Lounge of Tomorrow - View Single Post

Alex · 03-27-2007, 08:58 PM

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."

03-27-2007, 08:58 PM	#3
Alex . Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 13,354	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."
	Submit to Quotes