Disney is reintroducing many of its classic movies to fans— but it's keen for one particular movie, Song of the South, to never see the light of day.
Summary
- Disney is avoiding the controversial movie "Song of the South" in its recent wave of remakes and boxsets, wanting people to forget it exists.
- "Song of the South" is considered Disney's most racist movie, with a romanticized view of plantation life and patronizing depiction of Black characters.
- Disney has excluded "Song of the South" from its streaming platform Disney+ and will not include it in its new boxset due to its deeply ingrained problematic content.
WARNING: This article discusses racist depictions of Black people.
Disney is riding a wave of nostalgia by remaking many of its classic movies and recently announcing an enormous 100-movie boxset — however, Song of the South is one movie that's conspicuously absent from both. The movie studio is keen to keep many of its older animated movies alive as live-action remakes, with classic cartoons such as The Lion King finding new generations of fans, and Snow White, the studio's first feature-length animation, next in the live-action pipeline. However, not only is Disney not planning to re-release or remake Song of the South, it would more happily have people forget that the movie exists altogether.
Released in 1946, Song of the South won some praise as well as an Oscar for Best Song, as well as later spawning a theme park ride, Splash Mountain, which omits references to the title of the movie that inspired it. Now though, it's not a movie Disney is keen to revisit. Disney has provided the stories that accompany childhoods for generations, spawning beloved fairytale adaptations from 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to recent successes like the Frozen movies and Pixar's more sophisticated animated stories. Song of the South utilized both animated and live-action elements, but Disney would rather it was scrubbed from its canon of classic children's fare.
Song Of The South's Controversy Explained
Song of the South is considered by many to be Disney's most racist movie. It follows a kindly, elderly Black plantation worker named Uncle Remus, as he tells folk stories about Br'er Rabbit to the white children — who presumably descend from the people who owned Remus's recent ancestors. The movie is set during the Reconstruction era, but its completely uncritical romanticization of plantation life betrays a nostalgia for slavery, portraying the life it depicts as the "good old days." Remus is depicted in a patronizing, infantilizing way. He seems happy and unquestioning about his situation, and is a non-threatening figure who only exists to entertain and give homely advice to his white charges.
The movie, which also features Black sharecropper children portrayed in similarly dehumanizing ways, was not simply a product of its era. It was controversial at the time, too. Its release during the Jim Crow era and amid the beginnings of the U.S. Civil Rights movement is shocking in itself, and James Baskett, who played Remus, was not even allowed to attend its premiere in segregated Atlanta. A favorable Time review praised Remus's "illiterate, good-natured philosophizing," inadvertently demonstrating the offensive ways the movie's makers saw Black men. While the reviewer liked the movie, they recognized many Black viewers would be outraged by the character of Uncle Remus, "who cheerfully 'knew his place'."
Disney Won't Include Song Of The South On Disney+ Or New Boxsets
Disney has used streaming platform Disney+ to reintroduce audiences to a wider catalog of movies than are usually re-released on TV. Unsurprisingly, Song of the South isn't on Disney+, though, and it is very unlikely to be in the future. Some of Disney's older movies on the platform such as Dumbo now carry warnings about racist stereotypes for viewers — in Dumbo's case because of the notorious crow characters, led by "Jim Crow" — but the problems with Song of the South are simply too baked into the structure of the film itself.
Disney has also recently taken a deep dive into its back catalog in its announcement of a Disney Legacy Animated Film Collection. The set of 100 movies on Blu-ray range from 1937 to the current year, and includes niche films such as Make Mine Music and Fantasia: 2000. There is a difference, though, between films that have been forgotten with time and those Disney has hoped to scrub from the pop culture consciousness because of the horrific attitudes they convey — so don't expect to see Song of the South in a legacy boxset any time soon.
Source: Time
Related Topics About The AuthorncG1vNJzZmirk6eyprrRmqWtZpOkunC%2FzqeeZqeWYsGpsYyspq6smGKwsLrTq6avnaKoxm6x16mjmqGemrFw