History YMMV / SongOfTheSouth

* CriticalBacklash: Disney's [[OldShame contrition over the film's very existence]] and [[UnPerson attempts to scrub it from their catalog]] leaves many curious fans to assume that it's essentially ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandingo_(film) Mandingo]]'' For Kids, packed to the rafters with horribly offensive, grotesquely racist imagery and themes, to the point that many people know it only as "That Racist Disney Movie". Those who do manage to track down the film and watch it for themselves then tend to come away entirely underwhelmed that, aside from the one questionable point of its overly sanitized depiction of the post-war South, it's actually a very lighthearted and somewhat forgettable Disney flick, albeit with some superb animated folk tales and James Baskett's great performance as Uncle Remus.

** A couple of scenes have Johnny's mother all but denouncing Uncle Remus as a corrupting influence on her son, first forbidding him to tell him any of his stories and then forbidding him to go anywhere near him. This can become a lot harder to swallow once you realize the reason why [[{{Unperson}} Disney has gradually buried the film since its last American theatrical appearance in 1986]]--the company appears to similarly consider the film a corrupting influence on today's youth, and not just for its "outdated cultural references" even by the standards of its time.

* CriticalBacklash: Disney's [[OldShame contrition over the film's very existence]] and [[UnPerson attempts to scrub it from their catalog]] leaves many curious fans to assume that it's essentially ''Mandingo'' For Kids, packed to the rafters with horribly offensive, grotesquely racist imagery and themes, to the point that many people know it only as "That Racist Disney Movie". Those who do manage to track down the film and watch it for themselves then tend to come away entirely underwhelmed that, aside from the one questionable point of its overly sanitized depiction of the post-war South, it's actually a very lighthearted and somewhat forgettable Disney flick, albeit with some superb animated folk tales and James Baskett's great performance as Uncle Remus.

** The characters are used also in Italy, with Br'er Fox [[ShesAManInJapan becoming]] [[GenderFlip Sora Volpe (Sister Fox)]] without any change in the character's drawing.

* SoOkayItsAverage: While the racial politics surrounding the movie are obviously the biggest reason Disney's tried to bury it, the other, arguably just as big reason is that the people who ''have'' seen it feel that it's an otherwise boring movie with little merit beyond the animation. There just weren't people who ''had'' to see this movie on DVD outside of those left curious from the controversy.

* EvilIsSexy: Br'er Fox is this for the fans of the movie attracted to men.

** Many people unfortunately remember this as "that one Disney movie about an old Black man who finds HappinessInSlavery" -- but the story is set '''after''' UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar. Given how the film itself does not make it clear that it takes place post-slavery (to the point that newspapers from the time of the film’s initial release [[http://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/episodes/2019/11/6/white-allies-and-the-blacklist-maurice-rapf-six-degrees-of-song-of-the-south-episode-4 questioned whether Walt Disney disagreed with Abraham Lincoln]]), this misinterpretation about what the movie is actually about is something that's not easily corrected. Not to mention that given the time frame, Uncle Remus presumably ''would'' have been enslaved for most of his life.

** And arguably not only fair, but brave. You could say that Uncle Remus was a sharecropper, which was not too far removed from a slave (the South had a way of cutting corners after they lost the Civil War and sharecropping was one of the rare jobs freed slaves could get after the South was strapped for resources), and he was complacent and even positive about his current position. However, he's more mature than the white folks he works for. This applied to the cast as well. Creator/WaltDisney absolutely ''loved'' how well James Baskett played the part. Originally, the actor was only going to voice an animated animal until Disney gave him the lead. To top it off, Disney put a lot of effort campaigning for Baskett to receive an [[UsefulNotes/AcademyAward Oscar]] (albeit an honorary and non-competitive Oscar) for his performance, making him the first African American man to get any sort of Oscar[[note]] His co-star Creator/HattieMcDaniel (Aunt Tempe) was, at the time, the only other African American to win an UsefulNotes/AcademyAward - which she won for Best Supporting Actress for the part of "Mammy" in 1939's ''Film/GoneWithTheWind''[[/note]]. However, when the film premiered in UsefulNotes/{{Atlanta}}, he still wasn't allowed to attend, on account of racial segregation.

** And arguably not only fair, but brave. You could say that Uncle Remus was a sharecropper, which was not too far removed from a slave (the South had a way of cutting corners after they lost the Civil War and sharecropping was one of the rare jobs freed slaves could get after the South was strapped for resources), and he was complacent and even positive about his current position. However, he's more mature than the white folks he works for. This applied to the cast as well. Walt Disney absolutely ''loved'' how well James Baskett played the part of Uncle Remus. Originally, the actor was only going to voice an animated animal until Disney gave him the lead. To top it off, Disney put a lot of effort campaigning for Baskett to receive an [[UsefulNotes/AcademyAward Oscar]] (albeit an honorary and non-competitive Oscar) for his performance, making him the first African American man to get any sort of Oscar[[note]] His co-star Hattie [=McDaniel=] (Aunt Tempe) was, at the time, the only other African American to win an UsefulNotes/AcademyAward - which she won for Best Supporting Actress for the part of "Mammy" in 1939's ''Film/GoneWithTheWind''[[/note]]. However, when the film premiered in UsefulNotes/{{Atlanta}}, he still wasn't allowed to attend, on account of racial segregation.

** The tales of Br'er Rabbit which the book on which the movie was written preserved, were original African-American folktales. With the suppression of ''Song of the South'', these folk tales (which would have been lost to time) have also been suppressed. Though the Br'er Rabbit tales themselves can be found in some older Disney "collection" books, usually ones dealing with "Tales From America".

* MexicansLoveSpeedyGonzales: While the film attracted controversy from Black audiences since day one, another camp of Black viewers spoke positively of and defended the film for just as long.

** The reason this film isn't shown in America anymore. The big point of contention for most is that it portrays Reconstruction-era deep south blacks as content and happy, which was ''far'' from what happened immediately after the end of slavery. This is often seen as whitewashing history and coming off as propaganda, and it isn't exactly helped by those less aware of the time period the movie's supposed to take place in thinking that it's about happy slaves.

* IdiotPlot: A lot of trouble would’ve been saved had anyone bothered telling Johnny's mother that he got the puppy fair and square and ''why'' he got it in the first place.

** Many people unfortunately remember this as "that one Disney movie about an old Black man who finds HappinessInSlavery" -- but the story is set '''after''' UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar. Given how the film itself does not make it clear that it takes place post-slavery (to the point that newspapers from the time of the film’s initial release [[http://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/episodes/2019/11/6/white-allies-and-the-blacklist-maurice-rapf-six-degrees-of-song-of-the-south-episode-4 questioned whether Walt Disney disagreed with Abraham Lincoln]]), this misinterpretation about what the movie is actually about is something that's not easily corrected.

** Many people unfortunately remember this as "that one Disney movie about an old Black man who finds HappinessInSlavery" -- but the story is set '''after''' UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar. Given how scarcely-distributed this movie is, this misinterpretation about what the movie is actually about is something that's not easily corrected.