Song of the South on the horizon?

[Snowflake]

News story here (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070327/ap_en_mo/film_song_of_the_south;_ylt=And1LkAH6avZO6P_TtmSS6 hxFb8C)

I guess only time will tell, "reconsidering" does not make it so. In fact, hell might freeze over first.

[innerSpaceman]

The movie ... never refers to blacks on the plantation as slaves. It makes clear they work for the family, living down dirt roads in wood shacks while the white characters stay in a mansion. ...it's not clear that the movie is intentionally racist, but it inappropriately projects Remus as a happy, laughing storyteller even though he's a plantation worker.

I will never understand why it's inappropriate for even an oppressed field hand to be portrayed as happy. Need everything make a political statement? Even today ... if an oppressed character were portrayed as miserable solely to make a statement about their oppression, I would consider that retarded stereotyping.


Why is Gone With the Wind not subjected to the same claptrap as Song of the South? Some of those slaves in GWTW were portrayed as kinda happy, regardless.


In any event, I'm not sure I'd buy SOTS if it were released on DVD. I already own a bootleg VHS ... and, well, it's not that great a film.






(Aren't acronyms fun?)

[Alex]

Yeah, I've always said that the ironic thing about it all is that Song of the South isn't very good. The live action sections are pretty bad and the animated parts just so so.

I think a big part of the problem with how the movie is viewed by blacks is that it is part of a larger tapestry of revisionist southern history that was very common from the early 1900s up until the Civil Rights movement really got going in the '50s. The idea that really everybody was pretty decent people in the slave south. That slaveowners respected their chattel and looked out for them and that when freed many were more than happy to just keep on as they'd been in all but legality. That somehow sharecropping was a legitimate business arrangement reached between the blacks and the whites.

Particularly at the time it was made (and remember that the NAACP and others protested this well before it was even released) this revisionist view of the relationship between blacks and whites in the south was used to cover up the sins of Jim Crow, of separate but somehow equal. I don't think the complaint is so much that Uncle Remus is happy but that there is no indication that he might have reason for being unhappy.

In other words, I think there is reasonable argument for finding Song of the South objectionable to some degree. But I don't think that is good reason to hide the film (though it could be a good business reason) and as long as Holiday Inn continues to get play on TV every Christmas I don't really see how SotS is any worse than many other movies that aren't protested actively. One big difference, though, is that Disney is widely viewed as a major avenue for exposing children to our popular culture. Gone with the Wind is primarily targeted to adults while Song of the South is (in the view of most, including myself considering how simplistic it is) for children.

I still say that what Iger should do it allow release of an un-remastered version of the movie with appropriate disclaimers about historicity. Undermarket it and overprice it. The collectors who really want it get it and when it underperforms in the market it goes back in the vault and they can say "hey, we released and nobody really bought it."

[cirquelover]

I know I'd buy it. I'm sure my memories are fuzzy because I haven't seen it since I was a child but I remember loving the animated parts and loving Uncle Remus. I would like for my son to at least be able to see it.

I've thought about getting one off of Ebay but you never know what you're getting. I have seen the Japanese version on the discs and we have one of the players in the extra room. We actually bought the disc player so we could play Disney store discs. I don't even remember where we came across the discs they use on the screens in the store but the boy loved them! Maybe that's how I converted him so young to love all things Disney!

[mousepod]

... and if anyone wants to contribute to the Song of the South MousePod (the episode that goes up in three weeks), you know where to find me.

[RStar]

I wonder if Disney isn't waiting for the right moment to get this otherwise unknown movie to get a big release media frenzy going so that they will sell a million copies to people who are just plain curious.

It seems like they are going to want to at least convert it to digital media soon if they haven't all ready to keep it safe, and then they may as well start cleaning it up also.

[Alex]

It has been released digitally in other countries. Don't know what maintenance was done.

My copy is one that I thought was legal when I bought it but turned out not to be. So it sits in obscurity, probably never to be watched again (mostly because I didn't like it, though a little guilt for stealing it).

[mousepod]

I don't think it has been released "digitally" anywhere officially, if you mean DVD compression. The only non-VHS release that was unquestionably Disney was the Japanese laserdisc, which wasn't cleaned up at all. There were other laserdiscs from Asia, but I don't think they were legit releases. Well, the Hong Kong version may have been legit.

I've seen people selling DVDs that they say were European releases, but as far as I can tell, they are absolute bootlegs.

[Prudence]

I don't remember the movie so much as I associate it with a time when my dad made a big point of taking my brother and I out individually for various activities. I saw Song of the South in the movie theater with my dad. Good times.

[Jazzman]

Heh. If SOTS actually was released, it would cause the collapse of all Disney related message boards. I mean, how could they all survive without an "Is Song of the South going to evvveerrrr be released!?!?!?" thread being posted every three days? If it came out, we'd all actually have to, I don't know, think of something else to talk about!

AHHHHHH!!!!!




(BTW, I'm just musing. No offense intended to the OP)

[katiesue]

We saw it not too long ago. Maddy's dad got ahold of a copy somehow. I have to agree that it was a pretty meh movie. I can't help but think that if there weren't all the protests to start with and it had been released like other "classics" it would have just faded into obscurity anyway.

Maddy liked it, but mostly because she loves Splash and now it all made sense to her. She really had no idea what was going on in the ride before that. And after watching it once she hasn't asked to see it again.

[Snowflake]

Well, having never seen it, I'd like to at least once.

I agree with iSm on the GWTW call, and then there are all the Charlie Chan films Fox recently released on DVD. Let's face it, with a proper disclaimer, if one is, in fact needed at all, I doubt Disney would get too much of a backlash. But that's just IMO.

If it's a meh film as the consensus seems to be, well, all the better, the film will sell poorly and fade into obscurity. I still think it deserves a legitimate release.

[mousepod]

OK, Snowflake: This weekend. Take-in food. Casa de MousePod. Song of the South.

[RStar]

OK, Snowflake: This weekend. Take-in food. Casa de MousePod. Song of the South.KFC? :D

Ok, my bad. Bad joke, sorry....

When I refer to digital transfer, I refer to transfering from the master. I think any DVD's out their are most likely home transfers from VHS. But Disney may have transfered already for safe keeping and sold them in the Asian markets. It's possible.

[Isaac]

Disney has Song Of The South scheduled for restoration (for a future home video release) within the next 3 years. It looks like it'll be released just in time for it's 65th anniversary. A mutual friend of iSm & I leaked news of this about a year ago so this is no big surprise to me.

Though I'm glad it's (eventually) getting restored & released I'm in no hurry to buy a copy of it. Al Lutz gave me an excellent copy on DVD with 'Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarfs' as one of the discs bonus features. Gotta love Al !

[DreadPirateRoberts]

Disney has Song Of The South scheduled for restoration (for a future home video release) within the next 3 years. It looks like it'll be released just in time for it's 65th anniversary. A mutual friend of iSm & I leaked news of this about a year ago so this is no big surprise to me.

Though I'm glad it's (eventually) getting restored & released I'm in no hurry to buy a copy of it. Al Lutz gave me an excellent copy on DVD with 'Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarfs' as one of the discs bonus features. Gotta love Al !

There is a poor copy of 'Coal Black' (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8124667171424771222) on google video.

[Isaac]

The copy on the DVD Al gave me is much higher quality. I think he digitally recorded it off TiVo or something like that and then transfered it. I suppose I could always rip the DVD if anyone's interested.