Marathon Weekend 2026

[matt and beth]

Umm....I have never seen Song of the South, but...isn't it super racist???

In my opinion no and it’s set in a part of American history. You’d have to watch it to understand. It was my childhood movie and book my mom used to read to me all the time. It’s set during the Reconstruction era after the civil war. Follows a young boy who’s facing various challenges. They live on a plantation along various sharecroppers. Uncle Remus is one of them. He share stories to the children and especially takes to Johnny and mentors him through his songs and stories about Brer Rabbit. Uncle Remus ends up helping Johnny immensely and it is recognized and embraced by his family at the end of the movie as a lesson in looking away from the past and embracing the future. Hattie McDaniel would be the first black actress to win an Academy Award in 1940, but James Baskett who played Uncle Remus would be the first black man to win an honary Academy Award in 1948 for his role. Unfortunately, he passed away in 1948. It wouldn’t be until Sidney Poitier who was the first Black actor to win the Best Actor Oscar, which he received in 1964 for "Lilies of the Field".

 

[Mr_Incr3dible]

My understanding is that Joel Chandler Harris wanted to preserve the African folktales he heard growing up.
As noted above, Uncle Remus was a fictional character dispensing wisdom and advice via the folktales and story telling.
It has been decades since I last saw the movie (I think it was the last time it was in theaters in the US) so hard for me to say whether the movie had racist content, but I don't recall it that way.

 

[Fenway1970]

For anyone who has signed up for the Dopey, started training, but is wondering how the weekend will go, I've posted some videos. Definitely low tech, and much of the information has been shared in the past, but I had some time and put my thoughts down on video. It is in several parts, and I need to finish up the last part and get it posted later today. Hopefully it is of use to someone.

Nice! Thanks for showing out for us "older, overweight, slow guys!!"