posted
I finally snagged a Japanese laserdisc copy of Song of the South on eBay. There is an English soundtrack on the disc, but there are Japanese subtitles during the songs, which is a bit annoying. The bidding for these rare disks usually peaks at around $150. Two years ago I saw a super-rare Hong Kong, rental-only version, without subtitles go for $1500.
I've been ripped off once when trying to buy this laserdisc on eBay by a seller that sent me a pirated DVD instead. There's a nice little underground market for such DVDs. The Song of the South DVD is lousy, the source must have been an old VHS tape or a video camera sneaked into a theater. The video quality of the laserdisc version is awesome, and the disk is legal.
As you may know, there was a moratorium placed on this movie after a brief theatrical re-release in 1987 stirred a lot of commotion.
There are many essays on the Internet dedicated to examining the negative stereotypes supposedly portrayed in Song of the South, and there are as many rebuttals. I think I might understand both sides of the argument about the stereotypes, but I must not be very sensitive to how stereotypes are portrayed on film. I love this movie, and I don't even think about stereotypes when I'm watching it.
By the way, the theme for the Splash Mountain ride at Disney's parks is based on this film, if you've ever wondered.
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posted
Seems to me a really ideal solution for a DVD release would be to include a discussion of the stereotypical portrayals of blacks, along with the extremely idealized portrayal of what plantation life was like for those same people working the fields.
That way we don't bury something that has value, but we also don't ignore the real issues - the ones that have kept it buried. It seems like just the kind of thing a DVD is really well suited to do.
(Just an aside - the main complaints about this come from people in the African-American community. They're probably better tuned to stereotypes affecting them than most of us here.)
quote:sndrake: extremely idealized portrayal of what plantation life was like
Yes, the slaves/sharecroppers in the film do seem to be enjoying life a bit too much. However, the music, cooking, art, and storytelling part of that heritage is real enough and deserves to be celebrated on its own, without being encumbered by a telling of the ugly side.
I guess if you wanted to capture the positive part (if there is one) of life on a plantation or on an Indian reservation without giving offense you'd have to involve some African Americans or Native Americans in the writing, producing, and money-making phases of the film. It doesn't seem fair for white people to put other people in a mostly ugly situation and then turn around and make money telling a pretty little story about it.
Copied DVDs of this film should therefore be given away, not sold. Now if they could just bring the video quality up.
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quote:Yes, the slaves/sharecroppers in the film do seem to be enjoying life a bit too much. However, the music, cooking, art, and storytelling part of that heritage is real enough and deserves to be celebrated on its own, without being encumbered by a telling of the ugly side.
I don't understand that logic at all. There are any number of writers - not just blacks - who can write about both the experience of poverty and oppression, and also celebrate the lives lived in spite of it all. (There's a lot of Irish literature in this vein)
Seems to me that it's mostly those of us who don't look like the plantation workers who don't want to be reminded of the ugly side. Those who do look like them are pretty aware of its existence already.
I guess I also have trouble seeing how a feature on a DVD containing a discussion of stereotypes in the movie would be intrusive.
Did you think I was proposing that comments appear as pop-ups in the movie itself? Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I like sndrake's suggestion. Portions of the proceeds could also go to the African-American Future Achievers Scholarship program, African American Self-Help Foundation, etc.
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posted
Because it is overly expensive and otherwise not legally available, sndrake, it don't exist for the overwhelming majority of us. I seem to remember that several scenes of Fantasia were cut from the video release for similar reasons.
If I held copyright, I'd release Song of the South as a boxed set with eg Roots to provide a more accurate picture.
People being people, I'd suspect that even slaves had their moments of genuine pleasure. And that some actually received decent treatment in jobs that they enjoyed. Portraying one of them isn't dissing the memory of the rest. The NativeAmerican experience wasn't all getting massacred and being herded onto worthless reservations by the white man.
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posted
You can get free DivX Laserdisc rips of it off BitTorrent And Disney gets just as much money off of that that they got from you buying a second-hand legit Japanese copy.
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posted
I downloaded it recently and watched it with my son. I had seen it when I was little and I really enjoyed it when I saw it again.
Yes it's idealized in it's depiction of slave life. And yes we should be sensitive to people's feelings.
But what I enjoyed most was the interaction between Uncle Remus and the kid. He clearly was a servant (more-so than a slave, and that may be what some object to, though I would guess that such situations also existed in real life- though rarely- at least for the house slaves) yet at the same time was a real person. He was relatively independent and took responsibility for his actions and cared for the boy.
And his stories taught the boy how to deal with bad situations, especially being smaller than everyone else. In retrospect it was a lot like Aesop's fables, in that sense. The "folk wisdom" of Uncle Remus (and the slave community in general) was practical and could help anyone.
All in all, considering all the stereotypes about black slaves being lazy and stupid and black people only more so, especially in the era when it was made (and represented), I thought the film provided a suprisingly realistic contrast.
A real man whose stories help this boy going through a difficult time in his life. A man who's not afraid to do what he has been told not to when the need is there, despite what he may suffer. A man who cares about people and tries to help.
So I say it should be release. Maybe with an extra documentary on realistic slave life to round out the picture. (Though white people in t 40's and 50's can hardly be expected to portray slavery as totally negative. White society, as a whole, had not yet fessed up to the great horror of slavery and their attitudes toward people of color, because to do so would call into question their (then) current views and policies on the social status of them.)
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quote:So I say it should be release. Maybe with an extra documentary on realistic slave life to round out the picture. (Though white people in t 40's and 50's can hardly be expected to portray slavery as totally negative. White society, as a whole, had not yet fessed up to the great horror of slavery and their attitudes toward people of color, because to do so would call into question their (then) current views and policies on the social status of them.)
Absolutely! This was a product of the times - and should be viewed in that context. The type of discussion add-on I proposed would educate younger viewers about that context.
(BTW, I also like this idea for some of the older classics that end up on "banned" lists in schools for similar reasons. For example, school library editions of Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" could carry an essay on the eugenics movement, which was active and prominent when Steinbeck wrote that work - a lot of the book promotes themes from the eugenics movement - "the menace of the feebleminded" and "mercy killing." Better than banning the book. Better than leaving young readers with the book as their first (in some cases) impression of what mental retardation is all about.
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posted
I think it should be released and available to the public.
First off, this is a piece of fiction.
Secondly, with the climate we have now, I don't believe anyone will look at it and say, oh, so that's how it was on the plantations back in the days of slavery. The audience is too sophisticated now and probably was then as well.
Third, hiding it away as something shameful prevents us from learning about the society that produced it. How can we, as a society, learn about bad stereotypes without actually being exposed to what they are?
Fourth, while the setting and characterizations are stereotypical and idealized, the movie does, if I remember, showcase the folklore and music that arose from the slaves and people of that region. There is history and a treasure there, something we can't throw out with the bath water. Those old stories couched within the movie do have merit and a lineage that we are all entitled to and perhaps need on a certain level.
The movie is outdated and is wrapped heavily in that time period's Hollywood portrayal of blacks. We need to be able to see that Hollywood, great bastion of our American psyche, has not (and probably still isn't) immune to the prejudices and preconceptions that we harbor.
The Little Rascals have come under fire time and again as well for being racist, particularly in the portrayal of characters like Buckwheat, Stymie, Farina and others. But it was all ruffled feathers and thunder, without much substance. So many forgot that the underlying story for The Little Rascals was that these kids all valued each other and were in it together. And each of the kids was the butt of many jokes.
<sorry, /rant off about the Little Rascals>
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quote: And Disney gets just as much money off of that that they got from you buying a second-hand legit Japanese copy.
Not quite. Only one person can get that second-hand legit version (barring it being copied and the owner selling the original), so each purchase of one of these represents a legitimate purchase of the movie.
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quote:Song of the South consists of animated sequences featuring Uncle Remus characters such as Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, and Br'er Bear, framed by live-action portions in which Uncle Remus (portrayed by actor James Baskett, who won a special Oscar for his efforts) tells the stories to a little white boy upset over his parents' impending divorce. Although some Blacks have always been uneasy about the minstrel tradition of the Uncle Remus stories, the major objections to Song of the South had to do with the live action portions. The film has been criticized both for "making slavery appear pleasant" and "pretending slavery didn't exist", even though the film (like Harris' original collection of stories) is set after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. Still, as folklorist Patricia A. Turner writes:
Disney's 20th century re-creation of Harris's frame story is much more heinous than the original. The days on the plantation located in "the United States of Georgia" begin and end with unsupervised Blacks singing songs about their wonderful home as they march to and from the fields. Disney and company made no attempt to to render the music in the style of the spirituals and work songs that would have been sung during this era. They provided no indication regarding the status of the Blacks on the plantation. Joel Chandler Harris set his stories in the post-slavery era, but Disney's version seems to take place during a surreal time when Blacks lived on slave quarters on a plantation, worked diligently for no visible reward and considered Atlanta a viable place for an old Black man to set out for. Kind old Uncle Remus caters to the needs of the young white boy whose father has inexplicably left him and his mother at the plantation. An obviously ill-kept Black child of the same age named Toby is assigned to look after the white boy, Johnny. Although Toby makes one reference to his "ma," his parents are nowhere to be seen. The African-American adults in the film pay attention to him only when he neglects his responsibilities as Johnny's playmate-keeper. He is up before Johnny in the morning in order to bring his white charge water to wash with and keep him entertained.
The boys befriend a little blond girl, Ginny, whose family clearly represents the neighborhood's white trash. Although Johnny coaxes his mother into inviting Ginny to his fancy birthday party at the big house, Toby is curiously absent from the party scenes. Toby is good enough to catch frogs with, but not good enough to have birthday cake with. When Toby and Johnny are with Uncle Remus, the gray-haired Black man directs most of his attention to the white child. Thus Blacks on the plantation are seen as willingly subservient to the whites to the extent that they overlook the needs of their own children. When Johnny's mother threatens to keep her son away from the old gentleman's cabin, Uncle Remus is so hurt that he starts to run away. In the world that Disney made, the Blacks sublimate their own lives in order to be better servants to the white family. If Disney had truly understood the message of the tales he animated so delightfully, he would have realized the extent of distortion of the frame story.
posted
And then there's Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and Mr. Cream of Wheat. I think the use of these characters was originally intended to convey the idea that the pertinent product was so easy to use that it was equivalent to having your own personal servant. Nowadays those companies maintain that their icons are a healthy piece of Americana.
Yes, I think it would be interesting to see a documentary tracing the history of racial stereotypes in the media. Of course all this stuff is well documented on the Internet.
I still think that what most offends is the idea that white folks are the only ones making money from these portrayals.
On our trip to New Zealand two years ago we visited several Maori cultural exhibitions. In each case both negative and positive aspects of the Maori encounter with Europeans were set forth. We saw both whites and Maori performing the traditional dances side by side. We saw Maori art produced by both whites and Maori. And in cases where an admission fee was collected there were both whites and Maori taking the money. In the trinket shops where stereotypical images of Maori warriors with their tattooed faces and protruding tongues were displayed, we found both white and Maori proprietors.
I think that when any portrayal of race or culture is presented in the media that the presenters and beneficiaries need to be racially and culturally diverse.
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And after seeing the movie again just last month, I think the "interpretation" about what it is saying about what the film "teaches" about "proper relationships" and "duties" is stretched.
That is not to say it is not full of stereotypes (as anything featuring Black people from the 40's would have). But they are not there to be negative. The story is not designed to denigrate nor to portray as worth-less people of certain ethnicities.
As I said above, if anything, it was actually rather different in that Uncle Remus' homespun wisdom is what helps Jimmy through this crucial time. When Jimmy is hurt and cries out for someone, it's not for his white father who has been absent for most of the movie. Instead it is for his friend- the father figure- Uncle Remus, who has been there for him during this difficult time.
But in the end, people who are LOOKING to see what this movie is telling us about slave life will not see the darkness that it really was- the casual brutality and dehumanization. So, of course, they will only see "happy" people, regardless of their station. But what they forget is that this movie was not a treatise on the evils of slavery. It was the story of a young boy going through a difficult time and who receives true help and friendship and love from a father figure and makes it through. It is supposed to be light and entertaining and uplifting.
So where in all that should the whippings occur? When should Toby be beaten? How about the selling of one of the children? Where in all that, should the rapes happen?
Can we not appreciate, ESPECIALLY FOR ITS TIME, that this movie was amazingly positive in showing the relationship between a young white boy with no father and an older black man whose stories taught lessons through funny and meaninful stories. Stories that are unique in their origin and the culture that produced them.
One should admire the spiritual strength of these people who, in the midst of such pain, found tales and songs and stories to give meaning and a little direction to very sad lives. Especially considering that their own mythology had been lost to them through slavery.
My 2 cents, anyway.
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quote:Can we not appreciate, ESPECIALLY FOR ITS TIME, that this movie was amazingly positive in showing the relationship between a young white boy with no father and an older black man whose stories taught lessons through funny and meaninful stories. Stories that are unique in their origin and the culture that produced them.
One should admire the spiritual strength of these people who, in the midst of such pain, found tales and songs and stories to give meaning and a little direction to very sad lives. Especially considering that their own mythology had been lost to them through slavery.
Here's the thing - my guess is that if you're white (and almost all of us here are), you're less likely to see any harm in any of this presented "as is." If you're black, it will probably be a different story.
For example, I saw the movie on the big screen on its rerelease, but the only thing that struck me at the time was the idealized portrayal of plantation life. I totally missed the way in which all black characters - including the playmate - were stuck in subservient roles.
I don't think my black coworkers would have missed it.
BTW, the mythology wasn't "lost" - the stories told by Joel Chandler Harris are based on African legends and mythology. Brer Rabbit is based "trickster gods" from various African myths.
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posted
True. But bundling the movie with a small documentary on what life on plantations was really like would serve to both educate as to the falsness of an idealized version of plantation life (the real problem I see, not the supposed neglecting of their own children for white kids, as one example mention in the snopes article) while still sharing a heartwarming tale whose message, I think, is really one of love and care and is colorblind.
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posted
Isn't the portrayal of blacks in subservient roles kinda, um, accurate? I mean, how many black bankers, lawyers, and plantation (or even farm) owners would you find in the South prior to the civil rights movement?
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posted
I don't see any problem with releasing it with a commentary on stereotypes and the evolution of society....
On a side note, however, I can remember seeing this movie as a child, and not coming away with any feelings one way or the other. Probably not one of my favorite movies, so I don't think I cared much. But at the same time, I was a huge fan of the book "Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby" Or whatever it was called. Years later I was surprised to find out it was banned and out of proportion. I hadn't ever seen the problem with it. lol. Then again, I read a number of books in my youth that later were part of the banned list..."Bridge over Taribithia" or whatever the real name of that one was, comes to mind.
I guess my fragile mind was warped by these "horrible" books and that probably explains my insanity today.
quote: Isn't the portrayal of blacks in subservient roles kinda, um, accurate? I mean, how many black bankers, lawyers, and plantation (or even farm) owners would you find in the South prior to the civil rights movement?
Sure. But that doesn't mean they were happy about it, especially living in what looked a lot like slave quarters. And the relationships were between the servants and the masters were a lot less "happy" than depicted in the movie.
I really am thinking I want to talk to some of my coworkers about this. Am I just being an oversensitive white-guilt kind of guy or do they have some opinions on the movie, one way or the other? (If I do, I will NOT say that I know a lot of white people defending it.)
I don't have kids, but when my nieces were growing up, we spent a lot of time together. I wouldn't have wanted them to watch this movie without talking about the reality of what plantation life was like, and would have tried to point out things mentioned in the analysis on Snopes.
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posted
People are over-sensitive regardless of race.
You should have heard some of the comments made because Justin Timberlake was named the new king of pop instead of Usher. Comments like, "white people keep stealing our sound," or "the man is once again trying to capitalize on black music". Or when the wife of Alex Haley had to sell the Roots manuscript for enough money to live. Again, comments about conspiracies to keep people down, especially those who "blew the whistle" on slavery.
So I don't know what you'll get. Some won't know or care, some will think it is nothing, and some will say it's racial. Just like anything else.
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posted
The one I'm most interested in is a guy around my own age, raised in the south - and remembers the times of doors that had signs with "whites only" and "colored" on them.
I could be wrong, but I doubt there's the diversity you expect. It's easier to shrug off the issues with the film if you're white.
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I think the combination - in my eyes - would turn it into a total positive. I'm interested in hearing another perspective.
BTW, it's not like I'll be hunting down my coworker special - he's out of the office most of the time, when he comes in, we usually hang out together and talk politics and life in general. We come from very different backgrounds, but our ages give us a shared context that neither of us has with some of the other people in the office.
I mean, I hate the fact that they went and rewrote the Dr. Dolittle books. I read them when I was a kid and my parents talked to me about some of the kinda racist stuff in the books. Rather than erasing the racism in the books, wouldn't it have been better to have something in those books that just discussed that things now deemed offensive were normal at the time the books were written? Isn't that a better lesson than rewriting the books?
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posted
Just to correct what seems to be a common misconception:
Song of the South (just as the original Uncle Remus stories) takes place after the Civil War, so there is no slavery. Grinding poverty and inequality, yes, but not slavery.
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According to Snopes, the movie doesn't make it clear at all whether the time is during or after slavery.
The defense site assures people it is, since Joel Chandler Harris was writing in post-slavery times. But then again, Harris's own childhood was during the time of slavery (and he's writing the tales he was told as a child), so it's all kind of unclear.
posted
I haven't seen the movie since about 1972, so I can't comment too much, but there are a lot of movies out there that I'll bet are far more offensive. Gone with the Wind comes to mind. Also several of Shirley Temple's movies, either with Mr. Bojangles, or some of the really early ones, where they have little baby black cannibals trying to put a diapered Miss Temple in the cauldron. Yuk.
I think the thing to do is to turn the movie over to the NAACP and allow them to decide how or whether to release it.
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Well, is it true or not that toward the end of the movie Uncle Remus leaves in a huff for another city, and there is no fuss about a runaway slave? He is obviously free to travel wherever and whenever he wants to.
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posted
Also, I'm not sure what you mean about the Snopes article. I didn't see anything like what you said. Instead, I saw the following: "The film has been criticized both for "making slavery appear pleasant" and "pretending slavery didn't exist", even though the film (like Harris' original collection of stories) is set after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery."
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quote:Snope article: They provided no indication regarding the status of the Blacks on the plantation. Joel Chandler Harris set his stories in the post-slavery era, but Disney's version seems to take place during a surreal time when Blacks lived on slave quarters on a plantation, worked diligently for no visible reward and considered Atlanta a viable place for an old Black man to set out for.
My understanding is that there really was such a surreal time following the war between the states. I think the reality was that there was limited knowledge of alternative ways of earning a living, and a lot of former slaves, preferring the familiar surroundings and relative safety of the plantation, stayed on the plantation.
OTOH, in the film Shenandoah, a former slave youth took to the road the minute he discovered he was free. Perhaps in reality younger blacks did leave the plantations after the war in response to youthful wanderlust and out of ignorance of the harsh realities that awaited them.
Maybe the Disney depiction is more accurate than we give it credit: women and children and the aged remaining on the plantation, and young men having gone off to seek their fortune.
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posted
I think there's no question that at least that portion of the film is historically pretty accurate. The biggest problem, as I've understood it, is the grotesquely cheerful, rosy, prosperous-seeming and yet still subservient way the former slaves in the film always act. They look well fed, well treated, and are always smiling, laughing and partying up a storm, and seem to be particularly eager to provide cute little life lessons to a cute, rich, white kid who appears to have so much more to be depressed about in his life than they do. In other words, they (with the exception, for the most part, of the old Uncle himself) are only there for atmosphere, and the atmosphere they give is one that is absolutely false to the historical reality.
Still, the fact remains, they are not slaves. The very legitimate criticisms of the movie can be missed if people just assume it's all about slavery.
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posted
I've been waiting for Justa to post on this thread. I think he'd have something interesting to say.
Me, I have no opinion on this one except that it shouldn't be banned by the government. Let Disney, stores, retail outlets, potential boycotters, and buyers figure this out amongst them.
quote:As the descendants of slaves, indentured servants, and serfs, we ALL have something interesting to say.
The history of freedom for the masses is short indeed.
But shorter for some than for others. For most of us, the ancestral history of serfdom is many generations removed and on another continent. The enslavement of blacks is closer to our culture in time and location.
Slavery in this country was not an "equal opportunity" experience. The death of the last known person to live as a slave here in the U.S. occurred in 1979.
quote:As the descendants of slaves, indentured servants, and serfs, we ALL have something interesting to say.
I wasn't basing that on any connection he has to slavery - I don't know if he has any at all, nor would that be a criteria for me to anticipate someone's post on the topic.
quote:serfdom is many generations removed and on another continent
My ancestors gained passage to this country by becoming indentured servants. If the descendants of the man who owned that ship want to make money by producing a movie that shows my ancestors singing and dancing in the rat-infested hold of that ship, then I'll reserve the right to get upset.
We could talk about the history of child labor in this country. Maybe Disney could produce a musical about paperboys.
I'm not trying to minimize the experience of black slaves. I'm saying that we all have ancestral ties to those who have known bondage.
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