and watch the video now while you still can. It had been posted on You Tube at least twice before and was taken down both times, so hurry if you want to see it.

I just finished watching it myself, and I stand by my opinion that people who find this movie offensive are taking it WAY too seriously.

Incidentally, the movie will become public domain in the year 2039 and will then be available for rerelease in theaters and on DVD/BluRay (assuming those mediums of watching movies still exist by then). No matter what Disney or the NAACP thinks, they'll have no choice. Its the law.

 

[Thundarr]

[YT]l1iELQWko6E[/YT]

Watch it while you can!

 

[Donnie Darko]

I definitely need to check this out. I hope it stays up for a while.