Splash/Song of the South
 

Not to start a “Why Song of the South should/shouldn’t be released” but why was Splash Mountain themed for a movie that had little hope of ever being re-released?

I watched Song of the South this weekend with my daughter. She kept saying, “Oh now I get it”. Since she had never been able to see the movie before she never really got what was happening in the ride. Something about a rabbit and people singing she guessed. She’s 10 so I’m guessing there’s a large group of younger people going on the ride that have absolutely no idea what the story is.

So why theme a ride to a story that no one’s going to ever be able to see?

It's an Eisner thang.
If rumor is correct, his son picked the ride out while he and daddy were touring some Imagineer work area. He asked him which he thought would be most fun...
So sayeth the rumor mill.

and they had all those spare animatronics left over from America Sings.

What's even more ridiculous, according to rumor anyway, is why they named it SPLASH Mt.

Hint. It has nothing to do with Song of the South.

Catchy song that everyone was familiar with, characters that fit relatively well with the proposed area's theming, and a whole bunch of spare animal animatroincs due to America Sings shutting down. Sounds perfect to me.

Because they were hoping that once Daryl Hannah's 15 minutes were up she'd be willing to live in the ride as a permanent human animatronic?

The thing about Splash Mountain and Song of the South is pretty much all of the controversy surrounding the movie (and while it is valid controversy it also shouldn't prevent re-release of the movie so long as Holiday Inn plays on TV every year) is due to the live action portions and not the animated portions. The ride includes nothing from the live actions segments of the movie.

Even if they won't release the whole movie I would love to see them at least release the animation.

Well, I do hope Disney does release SotS. I can't remember having seen it, except endless loops of Zip-aDee-Doo-Dah and that was always delightful to me. Of course, I'm not an African American. Now, if they add some kind of contemporary intro to the film, what's the big deal? I'm not sure what is so offensive about it since I've not seen it.

American film is rife with non-PC material, a good deal of which has been or is still currently available on DVD and in libraries. Birth of a Nation is an obvious example. Naturally, this film does not get the rental a Disney film would. I think presented with taste and consideration they could do it.

Alex, I love Holiday Inn (but not really the Abraham blackface number, not one of Bing Crosby's more stellar moments) Then again, what's the Mickey and Judy Busby Berkeley blackface number? Then there is Al Jolson in Going to Heaven on a Mule, now that IS offensive.

Do we know if Song of the South is even in the discussion of being released pipeline?

I've seen it, and the ironic thing is that the offense is that it makes post-bellum black life look too good. Its biggest problem is that it glosses over the hardships most black people faced, making an extended family of black servants in the emply of white landowners look like nothing but happy-go-lucky folks without a care in the world. At least, that's my read. Yeah, a bit ignorant of the harsh reality (what Disney movie isn't?), but it's not like there were actors in black face or anything that portrayed black Americans as inferior. If it were any other studio, it wouldn't be an issue, but Disney knows that it's under a microscope and even the slightest offense, especially at this point where it's been played up so much, can cause major headaches.

The complaint isn't so much that the movie portrays the life of the former slaves as too good but rather it portrays the former slaves as too passive and the former slaveowners as too benevolent. As if slavery were just a jolly experiment that everybody had decided to move on from.

The other important thing to remember about the controversy is that it is not a "modern" invention. The NAACP picketed and boycotted the movie when it was released in 1946, what's changed is how much Disney cares whether the NAACP is upset.

I'm still waiting for an "Uncle Remus" face character in Critter Country.

I've heard argument that some people could be offended by something within the animated portion: the tar baby. No matter that it was originally an Anansi story, the idea that an African American (i.e. Br'er Rabbit) could mistake molded tar for a person is a bit offensive, if you're easily offended.

And if you're easily offended, I'd suggest you stay away from Drawn Together (particularly the Br'er Foxxy episode. That s__t naaaaasty!)

I think that 'Song of the South' can also be seen in a positive manner. Uncle Remus' character is the hero of the story. Uncle Remus' character is a main character. That wasn't often seen on the big screen back then, it could be seen as empowering in that way. But I do see how the stereotypes of these former slaves being happy and singing songs post-slavery can be seen as offensive.

The attraction opened in July 1989. The last US theatrical re-release of SotS was in November 1986. So, it was a mere 2 1/2 years from the last US release of the film to the opening of the atraction at Disneyland. I would suspect that children of the mid-80's still had a bit of familiarity with the story when the attraction opened.

But, contemporary audiences have been caught by the PC police and the fear of the Mouse.

My dad took me to see Song of the South in the theater. I remember there being some big deal about it and not getting what that big deal was.

The big irony is that Song of the South really isn't all that good of a movie. It has some charming momens but overall is has more than its share of sucktitude.

The smart thing would be to just relesae it on DVD, let the hardcores have it, overprice it so it fails in the marketplace and then put it back in the vault saying "we released it and nobody bought it" and then they can pretend the reasons for not releasing are fiduciary and not controversy.

Wow, I thought it was a lot older than 1986!

Alex, your idea is interesting, but because there is so much controversy and Disney has held back so long, I bet they'd fly off the shelf at any price. Plus it would be hard to over-price them too much with out getting into fair practices trouble.

I thought it couldn't be shown because of the whole Prophet Mohammad in the briar patch part.

Or am I mixing up my ethnic outrages?

It seems to me that the Disney company is motivated in equal parts by profit and controversy-avoidance (recent ABC mock-u-mentories notwithstanding). While the lure of DVD sales may seem appealing, the risk of causing a racial ruckus is far too great to even contemplate. Didn't some politician recently get skewered for using the term "tar-baby"? It's much more PC to use a term like "third rail" - which describes the effect of using "tar-baby" in a sentence.

It would be nice if you read the thread before posting. :p

Try again.

I doubt it. The pool of people clamoring for this film to be released is pretty small, though very loud. Put it out there at $29.99 and with little marketing and it'll sink as a general release (though be very successful within small niche markets).

I'm not sure what "fair practices" trouble would be. Just as they don't have to release the movie if they don't want to, they can release it and give it any price they want. If they put it out at $199 I doubt you'd have any angry speeches on the Senate floor demanding investigations into price gouging.


As a side note, I do have a copy of Song of the South on DVD. When I was in Singapore last year they were selling it in a major international grocery store and I figured they wouldn't be selling bootlegs in such a place and that there must have been an Asian DVD release I was unaware of. When I got home with it and could look it up I learned that in fact the major international grocery store was selling bootlegs.

I remember showing that late eighties release of SotS back when I was a projectionist. There was a lot of press at the time about the potential for controversy, but the matinee-hungry public, including more than a few African-American patrons, ignored it and came to see the movie anyway.

When I started working at the Disney-MGM Studios back in 1989, I used to get asked about the video release of this movie a lot. I had several black guests tell me it was a favorite movie of theirs when they were kids.

So true about Holiday Inn. I almost fell off my chair during the Abraham Lincoln number. There's nothing even close to that level of lunacy in SotS.

There is one quick bit in which Uncle Remus sings an off-the-cuff song (Who Wants To Live Like That?) in which he defends laziness as a lifestyle. ("When other folks is worryin', I'm sleepin' all day long) This struck me as the closest the movie gets to the "Sleep N' Eat" stereotype.

I suppose one possible criticism is that the movie makes attractive an image of blacks that ought not to be. It worked on me. I saw this movie as a kid and I wanted to live with Uncle Remus. I wanted to go raid Hattie McDaniels kitchen and hang out at the fireside with all those singing, jolly people. (Of course, all the mean-spirited characters in the movie are white - the two bullies and the boy's horrible mother.) Those simple, happy folk, romanticized to the point of abstraction, were mighty appealing. It was an attractive fantasy, especially to a kid without any reference points to reality.

Then, a couple of years later, ROOTS came along, and my little idyll was vanquished.

ADDED NOTE - LSPoorEeyorick is right. You will notice that there is no Tar Baby in Splash Mountain.

Couldn't they call it some kind of "special" release or "enchanced" version. That would justify the extra cost.

Thanks for all the answers. As we were watching it was the first time it ever really occured to me that Madz had no idea what the storyline for the ride was. And I'm glad she got to see it.