Splash Mountain/Song of the South question...

[goofydad621]

for a little background

http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/sots.htm

With that said I love this movie and own it. I bought it as a japanese import on laser disk and had to rent a laser disc player to view it and bump it over to VHS.

If anybody has specific questions I can watch it tonight and reply tomorrow

 

[Jamesbyr]

I think the Joel Chandler Harris stories are still around, but I recall they were written in "dialect" and almost impossible to read. Br'er Rabbit is based on the African Anassi the Spider stories: both were always getting out of tight situations.

 

[minkydog]

Minkydog, the boy does not die in the end. He is injured, but recovers. I think in your impassioned retelling, you may have gotten carried away. Storytelling does that.

My bad. I thought i remembered he died. Soooo...the Young Massa doesn't die, he just gets hurt real bad and all the slaves on the plantation come to the Big House to wail and mourn and pray. Does that make the movie more tolerable?

 

[eclectics]

My bad. I thought i remembered he died. Soooo...the Young Massa doesn't die, he just gets hurt real bad and all the slaves on the plantation come to the Big House to wail and mourn and pray. Does that make the movie more tolerable?

We still watch and buy Gone With The Wind without a lot of uproar from anyone. Just as stereotypical, imho.

 

[grandma jan]

My bad. I thought i remembered he died. Soooo...the Young Massa doesn't die, he just gets hurt real bad and all the slaves on the plantation come to the Big House to wail and mourn and pray. Does that make the movie more tolerable?

Just to set you straight....the time frame for this movie is just after the Civil War,the slaves are now free men in this movie. The little boy gets hurt and there was no wailing done in the movie. I just watched this 2 nights ago and I dearly love this movie. The theme for this movie is friendship can overcome racial boundaries.

Now I understand that some people just cannot understand this concept and will put a spin on the movie just like this quote and that makes me upset because evidently he has never seen the movie.

 

[indigoxtreme]

I think the Joel Chandler Harris stories are still around, but I recall they were written in "dialect" and almost impossible to read. Br'er Rabbit is based on the African Anassi the Spider stories: both were always getting out of tight situations.

Yes, and they were written just like Tom Sawyer, in Dialect. The museum is here in Atlanta where these stories were written. The Wren's Nest. Here is so info on it.

http://www.frommers.com/destinations/atlanta/A21880.html

 

[DemonLlama]

The little white boy and girl and the black boy play together. Uncle Remus is a stand in father figure for the white boy whose father has left his wife and child at the boy's grandmother's house.

We own a copy of this on DVD, which I ordered through an internet site a few years ago. I went in looking for all the offensive stuff, as I had heard terrible things about what this film supposedly contained.

Apart from the dialect in the film, the negative stereotypes that Disney is probably worried about in the film is the fact that all of the African-Americans seem to be contented with their poor circumstances and continue working for the rich white folks even though they are no longer slaves.

 

[Miller1412]

My mom owns a copy that she bought at a flea market. She put it on for DD (4) and DD really could have cared less about it. Actually, listening to the songs from the actual ride excited her more for the ride than anything. They are on the Happiest Celebration album.

 

[Geoff_M]

Have ya'll seen this movie! It is loosely based on the Uncle Remus stories. The concocted storyline is about a slave, Uncle Remus, who befriends the Planter's two white children and tells them his "stories" in "typical" poor-slave-talk English. There are some droll scenes of the little children frolicking down the trail, followed by their own trusty little slave boy, and there's a "Mammy" in the kitchen cooking for her "folkses". All this leads up to the dreadful climax when one of he children gets sick and dies, which causes all the slaves to come to the Big House to mourn the death of Young Massa. Wailing & keening ensue...

Now, you tell me--how well do you think this movie would go over here in the USA? The stories of Brer Rabbit and Brer Bear are good enough to stand alone and do not depict racial stereotypes. But the rest of the SOTS storyline would be very uncomfortable for most people, particularly African-Americans.

Yes, I've seen it several times and own a copy. As others have pointed out, Remus is a free man (as demonstrated by his leaving his home for Atlanta with no attempts to stop him). Officials at organizations such as the NAACP have stated they have no opinions pro or con as to the film. Such characters also appear in Gone With The Wind and I don't recall hearing people threatening the financial well-being of it's maker or stores that carry it. Many African Americans have also stated that, while such depictions would have been deemed inappropriate in films shown during the heights of "Jim Crow" and Bull Conor or when a maid or servant was the only likely role for African Americans on the screen, today there is such diversity of media roles for minorities that such films have little chance to foster racial sterotypes in the minds of viewers. Even if some people can't get over the dialect or mannerisms of some of the characters in the film and let such things overshadow the positive cross-race relationships displayed in the film... then that's their problem.

 

[M. Eisner]

Agreed Geoff M.
My fears are also the censoring of books such as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

 

[Gopher1]

You might be able to find some clips from the movie.I have two different sing-a-longs on vhs.One of them is titled "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah".The other is from a
collection of All Time Favorites (3 vhs tape set)that tape is titled "The Early Years".I have seen these for sale at flea markets and used video stores relatively inexpensive.

 

[Ladyw/theTramp]

Thanks! I guess I will have to find a book for some other way to introduce them to Brer Rabbit and friends...

Thanks for all your help!