Difference between revisions of "Song of the South"

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Revision as of 13:17, 25 December 2020

Song-of-the-south.jpg

Song of the South, a 1946 live-action/animation hybrid produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures. Song of the South directed by Harve Foster and Wilfred Jackson. Based on the collected Uncle Remus stories of author Joel Chandler Harris, the film follows an innocent young boy from Atlanta named Johnny (Bobby Driscoll) who moves with his mother to his grandmother’s plantation. (His father remains in Atlanta to work as a newspaper editor.) On the plantation, Johnny learns a series of life lessons from Uncle Remus (James Baskett) in the form of stories about the animated Br’er Rabbit (voiced by Johnny Lee) and his quest to evade Br’er Fox (Baskett) and Br’er Bear (Nick Stewart). Included amongst these cartoon interludes is “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” which won the Oscar for Best Original Song and is one of the most famous and beloved tunes in the Disney library.[1]


Plot

Seven-year-old Johnny is excited about what he believes to be a vacation at his grandmother's Georgia plantation with his parents, Sally and John Sr. When they arrive at the plantation, he discovers that his parents will be living apart temporarily, and he will live at the plantation with his mother and grandmother while his father returns to Atlanta to continue his job. Distraught at his father's departure, Johnny secretly leaves for Atlanta that night with only a bindle.

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As Johnny sneaks away from the plantation, he is attracted by the voice of Uncle Remus telling tales of a character named Br'er Rabbit. By this time, word had gotten out that Johnny was missing, and some plantation residents are looking for him. Johnny evades being discovered, but Uncle Remus catches up with him, befriends him, offers him food for his journey, and takes him back to his cabin, where he tells the boy the traditional African-American folktale, "Br'er Rabbit Earns a Dollar a Minute". In the story, Br'er Rabbit attempts to run away from home only to change his mind after an encounter with Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear. Johnny takes the advice and lets Uncle Remus take him back to his mother.

Johnny makes friends with Toby, a young black boy who lives on the plantation, and Ginny Favers, a poor white girl. Ginny gives Johnny a puppy after her two older brothers, Joe and Jake, threaten to drown it. Johnny's mother refuses to let him take care of the puppy, so he takes it to Uncle Remus. Uncle Remus takes the dog in and delights Johnny and his friends with the fable of Br'er Rabbit and the Tar-Baby. The boys go to speak with their mother about the dog, then realize that Johnny had fooled them. In an act of revenge, they tell Sally about the dog. She becomes upset that Johnny and Uncle Remus kept the dog despite her order. She instructs Uncle Remus not to tell any more stories to her son.

Johnny's birthday arrives and Johnny picks up Ginny to take her to his party. On the way there, Joe and Jake push Ginny into a mud puddle. With her dress ruined, Ginny is unable to go to the party and runs off crying. Johnny begins fighting with the boys, but their fight is stopped up by Uncle Remus. Johnny runs off to comfort Ginny said he does not want to go either. When the three return to the plantation, Sally becomes angry at Johnny for missing his own birthday party, and tells Uncle Remus not to spend any more time with him. Saddened by the misunderstanding of his good intentions, Uncle Remus packs his bags and leaves for Atlanta. Johnny rushes to intercept him, but seriously injured after taking a shortcut through a pasture. While Johnny hovers between life and death, his father returns. Johnny calls for Uncle Remus, and his grandmother escorts him in. Uncle Remus begins telling a tale of Br'er Rabbit and the Laughing Place, and the boy miraculously survives.

Later, a fully recovered Johnny sings with Ginny and Toby while Johnny's returned puppy runs alongside them. Nearby, Uncle Remus is shocked when Br'er Rabbit and several of the other characters from his stories appear in front of them and interact with the children. Uncle Remus rushes to join the group, and together, they all skip away into the sunset.

The Controversy

Since its original release, Song of the South has remained a subject of controversy. Some critics have described the film's portrayal of African Americans as racist and offensive, maintaining that the black vernacular and other qualities are stereotypes. Because of this controversy, Disney has not released Song of the South on any home video format in the United States.[2]

There are plenty of examples of pernicious racism in Song of the South that are right there on the surface: the minstrelsy of the animated characters, particularly Br’er Fox; the slang in the dialogue; a wandering chorus singing traditional black songs; and, most notoriously of all, a fable where Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear use a tar baby to fool and ensnare Br’er Rabbit. (That part didn’t make Splash Mountain.) Yet the subtle low point of the film comes in Remus’s narration just before Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah, when he reminiscences about how things were “a long time ago,,” when “every day was mighty satisfactual”. “If you’ll excuse me for saying so,” he adds, “’twas better all around.”[3]

Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., a congressman from Harlem, branded the film an "insult to American minorities [and] everything that America as a whole stands for." The National Negro Congress set up picket lines in theaters in the big cities where the film played, with its protesters holding signs that read "Song of the South is an insult to the Negro people" and, lampooning "Jingle Bells", chanted: "Disney tells, Disney tells/lies about the South."[4]

Some of the black press had mixed reactions to Song of the South. While Richard B. Dier in The Afro-American was "thoroughly disgusted" by the film for being "as vicious a piece of propaganda for white supremacy as Hollywood ever produced," Herman Hill in The Pittsburgh Courier felt that Song of the South would "prove of inestimable goodwill in the furthering of interracial relations", and considered criticisms of the film to be "unadulterated hogwash symptomatic of the unfortunate racial neurosis that seems to be gripping so many of our humorless brethren these days."[5]

Release

Song of the South has never received a home video release in the United States. Disney CEO Bob Iger said “it wouldn’t be in the best interest of our shareholders to bring it back, even though there would be some financial gain.” A VHS and LaserDisc release, however, exist overseas.[6]

After a release for the film’s 40th anniversary in 1986, Song of the South was locked away in a vault. Asked if the movie would ever get a DVD release, Disney CEO Bob Iger called it “antiquated” and “fairly offensive.” Although Disneyland’s Splash Mountain is entirely dedicated to the forgotten feature, Song of the South is rarely spoken about in any other context than it being a racist misstep for the studio.[7]

External Link

Song of the South at IMDb
Song of the South at Rotten Tomatoes

References

  1. Matt Singer. Just How Racist Is ‘Song of the South,’ Disney’s Most Notorious Movie?, screencrush.com, March 4, 2016. Retrieved December 22, 2020.
  2. Song of the South. Retrieved December 22, 2020.
  3. Scott Tobias. Song of the South: the difficult legacy of Disney's most shocking movie, theguardian.com, 19 November 2019. Retrieved December 20, 2020.
  4. Watts, Steven (2001). The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life. University of Missouri Press. pp. 276–277. ISBN 0-8262-1379-0.
  5. Gevinson, Alan (1997). Within Our Gates: Ethnicity in American Feature Films, 1911-1960. California: University of California Press. p. 956. ISBN 978-0520209640
  6. Ryan Lattanzio. ‘Song of the South’: 10 Fast Facts About Disney’s Most Controversial Movie, indiewire.com, 3 November 2019. Retrieved December 20, 2020.
  7. Tom Chapman. 15 Classic Cartoons That Would Definitely Be Censored Today", cbr.com, 27 November 2017. Retrieved December 20, 2020.