YMMV / Song of the South

• Adaptation Displacement:
  • The tales of Br'er Rabbit were originally African-American folktales which the book upon which the movie is based sought to preserve. 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".
  • These folk tales in turn have been adapted into Dutch Donald Duck comics, where they are known as "Broer Konijn", and tell adventures centered around these three characters, while the bear and fox also appear in "De Grote Boze Wolf" (Big Bad Wolf) comics in the same magazine. These stories focus solely on the trickster archetype aspects of the character, as well as providing cronies for the Dutch version of the Big Bad Wolf.
    • These comics are also well known in Scandinavia, where several generations grew up reading about Br'er Rabbit (and his girlfriend, who was added to the comics), Br'er Bear and Br'er Fox, having no idea what movie the characters originated from.
  • The characters are used also in Italy, with Br'er Fox becoming Sora Volpe (Sister Fox) without any change in the character's drawing. (Despite this, the character remains a male character in both Italian dubs of the movie.)
  • The African-American folk tales themselves were further based on the folk tales from the Akan and other African ethnic groups. In particular, the Br'er Rabbit character is an Americanization of Anansi the Spider, and the Hare, as well as various other trickster characters, from African folklore, known for their ability to outwit his way out of various predicaments; these days, these African folktales are all but completely unknown in America outside the occasional children's book or two, especially compared to Song of the South's depictions of the Br'er Rabbit stories.
  • Splash Mountain itself is this to the movie due to its status as a cornerstone of the Disney Theme Parks while the company actively tries to bury the film's existence.
• Awesome Art: The one thing about the film that everyone agrees on is that the animated segments are absolutely gorgeous. They're often seen as one of the reasons people so vividly remember the film to this day.
• Awesome Music: Say what you will about the film, but the Oscar-winning "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" is certainly catchy.
• Bile Fascination: While the film isn't considered to be poorly made as much as its story's subjects are of highly questionable morals, modern viewers only seem interested in watching it to see if it is, in fact, as racist as they've been told it is.
• Broken Base:
  • The film has a cult following, but the cult following is bitterly divided between African Americans who remember it for the folktales and one of the first prominent castings of a Black actor, Millennial hipsters who want to watch it due to its mix of notoriety and nostalgia, and older White Southerners who fondly recall its "Uncle Tom"-like aspects and Rose-Tinted Narrative of happy Black people living in the Old South. This obviously has not given Disney much incentive to re-market the film...
  • Among Disney fans, there is a lot of debate over whether the film really deserves to be as buried as it's become. Disney has released controversial works of their past prior, typically wrapping it in an unskippable disclaimer that disclosed why the racially charged content is there and why it's not cut out, and that even though the culture at the time was wrong then and wrong now, it wouldn't be right to bury it, leading to people arguing that you could easily have released this film with something similar to preface it. Some of their other works also contain potential racially charged content such as Dumbo and Peter Pan that haven't been treated anywhere close to the same way; admittedly, those two only have small scenes where this film has such content that pervades the entirety of the work, so it's understandable why Disney has been so hesitant. Regardless, this has firmly put people at a loss over what the truly "correct" thing to do about this movie would be.
• Common Knowledge:
  • Many people unfortunately remember this as "that one Disney movie about an old Black man who finds Happiness in Slavery" — but the story is set after The American Civil War. 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 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. There was a free black population in the South, but they were a numerical minority who largely lived in cities and not on plantations.
  • Even sympathetic viewers tend to think that the "Tar Baby" is supposed to be some kind of racial insult and that the storyline was changed for Splash Mountain precisely because of it. They apparently don't know that the basic folktale not only exists in many cultures around the world, but that it originated in Africa.
• Critical Backlash: Disney's contrition over the film's very existence and 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.
• Don't Shoot the Message: For as much as people may find the movie's depictions of post-war race relations distasteful, and as much as Disney would like everyone to forget this movie ever existed, the folk tales shown in the movie are based on real African-American folk stories which would likely otherwise be completely forgotten in history. No matter what anyone thinks of the movie, those stories at least deserve to be remembered.
• Fair for Its Day:
  • 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 (and many poor whites) 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. 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 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 Academy Award - which she won for Best Supporting Actress for the part of "Mammy" in 1939's Gone with the Wind. However, when the film premiered in Atlanta, he still wasn't allowed to attend, on account of racial segregation.
  • That said, not all contemporaneous sources found it fair for its day. Among other responses, the film was protested as early as one month after its 1946 release, influential Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. called it "an insult to American minorities," and it was fairly harshly panned by The New York Times.
• Funny Moments:
  • When Br'er Fox has thrown Br'er Rabbit into the briar patch, thinking that would kill him, he takes off his hat in mock respect. Then he notices that Br'er Bear hasn't taken off his hat and forcefully does it for him.
  • Earlier, during "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah", Uncle Remus realizes that Mr. Bluebird isn't on his shoulder and pauses the song briefly, asking, "Where is that bluebird?" When Mr. Bluebird shows up fashionably late, Uncle Remus picks up where he had left off.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Uncle Remus has a line about how people wouldn't keep telling these old stories if it didn't mean something to people. After this film went into the Disney vault these stories did become forgotten.
  • 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 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.
  • Anything with Bobby Driscoll is seen as harsher by some Disney fans. Considering his rather cruel treatment by the company, and his tragic death.
• Heartwarming Moment: When all the farm workers are gathered at the door of the plantation, holding a vigil for Johnny (recently injured by the bull).
• He Really Can Act: This was the contemporary view of James Baskett's performance, for which he won an honorary Academy Award. It's also the one aspect of the movie you will still see unashamedly praised to this day.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Many people who watch the film watch it just for the animated segments with Br'er Rabbit ^note In fact; The animated sequences are often considered the only good part and has very little of the "racial" baggage. Many fans argue that a re-release would work best as a re-cut of just the animated parts with references to the main plot as only a Framing Device.
  • Others watch it for James Baskett's portrayal of Uncle Remus, which was one of the first major roles awarded to an African-American actor.
  • And still others simply watch it because it's the source of "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" and the inspiration for Splash Mountain.
• Macekre: Disney has occasionally circulated a cut-down version featuring only the animated segments; this still got Bowdlerized a bit for Splash Mountain in particular, Br'er Rabbit is caught in a beehive rather than the Tar Baby.
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: While the film's portrayal of Reconstruction-era Black people attracted controversy from Black audiences since day one, another camp of Black viewers spoke positively of and defended the film for just as long.
• Moment of Awesome: Seeing Ginny's older brothers get what they deserve.
• Narm:
  • Johnny's sad faces, which The Cinema Snob describes as looking like he can't decide whether he's crying or sneezing.
  • While "All I Want" is a very sad song, the fact that one of the singers sounds like Marvin the Martian may lessen the drama for some.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: The movie's popularity has stemmed from generations who are curious as to just why it's being censored.
• Older Than They Think: This movie did not invent Br'er Rabbit.
• Overshadowed by Controversy:
  • The reason this film isn't shown in America anymore. The big point of contention for most is that it portrays Black people in the Reconstruction-era deep south 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.
  • What's often forgotten is that the controversy surrounding the film isn't as recent as most nowadays believe it to be; even upon its original release, the film was hugely controversial for perceived glorification of slavery and indulgence in anti-black stereotyping, to the point where it was the subject of protests just one month after its release. Of course, the fact that the film was able to be released at all— and by Disney, no less— is a trait that definitely wouldn't mesh well nowadays.
• Retroactive Recognition: Ruth Warrick, who played Miss Sally, would later be known for her long-running role as Phoebe on All My Children.
• Signature Song: "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" is one not only for the film, but arguably for Disney as well.
• So Okay, It's Average: 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 and one catchy song. There just weren't people who had to see this movie on DVD outside of those left curious from the controversy.
• Special Effects Failure: When Johnny first comes across the singing sharecroppers, the scene is supposed to be at night, but was obviously filmed during the day.
• Tear Jerker:
  • When Uncle Remus tells Johnny about the dog, who one could only assume was drowned, though at the end when the animated characters show up in the real world, the puppy is shown to be just fine, averting What Happened to the Mouse?.
  • When Johnny runs to Uncle Remus's cabin only to find that he's gone.
  • Seeing an injured Johnny in bed after the bull attack, begging for Uncle Remus, who briefly left due to Johnny's mother ordering him to stay completely away from him, to return. Only an increasingly fed-up Miss Doshy seizes the initiative and fetches Remus.
  • Poor little Ginny getting bullied.
  • Toby and Uncle Remus concerned for Johnny after the bull attack.
• Toy Ship: Johnny and Ginny.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: If nothing else, the Roger Rabbit Effect for this movie is incredibly impressive for 1946, especially given this was Disney's first major attempt at it. The characters match the lighting in the real world perfectly (such as how they darken when going under a shadow), they move perfectly in unison with the camera work, and the environmental effects, while not super plentiful, help sell the characters as being a natural part of the world, such as when the frog jumps in the pond near the end and causes a splash. Special mention has to go to the initial transition into "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah", which even though it's only a split-second, every single detail is worked out so well that you might be left wondering if Remus's imagination really did just come to life.

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