Song Of The South is on Youtube

That it is.

The movie that Disney pretends it never made is up for viewing. See it, comment on the racial tensions surrounding the movie, enjoy the stories themselves, or just watch it just to say you finally saw it. Whichever.

Just watch it quick - knowing Disney, pretty soon that video will be locked down tut suite

edited 9th Feb '11 4:14:57 PM by KnownUnknown

Even if it gets taken down this is probably putting it back in the water, so to speak.

I dont even have an account on youtube, and I cant even comment on that anyways. The user blocked off the comments.

Wise choice.

Darn I was looking forward to those.

I actually own the movie on DVD. My sister got me a Perfectly Legal copy taken from an old laserdisc that used to be sold in Japan. Fortunately, it included the original language track and an option to turn off the subtitles.

I should probably watch this, if only for the historical value. Also to make up my own mind, so to speak.

I actually had an oldish picture book with the official Disney versions/art of the Bre'r Rabbit stories as a kid, so I'm pretty familiar with that bit, at least.

It's actually quite good as a film, and the animated segments are beautifully done. By contemporary standards, the racism is appalling, but the movie came out in 1946. I think we can safely say it's Fair for Its Day. Probably its worst sin is a failure to name the year in which it takes place. It's actually during the Reconstruction era, but that isn't made clear, and it's easy to read the plantation workers as happy slaves.

Actually, it's kind of funny. I know this topic is old, but recently I've been thinking about the racism of this movie. Most youtube vids of this that allow comments are full of people who are all "blarg why is this racist" while pointing to a part that isn't actually indicative of the racism inherent in the movie, and naturally those parts get tons of thumbs up while those disagreeing get labelled spam.

After thinking about it, I realized that the most major aspect of why it is racially insensitive, being one of those stories firmly in the Southern revisionist genre that was most popular just after the Civil War, subtly propagandizing the plantation systems of the South as being ideal and happy for everyone, kind of flies over the heads of most people today. It's actually an entire movie built upon the more subtle racisms of movies like Birth Of A Nation (though, obviously, much tamer and without the more direct racisms that movie is famous for).

But lots of people today, having absolutely no experience with that genre and why it's so controversial, don't quite get the racism in the movie and see it as, in many cases, not being racist at all. Which isn't quite correct. The black people in the movie aren't directly portrayed negatively, but that doesn't mean their portrayal isn't insensitive.

It's a similar reason to why people don't get how the Dumbo crows are insensitive - sure, people get that blackface is bad, but they don't realize how ubiquitous a comedy genre it was in the past - for an embarassingly long time blackface jokes were not only common they were considered a classic or a standard - and how obvious is was that the crows are a reference to that genre.

edited 1st Aug '12 2:38:15 AM by KnownUnknown

Oh, I haven't seen this since I was a kid. I had this on VHS.

I can see why it's considered to be pretty dodgy, but I think that most of the controversy comes from the fact that Disney won't release it. Which I think is a ridiculous stance and a form of historical revisionism in itself.

And speaking of You Tube comments, I stumbled on a link there that leads to an animated film that appears to be about the life of Muhammad. Now this bares investigating!

edited 31st Jul '12 5:25:24 PM by TheBatPencil

Personally, I loved this movie.

It's the victim of a weird kind of corporate/PR kabuki. Nearly everyone acknowledges that elements of the movie deal in outstandingly bigoted notions. On the other hand, nearly everyone's adult enough to take it as a sometimes unfortunate, but largely worthy, product of its time.

However, should it ever be officially released, no one's internal feelings will stop civil-rights groups from jumping on the issue with both feet even if they're not sincerely offended, Disney executives from becoming flustered and discomposed even if they don't sincerely feel culpable, or reporters from covering the postures for all they're worth even if they sincerely perceive that it's a sham controversy. The public "script" for such a story is just too powerful for anyone to resist.

I need to see it. Always thought it was funny that "Zip-a-Dee Doo-Dah" is pretty much Disney's second theme song, second to "When You Wish Upon a Star", but they try to hide the movie it came from.

Political correctness. As seen here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_South

the NCAAP position on the film was taken, mainly, by people who had never seen the film. There's a trope for that.

Let me correct you a bit there.

This:

Should be this:

Kind of a big difference.

edited 9th Aug '12 5:29:55 PM by KnownUnknown

Is Song of the South worth watching? Because anything of high historical value that has a tremendous amount of controversy surrounding it, I'll tend to put it off for a while before experiencing it and having both positive and negative things to say about it.

I think Lindsay Ellis's review of it best sums up whether the film is worth viewing or not.

Long story short, if you're expecting a crazy ride of racism and Values Dissonance to laugh and be shocked at, you will be very disappointed. If you're genuinely interested in Disney's history of race depiction, then it's worth checking out but it's still rather mediocre.

No...not because the movie is terrible offensive (because it actually isn't, it is a very well meant but also unfortunate try to give a black actor a main role during a time when Hollywood was white), but because the movie is just boring. They should cut out all the white people and just focus on this great actor and his singing and story-telling.

Unless you are an animation fan. Than this movie is more or less animation history, because of the way it blended animation and live action. Without it movies like Mary Poppins and Who Framed Roger Rabbit would have only been half as good.

edited 11th May '16 10:24:16 PM by Swanpride