Disney/Pixar In General

True enough, If you've seen zip a dee doo dah and ridden Splash Mountain you've probably seen everything even remotely interesting in A Song of the South. That's probably the biggest difference between it and the War Shorts. As uncomfortable as some elements of those shorts are (especially the depiction of the Japanese, which makes my skin crawl) they are still very good in their own right.

I actually did see Song of the South on it's last theatrical release. It's worth seeing, though not something I'd count among Disney's best work. The film So Dear to My Heart is actually a great deal like it, and even hits all the same story beats; thematically, Disney intended to make two more films in this vein, as it was the approach he wanted to take initially with Alice in Wonderland and Treasure Island. I'd never even heard of So Dear to My Heart until I was an adult, never seen any of the animation from it or anything, whereas I'd seen bits and pieces of Song of the South on TV until I saw it in that last theatrical run. The "Zip-a Dee Doo Dah" song got played on TV a lot until the late 80's. Another thing a lot of people may not know about is that there were black male centaurs in the original cut of Fantasia. If you watch Fantasia now, you can tell that there's been some cutting (some of it a bit clumsy) to the segment with Beethoven's Pastoral. They cut out the black male centaurs because of a scene where one of them is shining the shoes (as they get ready to go court the centauresses) of the pastel colored centaurs. They haven't been in any release of Fantasia since the original.

I wouldn't say Song of the South is racist, though it does indeed make use of some condescending stereotypes. Those stereotypes are of course bad and offensive, but in that regard Song of the South is no worse (and in some ways, better) than Gone With the Wind, which they show on TV regularly. Of course, Gone with the Wind is from MGM and Song of the South from Disney, who set a lot of store by being a great bastion of family entertainment.

I would think the way to approach releasing it, if they're going to do so, is to come up with a Disney Archive much like WB has the Warner Archive, and only sell it by order. Or, release it with a big disclaimer in front of it, as WB did with their Golden Collections (done first by Whoopi Goldberg, and later by just a printed notice) and Disney did with their shorts collections (with Leonard Maltin). In some of the shorts collections, stuff that might have been particularly offensive (like the short "Mickey's Mellerdrammer," where Mickey and the gang perform Uncle Tom's Cabin) was even in it's own section, 'From the Vault" on the disc.

edited 23rd Jul '17 9:50:40 AM by Robbery

I kind of want the Disney version of Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Bear to come back into the public conscious again. I know in Europe they found life in the Disney comics, which are still running to this day. I do say Song Of The South does have offensive stereotypes, but in my opinion I don't think it's the worst of its day's kind.

You know before the 1960's, Uncle Remus tales were very embedded in American culture to the point you could see merchandise everywhere that had Brer Rabbit. The last time there has been an effort to adapt those tales were in 2006 with Nick Cannon as Brer Rabbit.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493201/

I think Song of the South is considered offensive less because of the stereotypes and more because of how it whitewashes the antebellum American south and implies that black people in those days had no reason not to be happy with their lot. It's kind of like how Pocahontas implies that Native Americans more or less got along with the colonists after a bad start.

If you approach it without the dialect, then I don't see that there's anything in the stories to complain about.

Actually, there's still a Br'er Rabbit brand of molasses. Unless you recognized the name, though, you'd never know what it was referencing, as their emblem is just a naturalistic-looking rabbit.

You may be right, but in that regard Song of the South is no different from any film from that era that depicts the antebellum south. The only difference is that it's from Disney.

edited 23rd Jul '17 10:17:52 AM by Robbery

I do think it would be interesting to depict the characters, without referring to Uncle Remus and the antebellum period. I know that part of it is what really makes it controversial. Yeah, I know that there is a Brer Rabbit brand of Molasses, and it's kind of a surviving artifact of it's time when the character was still in the public mind.

edited 23rd Jul '17 10:22:28 AM by firewriter

I should note that Song Of The South doesn't take place when slavery existed; it takes place after the Civil War, about the time when Joel Chandler Harris was compiling the material for the Uncle Remus books.

People told Disney he should put a date on the film - but he didn't.

Well... yeah. Exactly. It's not like it's the only movie from that time period to get that level of backlash against it - the main reason it got it in the first place, comparatively tame or not, is because African Americans at the time were tired of what they saw and pledged to protest it wherever they could.

That genre is general became very unpopular with Americans of every race - Reconstruction Revisionism was crushed hard. The only movie I can think of in that genre that still gets around is Gone With The Wind, and even that is more present in reputation than by actually airing.

Most films of its type were set after the Civil War, I think. The genre is based off of a literary movement from the second half of the 19th Century.

edited 23rd Jul '17 10:41:09 AM by KnownUnknown

As I said before, you reference only the parts of the tales of Brer Rabbit while leaving out the Reconstruction Revisionism. This would mean leaving out Uncle Remus, since that character has a lot of stigma around him.

Preaching to the choir, friend.

I think the reason Gone With The Wind has avoided the issue is due to it's Mainstream Obscurity. Relatively few people sit down to watch it, at least in part because it's 4 hours long. I mean I've only seen it because of a film appreciation class I took in college.

The thing is some ethnics seem to be far more lax with stereotypes. I mean take hispanics. They love Speedy Gonzales and The Three Caballeros even though it's not particularly flattering or open minded about their ethnic. The two cartoons in fact were made to appeal to their audience.

edited 23rd Jul '17 11:31:43 AM by Psi001

Yeah, I remember that WB considered quashing those old Speedy Gonzales cartoons, but Latino employees actually talked them out of it. Their argument was that Speedy was the hero, and he was fast (which runs contrary to stereotypes about Mexicans). Speedy is probably the most straight-up heroic character from the old WB cartoons; rather than just heckling a bully, he's generally called in to deal with a threat (usually Sylvester or, later, Daffy) or just wants to help get food for the other mice. Sure, he dresses like a 19th century Mexican peon, and he has an accent, but there's really nothing negative about his character.

Jose Carioca and Panchito could both definitely be considered stereotypes (especially Panchito) but they don't appear to be stereotypes that people much mind.

edited 23rd Jul '17 11:57:27 AM by Robbery

Jose in particular is supposedly a very popular character in Brazil, to the point he once had his own monthly comic book.

The type of character José Carioca embodies has been around in brazilian literature and film since at least the 19th century, I don't think most brazilians really consider him particularly offensive these days and even enjoy him.

I think he still does. We actually have a pretty long and undocumented tradition of brazilian Disney comics, I see them on the stands at supermarkets all the time.

edited 23rd Jul '17 12:06:29 PM by Draghinazzo

Kinda like how the super self-reliant, ultra manly Cowboy is an American stereotype (soon to be on display in The Kingsman 2) that most Americans don't seem to mind much.

Probably because those are comparatively 'cool' ways to be stereotyped. Who doesn't think a suave, cigar-chomping socialite or a hyperactive gunslinger rocking a sombrero is cool?

Jose is cool

It's also partly a dub thing, in that Speedy speaks in broken English in the American release but perfectly good Spanish in the Latin release.

A stereotype can be funny if the viewer feels included on the joke. Spanish Buzz was hilarious because I felt like I got to laugh at additional jokes within his dialogue. Rather than a broad generalization, he was a neat in-joke.

What did Spanish Buzz speak in the Spanish release, anyway? A dialect?

In the Latin American version he spoke with an Spanish accent. In Spain he spoke with an Andalusian accent.

Spanish Buzz Lightyear was my favorite part of the movie. XD

The thing with the stereotypes Disney uses in their movies is that they are usually attached to animal characters not human character. Meaning if we look at a crow and say "oh, that is a black stereotype!!!" it says way more about the viewer than the crow, because it reveals that said viewer has internalized those stereotypes. It is actually very telling which of those we are still able to recognize after all this years and which ones we have forgotten. There is a huge difference between having a human character act in a special way and have a animal character do it. One is enforcing a stereotype and one is poking fun at a stereotype.

I am btw not saying that Disney can't go wrong. Sunflower was a huge mistake which should have never made it to screen. Song in the South was well-meaning but misguided (though I still think that they should at the very least release the storytelling parts since the actually questionable stuff is in the frame story, and this is a piece of black folklore which isn't represented anywhere else). And it is not half as offensive as people think. It is actually less racist than Gone with the Wind, whose faults are nowadays acknowledged but isn't half as derided as Song of the South is.

The crow is literally named Jim Crow,which makes the stereotyping that much more obvious,you can't get away from the fact they are negative stereotypes,and that includes the cigar smoking

I'm just glad the film didn't get the song of south treatment

Actually, the name Jim Crow isn't mentioned in the movie. Nor is it written in the end credits. Jim Crow is simply a nickname the animators used for the character and which they revealed during the second release of the movie. For context: The group was apparently a very diverse bunch and gave each other nicknames along the line, too.

Personally I don't quite get why the name if such a red flag for some people, because in my eyes it is pretty much giving the Jim Crow laws the middle finger instead of endorsing them. But even if you are offended by it, the only way to even know how the character is named is if you read up additional information of the movie, just by watching it, you wouldn't know how the crow is named.