Just watched "Song of the South"......

[MrsDuck]

Its available online at Youtube. Broken into several parts. Loads well, good quility. Worth watching.

This is how I watched it.

OP- I agree with you entirely!

 

[Kim&Chris]

It doesn't actually depict slavery; it takes place during the Reconstruction after slavery. The African Americans are servants, but not slaves. Uncle Remus was free to leave when he chose, after all.

I think the film is delightful and the stories of Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, and Br'er Bear should be preserved as part of African American culture. My parents read them to me as a child (yes, I'm white, but my parents were big on reading such tales. We read lots of Rudyard Kipling too. ).

If you want to see the movie now, you will have to google, order online, and hope for the best. It's a shame, as the interaction between the live actors and the animation was ground-breaking, and Uncle Remus is the hero of the story. It's not demeaning at all. Everyone should see it!

I agree 100%. I was lucky enough to get a copy a few years ago (thanks to a link that a Dis'er provided) and I really didn't see anything "bad", per se.

It really is a shame that some people will never have an opportunity to see this movie

 

[Alsobrook]

Here's a fun question. Who is the first performer of African American decent to win an Academy Award?

 

[princesshannahsmom]

Hattie McDaniel from Gone with the Wind!!!

 

[SeaSpray]

Here's a fun question. Who is the first performer of African American decent to win an Academy Award?

Hattie McDaniel from Gone with the Wind!!!

I just quoted her the other day!! "I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no babies!"


I saw Song of the South in the movie theater when I was young.... (guess that makes me old now. lol). Seeing it as an 8-yr old compared to seeing it as an adult now, I'm sure I'd take awake different aspects of it. I wish Disney would release it as well....but would it cause some people discomfort or harm?? Or like someone else mentioned, Gone with the Wind is considered a classic, and nobody complains about the time period being depicted.

 

[EMom]

I just quoted her the other day!! "I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no babies!"

Truly not trying to be snarky, but Butterfly McQueen (Prissy) said that, not Hattie McDaniel. We sometimes accuse DD of "Prissying" when she dawdles and drags her rear end.

 

[Alsobrook]

Hattie McDaniel from Gone with the Wind!!!

Ok, now same question... but who was the first male performer.....

 

[EMom]

DH's mother was a Disney nut and also loved musicals, so I think there's a good chance she had SOTS. He was familiar with it and the songs. On the other hand, I don't think I ever saw the movie. I was, however, very familiar with the stories because I grew up hearing them from my parents.

The first time we rode Splash Mountain, DH said something about it not being exactly like the movie and having been PCd up. I said, "All I know is, I kept looking for that Tar Baby everywhere, but he was nowhere to be seen. What's with that honey pot?"

As a child, I loved the Tar Baby most of all and thought he was the most fascinatiang one in the stories. Yeah, the rabbit was cunning. But Tar Baby just sat there in silence and still managed to drive that rabbit crazy. It was as if he was agitating him without doing a single thing. Maybe the Tar Baby wasn't supposed to have personality, but I thought he had plenty to spare.

If you read the background of the stories, there was nothing racist about the Tar Baby. Anyway, I've stopped looking for him on Splash Mountain. He's a honey pot.

 

[Uncle Remus]

Ok, now same question... but who was the first male performer.....

James Baskett:

BUT when the film premiered in Atlanta, he wasn't able to attend due to segregation laws.

 

[castmemberb4]

James Baskett was also the first African American actor hired by Disney

 

[SeaSpray]

Truly not trying to be snarky, but Butterfly McQueen (Prissy) said that, not Hattie McDaniel. We sometimes accuse DD of "Prissying" when she dawdles and drags her rear end.

You are right!!! I got the names confused....

 

[Alsobrook]

James Baskett:



BUT when the film premiered in Atlanta, he wasn't able to attend due to segregation laws.

You stole my thunder.... I was going to ask what he and Hattie had in common related to the premiere of the two films.

Incidentally, the architect who designed Duke University, African American, never saw the school completed for similar reasons.

 

[eliza61]

and I have to say I don't get why it is "banned" from Disney and completely unavailable to buy.

Yes, it depicts slavery and a time people would like to forget, but certainly nothing worse than Gone With the Wind (for example) which is supposed to be a "classic". Am I ignorant?

Would it have been made the same way if it was made now, with the speech patterns and the like? No. But it is a movie of it's time, yes? Is it just that WDW is trying to sanitize it's image?

What do you think?

BTW, as far as the animation, storytelling and such goes, I completely enjoyed it!

I think it's an excellent business decision. I'm sick of movies, gwtw included that portray the "happy darkie slave lovin their white master". As a decendant of those "happy slaves" its an insult to the perserverance of my people and the hell we went through.

Now since disney has been trying to expand their market and grab a bit of the 7 billion dollars that African americans like me spend on vacations, why would they risk it.

and I assure PC or not if they released it I would be the first trying to get it banned. It's offensive. Knowing that this happened doesn't make it less offensive.

I wonder how a holocaust movie showing a victim modeling his prison stripes made into a musical would go over.


Just because it has great animation or was made during a certain era does not make it any less offensive. I hope they burn the thing.

 

[DizBelle]

I think it's an excellent business decision. I'm sick of movies, gwtw included that portray the "happy darkie slave lovin their white master". As a decendant of those "happy slaves" its an insult to the perserverance of my people and the hell we went through.

Now since disney has been trying to expand their market and grab a bit of the 7 billion dollars that African americans like me spend on vacations, why would they risk it.

and I assure PC or not if they released it I would be the first trying to get it banned. It's offensive. Knowing that this happened doesn't make it less offensive.

I wonder how a holocaust movie showing a victim modeling his prison stripes made into a musical would go over.


Just because it has great animation or was made during a certain era does not make it any less offensive. I hope they burn the thing.

Have you even seen the movie? Do you know what it is about?

I saw it and took it to be a story about a boy and his relationship with Uncle Remus and how Uncle Remus tells him stories to teach him how to deal with situations.

I think it is a BIG shame that James Baskett's brilliant performance is being shut in a box. He performed wonderfully and it's a shame people don't get to see his work.

If it was so offensive, why did he agree to play the part?

 

[eliza61]

Have you even seen the movie? Do you know what it is about?

I saw it and took it to be a story about a boy and his relationship with Uncle Remus and how Uncle Remus tells him stories to teach him how to deal with situations.

I think it is a BIG shame that James Baskett's brilliant performance is being shut in a box. He performed wonderfully and it's a shame people don't get to see his work.

If it was so offensive, why did he agree to play the part?

LOL Really? You really need to ask why he played the part? You must be from the uk.

OK, here in the states during the 1940's we had this really bad race problem. Most of us did not want to be mammies, maids, porters and things like that but since they was no such thing as equal opportunity, if you wanted to work you did what you had to do.

Now in the south it was especially brutual. Blacks could not even be portrayed as looking at a white women. theaters would not have allowed it.

Now yes I have seen the movie and first you have to get over the fact that during that time period (reconstruction, right after slavery) it was a good chance that, a relationship between the two would probably not have been plausible.

James Baskett was actually a pharmacology student who started acting as a way to make money.

He could not even able to go to the films premiere due to segregation. I can bet he wasn't singing "Zippee do dah" then.

 

[Sorsha]

I think it's an excellent business decision. I'm sick of movies, gwtw included that portray the "happy darkie slave lovin their white master". As a decendant of those "happy slaves" its an insult to the perserverance of my people and the hell we went through.

*said very gently, and very lovingly* Please do not take offense. Slavery happened. The Civil War happened. The Reconstruction happened. As much as it was not a pleasant time in history, as much as people suffered and died, African, White, and First Nations alike, it cannot be forgotten, it cannot be covered up and swept under the rug. To do so would have disastrous consequenses.

I have read the accounts. I have read the research. During the Reconstruction, some former slaves stayed on with their former masters. They felt as though that was their family, they had been treated well (some weren't, quite obviously, but some were), and they had nowhere else to go. The story of Uncle Remus and his relationship with the children of the family as a trusted companion would NOT have been off the mark. As a matter of fact, I think the Uncle Remus stories serve as an important method of passing down the oral traditions of the African peoples.

"Uncle Remus is a fictional character, the title character and fictional narrator of a collection of African American folktales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris, published in book form in 1881. A journalist in post-Reconstruction Atlanta, Georgia, Harris produced seven Uncle Remus books.
The stories are told in Harris's version of a Deep South slave dialect (Gullah language). The genre of stories is the trickster tale. At the time of Harris' publication, his work was praised for its ability to capture plantation negro dialect."

Do you understand how rare it was for the oral traditons to have been captured firsthand like that, and how important that was??

Regardless, we must never neglect History in any form. As George Santayana wrote, in 1905, Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
.....................

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes.
Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them.
Those who do not know history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them.

None of us want this...

 

[Geoff_M]

Now yes I have seen the movie and first you have to get over the fact that during that time period (reconstruction, right after slavery) it was a good chance that, a relationship between the two would probably not have been plausible.

Of course, the same exact criticisms were aimed at "The Princess & The Frog". In both cases, I think it's important to realize that neither film is intended to be a realistic case study of race relations in the Post-Civil War South.... they're children's movies.

 

[DizBelle]

LOL Really? You really need to ask why he played the part? You must be from the uk.

OK, here in the states during the 1940's we had this really bad race problem. Most of us did not want to be mammies, maids, porters and things like that but since they was no such thing as equal opportunity, if you wanted to work you did what you had to do.

Now in the south it was especially brutual. Blacks could not even be portrayed as looking at a white women. theaters would not have allowed it.

Now yes I have seen the movie and first you have to get over the fact that during that time period (reconstruction, right after slavery) it was a good chance that, a relationship between the two would probably not have been plausible.

James Baskett was actually a pharmacology student who started acting as a way to make money.

He could not even able to go to the films premiere due to segregation. I can bet he wasn't singing "Zippee do dah" then.

Nope - In fact, I grew up in the very same Georgia in which this movie is set.

 

[DizBelle]

Oh course, the same exact criticisms were aimed at "The Princess & The Frog". In both cases, I think it's important to realize that neither film is intended to be a realistic case study of race relations in the Post-Civil War South.... they're children's movies.

Exactly. I don't think they are intended to be a depiction of everything that might have happened during this time. Maybe they are intended to be a depction of the joyful times. That doesn't mean that the unpleasant times didn't happen. Just that they aren't part of THIS story.

You can't tell me that former slaves never experienced joy or happiness at any time.

 

[eliza61]

Exactly. I don't think they are intended to be a depiction of everything that might have happened during this time. Maybe they are intended to be a depction of the joyful times. That doesn't mean that the unpleasant times didn't happen. Just that they aren't part of THIS story.

You can't tell me that former slaves never experienced joy or happiness at any time.

first, let me say that I totally agree that I am not objective because I live with the ramifications.

I am a civil rights baby. did I experience joy throughout my life? most definitely, does that negate having German sheppards sicced on me for absolutely NO reason but the fact that I'm black? NO.

The problem that many blacks find and the problems Jews like my neighbor finds when people make casual references to Hilter is that
1) Rarely do you find the same or equal number of stories extolling the virtues of these groups.
2) Every time people so casually take a horrific time in our history and waters it down, it opens up that our children feel like this is some how ok.

like I said because I am African american I totally admit to being ridiculously and probably over sensitive to this issue but sorry my experiencing joy during the segregated south does not mean I want to have a musical made about the brutual lynchings that occured during the same period. It is the same issue we have with movies like the "Help".

Like I said, when I see a musical about the "happy" times the concentration camp victims had in bergen belsin then I may feel more objective toward song of the south.

Just giving you a reason why what you feel is political correctiveness maybe so much more to a large segment of the poplation. Where you see a friendly story, we see the total disregard for the atrocities we had to suffer. We will never find it musical worthy.