I agree with the OP’s thesis. The usual claim about the issue with Song of the South is that it whitewashes slavery. People say this is not the case, because it was set after slavery, during the Reconstruction era.
While true, this isn’t explicitly stated in the movie. But, even if it was, these are still former slaves who do not show any of the hardships of slavery or the post-slavery period. Uncle Remus is still happily subservient. It’s hard to argue that doesn’t still whitewash the realities.
Whether you want to call that racist is up to you. On one hand, Disney whitewashes history a lot. In a vacuum, you could treat this as just more of that. But you can also argue that this is different because of the specific history it is whitewashing, and how easily it can be misconstrued.
It seems Disney thinks its worse than, say, Pocahontas, as they show that whitewashing of history, while avoiding Song of the South. They even seem to think it’s worse than direct racist depictions in some films, like in Dumbo, Lady in the Tramp, or Peter Pan.
Though it arguably is just because SotS is just so boring. It’s in that Disney era, where Disney was just starting to try live action. They’ll show some others from that era, but combining that with the other issues, and it’s just not worth it for them.
(I actually adore that song in Tramp. I loved it as a kid for the harmonies and cat-speak.)
I know SotS is highly debated.
I find it a bunch of nothingness.
I don’t normally take Disney movies as much more than fluff.
I know Elephants can’t fly with bigger than usual ears. I don’t believe in mermaids. I don’t think Pocahontas danced around singing about colorful winds.
Or Princesses found Prince Charming because a glass shoe some Godmother magically made.
SotS is cringe worthy in parts. So is Jungle book and Aladdin.
And so are many many of the arts and Hollywood films.
Should we dismiss all because of the cringier parts? Or could we learn a little?
At least we can teach children that yes that happened or didn’t happen. And here’s how it really was.
I have seen most, if not all the Disney movies. Kids still love them. I tell my grandkids these are movies or cartoons. Not everything you see is true or real.
I’m not apt to see SotS again. But if it were to show somewhere and my grandkids wanted to watch I won’t have a problem if they were supervised. There’s so much worse available for them to see. SotS would be very easy to explain. IMO
The problem is that myths about flying elephants and mermaids and magic slippers don’t have real world effects. But myths about how black people were happy in the era before civil rights do.
And it’s not just a historical issue, although some people want to pretend racism is only something that happened in the past. There are people out there right now who are trying to sell the myth that racism isn’t real; they want to convince people that it’s just a plot by liberals to stir up black people and that racism wouldn’t exist if people weren’t talking about it.
They want to go back to the way things were depicted in Song of the South (in the 1880’s when the stories were published or in the 1940’s when the movie was made). Black people were intimidated into pretending they were happy and white people could only look at the surface and pretend everything was great.
Not whitewash- sugarcoat. Disney sugarcoats all thos G rated films- which is fine- if the film showed the horrors of slavery it wouldnt be G rated for the kids.
Yep.
Entertainment for kids first, then adults. Plenty of films show bad stuff- what’s wrong with a few films being sugarcoated?
You mean every black person was miserable all the time back then?
I’m going to treat this like it was an intelligent comment.
No, black people were not miserable all the time back then. Nor were white people happy all the time back then. People, regardless of their race, had (and still have) periods when they are miserable and periods when they are happy.
But black people in general experience more periods of misery and fewer periods of happiness than white people do. Because they live in a society in which racism imposes additional misfortunes on them because they are black.
The good news is that we are making progress. The experiences of black people in 2024 are not as bad as the experiences of black people in the 1880’s or the 1940’s. This is not a sign that we should seek to restore those old levels of racism. Nor is this a sign that we should stop working on opposing the racism that still exists. It’s a sign that we should continue to oppose racism because we have seen that opposing racism works.
something else they didnt cover was the classism between the boys family who was what passed for the southern aristocracy and the little girls family who would have been "poor ol ignorant white swamp trash " that would have been treated slightly better than the free slaves but not by much …
Sure. No doubt, and it was worse back then- except for the general feeling of happiness that came from finally being free!
So, Uncle Remus is a glass half full kinda happy dude- why not? No doubt there were quite a few black people back then who were unhappy or even miserable.
I mean we are complaining about a kids Disney film for crikeyssake. Look at Gone with the Wind- an adult film that shows nothing but lots cheerful happy black slaves- even marching off to help the CSA!! I mean, few people have even seen Song of the South now, but GwtW plays a lot on TV. And it is so much worse by orders of magnitude. Those blacks are slaves.
If someone thinks GwtW is a great film but complains about “racist” SotS, they are hypocrites of a huge sort.
I disagree. GwiW is still on many “best films ever made” lists-
It is listed as the 6th best film ever made. And- the AFI removed Fantasia from the list due to one short scene- which was pretty bad I will admit.
So, there are a lot of people who apparently dont think GwtW is racist. And it is- many,many times more racist that SotS- which isnt really racist at all.
Being a great film and being a racist film aren’t mutually exclusive categories, though, at least not for some definitions of “great.” It’s perfectly possible for someone to think GWTW is racist, but also think the cinematography and acting are impressive enough to put it in the “great” category, regardless. (Whether it’s plausible for anyone to hold similar opinions about SotS, I don’t know, but based on some of the assessments in this thread, I’m guessing it’s much less likely they would.)
So? I didn’t say “bad,” I said “racist.” Up until 2008, the AFI had Birth of a Nation on their Top 100 list. Do you think that means that steaming pile of Klan apologia was “not racist?”
AFI deleted Fantasia due to one short scene. In the original it ranked #40. And Fantasia is great.
However- I strongly disagree- any film that fucking racist can not be “great”. I mean sure there are films that were products of their time like Andy Rooney In breakfast at Tiffany’s. But that is a small part of an overall great film. It can be overlooked. But GwtW is all racist, all the time.
Yeah, and they took it off- why?- because it was fucking racist as all shit. Even more racist than GwtW.
So films that are today blatantly racist are no longer often considered “great”- even though in the more racist past they were “great”.
Of course- SotS was never “great”- just entertaining. Disney still shows the “Zippy do Dah” clip.
I actually misread your earlier point about Gone with the Wind, and thought you had mentioned it being on the AFI list as proof of it not being racist. So, apologies for the mistake there.
hidden at poster's request, didn’t realize he wasnt in the pit
I tried. I really tried. Alas, I could not recall ever before in my life reading or hearing from anyone such an incredibly asinine comment as this latest one from you.
As I pointed out in an earlier post, it appears that Song of the South was set in the Redemption era; the period when white people took away the rights that black people had received during Reconstruction.
So, yes, black people in this period were probably happy when they compared the current situation to what they had endured as slaves. But they were also comparing their current situation to what they had a few years earlier and they could see things had gotten worse.
You do understand that Uncle Remus was a fictional character made up by a southern white man? So Uncle Remus’ attitudes were not a reflection of what actual black people thought.
I read a book once that talked about a former slave who had been interviewed twice within a period of a few weeks (this was in the 1930’s). One of the interviewers was black and the other was white. And the account this woman gave of her life as a slave differed markedly between the two interviews.
The same effect probably existed when Harris spoke with various black people to collect their stories. They most likely edited their stories to versions that they felt Harris would be okay with.
Why are you comparing the greatness of Gone with the Wind to the racism of Song of the South? That’s apples to oranges.
Both movies are racist. I don’t see anyone excusing the racism in Gone with the Wind.