From here
Interesting! The only bad thing is that it sounds like they’re going to do their best to political correctify it, by hiring “a prominent black entertainer” to act as MC in the menus and explain why the movie’s bad. Uh-huh. I’ll put down cash right now that they’re also going to edit it somehow.
Anyone seen it? Anyone excited? What’s so offensive about it?
I’ve seen the movie, though only once and quite some time ago, so I probably have some details confused. As far as I remember it, the movie is pretty good - not the worst that Disney’s done, not the best, either. The cartoons based on the Uncle Remus characters are a treat, though. And who can avoid getting “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” stuck in her head?
The movie is set in the Deep South shortly after the end of the Civil War. Two of the main characters, an old man and a young boy, are from poor, black, sharecropper families, and I believe the boy works as a servant. Two others, a boy and a girl of about the same age, are from wealthy, white, land-owning families. The two white children have problems and the two black characters try to help, among other things by encouraging them to have a positive attitude.
The movie is criticized by those who see it as promoting a stereotype that blacks are happy-go-lucky. Some people also believe the movie is set before the Civil War, hence before emancipation, and portrays blacks as happy to be slaves.
If this movie is legally released on DVD - and I will believe it when I see it - I will almost certainly buy it, and explain to my kids if necessary why I think the explanations on the disc are horsepucky 
I saw it in the late 1960s, MAYBE early '70’s- probably the last time it was out in theatres. I also have the album & the tie-in storybook (before the Tar-Baby was PC’d into “the Glue Bunny”, or is that a UL?)
Being a small lad at the time, I wouldn’t have really noticed anything objectible. I sure don’t recall anything that needs editing.
I have a bootleg copy on VHS. (I won’t say where I got it, but I want to say ‘thanks’ to the person who sent it.)
I did not see anything offensive in it; but then, I’m European-American. I can see how it would be offensive (or at least, insensitive) if it were set before the Civil War. As I remember (it’s been a few years since I’ve seen it), the African-Americans were portrayed in a good light. It seems to me that the only ‘offensive’ thing would be the perception that they are ‘happy slaves’. (Of course, the freed slaves were often de facto slaves anyway.)
James Baskett (‘Uncle Remus’) won an Academy Award for his performance. IIRC, he was the first African-American male actor to win one. It always seemed a shame that his Academy Award winning performance was being supressed by Disney.
I’ll probably buy the DVD, if only in recognition of Baskett’s performance.
Disney does have a recent history of censoring its old movies on racial grounds.
Snopes has a pretty good webpage regarding the criticism surrounding 'Song Of The South."
The notion that Baskett couldn’t get a room in Atlanta and missed a movie premiere because of racism is kinda laughable, though. Atlanta has four black colleges. There were black owned rooming houses and hotels he could have stayed in. It sounds like, being from Los Angeles and traveling with white folks, he didn’t know what his options were.
Disney gave it theatrical reissues in 1956, 1972, 1981, and 1986.
The last time it was out in the theaters was 1986, I think. That’s when I saw it, as a child. (I hate that they don’t rerelease the old ones in the theaters anymore; why on earth would you make a profoundly awful sequel and put it on the big screen when you’ve already got the movie?)
It’s a perfectly decent movie with the excellent Uncle Remus stories. I don’t think this trend of “let’s just not show the bad old days!” is a good idea. How else are kids supposed to know that racism isn’t just the provenance of men in bedsheets with the eyes cut out? I’d much rather see things and discuss them with kids, particularly those old Warner Brothers cartoons that are verboten these days.
But it did make him the first African-American male actor to receive an Oscar.
Interesting. I wasn’t aware of that until I looked it up!
I hated how they changed it so that Br’er Rabbit fires first.
At least they took the guns out of Br’er Bear’s hands and replaced it with a walkie-talkie!
It’s not nearly as bad as those 3 jive talking, intoxicated, black crows in “Dumbo”. Even as a child I found that kind of wrong.
One thing that always bugged me about “Song of The South”, most people think the Br’er Rabbit/Tarbaby story came from Disney. It’s actually a very old black folktale.
It may actually go further back, to Native American tales, which often featured a trickster rabbit. There’s some debate about whether Native American oral traditions and African American oral traditions got blended into the Br’er Rabbit stories. You can find some discussion here of Native American “stickfast” stories which seem to prefigure the tar baby story, for example.
Funny, I was just thinking about them the other day. Have they edited them out yet? That was probably the only racial cartoon that was blatant enough for me to notice as a very small child.
“I be done seen about EVERYthing…When I see an elephant fllyyyy!”
Re: Song of the South - I saw it as a small child, and I picked up a bootleg copy about 5 years ago that’s sitting on a shelf not 10 feet from me as I type this, but I still haven’t watched it. Everytime one of these threads comes up I tell myself I’m going to watch it and I never end up doing it.
Maybe today I will…
As long as they don’t edit or change anything, I don’t care how they release it or who they have discussing it on the disc.
I have a copy of the Japanese laserdisc (I paid $90 for it in 1991) and have since ripped it to DVD. People thought I was nuts. Sealed copies have gone for $300+ on eBay at times.
If you look on eBay, you might be also be able to find sealed PAL videotapes that were released in Europe only, although Taiwanese and Hong Kong bootleggers have gotten into the act with ripped DVD copies.
I saw the film in theaters back in 1972. Being 6 at the time, I was unaware of it being racist, although I can understand the objections to it.
Disney didn’t completely give up on the Uncle Remus franchise. They did build a whole ride “Splash Mountain” at its theme parks based on the rides, although only animals are shown in the ride.