News The Disney+ (The New Streaming Service) Thread

Amos n Andy gets a bad rap. It was the ONLY show on TV for years that showed black people acting like normal people. It was just a sitcom with an assortment of wacky characters who were based on racial stereotypes. But what makes AnA different from other shows/movies with racial stereotypes, these characters were balanced out by all of the characters who were normal people, judges, cops, lawyers, laborers, janitors, etc.

Just going by memory, I don't think the crows or Uncle Remus, for that matter, were balanced out by any "normal" representations of black people in the time period in which the movie was set. It is for this reason Song of the South can stay buried, IMO.

Wait, don't the same crows show up in Dumbo? I may be getting the two movies mixed up.

BTW, if you want to see some REALLY racist cartoons from the forties and fifties, check out some of those by Walter Lantz, the eventual creator of Woody Woodpecker.

 

The first seems reasonable as I think it is pretty offensive and it's hard to officially release and not have parents presume it's OK for children. Plus I think you can watch it for free on youtube anyway.

But the second seems an excessive, unnecessary, overly large change, I don't see how including the scene would be very or clearly offensive or have other bad impacts.

 

Just out of curiosity, for those who know more Song of the South, does the fact that it is set after the Civil War and that Uncle Remus is not a slave make any difference?
I had always been under the impression the main issue was that it was seen as idealizing slavery, but that can't really be the case if Uncle Remus isn't actually a slave.

 

Is anyone else really hoping that people stumble upon Gargoyles, stream the shit out of it and give us a revival?

 

Yes!
I'm shocked there still hasn't been a movie. It fits right in with their Star Wars and Marvel demographics, except they didn't have to spend any money to own it.

 

I want an Exo Squad revival.

 

The movie isn't, aside from implicitly by depicting the condition as so good, clear about when it's set and thus what his status is, they could be interpreted either way. Though it is more indicating, yes, post-Civil War in that at one point he's outright allowed to leave. It still glorifies and idealizes way too much the white domination of the period.

 

I agree. All censorship ever does is make people even more interested in checking something out and you know their are copies out their that people will look for, even people who never even seen something like "Song of the South" just to see what all the fuss is about.

Jason

 

I really hope it's on there. I watched the first episode ages ago when they had it up for free on what I'm pretty sure was an official Disney Youtube channel, and I really enjoyed it, but it was gone by the time I went to watch more.

OK, that was what I was afraid of.

 

Although they don't state an exact date, there are several clues that the story is clearly set after the Civil War. Disney has also said as much. Those living on the plantation seem to be sharecroppers who can come and go as they please. While the movie suffers from racist stereotypes, I did not see a glorification of white domination. I guess you could say they were idealizing the plantation setting, but it's hard to separate this from the standard idealization of any setting that Disney applies to its films. And as I previously mentioned, a film like Gone With the Wind idealizes the plantation setting about 1000x more than Song of the South. This may sound like I'm defending the film, but I'm really not. There are definitely big issues.

For those who may not know, the story is about a young white boy befriending Uncle Remus. Uncle Remus teaches him life lessons through short animated stories interspersed throughout the live action. The boy's mom seems suspicious of Uncle Remus and doesn't like them hanging out together. The boy's father is away on some trip and the boy has been missing him and wants him to come home. At the end, the boy is injured and dying and instead of asking for his father, asks for Uncle Remus because of the connection they've made. Uncle Remus, in his tattered and dusty garb is welcomed into this fancy room to see the boy. I seem to remember a scene at the end where there's a close up of them holding hands, to represent some sort of racial unity.

If you look solely at this story, it seems like a sweet film about a budding friendship between two people. And like a story about how children can be blind to the racial differences that bother adults, like his mother. However, one article I read put it well - the film is guilty mostly because of what it does NOT depict. Like many Disney films, it leaves out anything from the time that would be deemed problematic or controversial. The problem is, the whole situation itself is problematic and controversial, and by not addressing any of those issues - like why Uncle Remus is still living on a plantation at which he was likely a former slave, why the boy's mom is suspicious of him, why he seems to be so poor and live in a shitty cabin compared to the mansion next door, etc. - the film seems like it's only trying to show the "good parts" of plantation life during the Reconstruction era. The whole exercise feels like a writer's room of white folks trying to show that they're not racist by including a positive black character who saves the day, while also trying to avoid touching on any of the consequences of racism and slavery that may make audiences uncomfortable.

I honestly don't see any way that Disney could have made a movie about this time period that wouldn't have suffered from these issues. Their brand of idealizing periods or events in history that in actuality were probably pretty terrible does not work for something that is still so recent and still greatly impacting us today. They should never have made a film with this setting.

With all of that said, I don't think they should keep it hidden away. I certainly don't think it should be marketed to children, but I also think it does not help conversations about race to pretend that this film doesn't exist. We can't know where we are and where we're going, if we don't understand where we've been.

 

OK, thanks for the info.
I can definitely see where the problems with it are then.

 

I remember seeing the first two seasons on Daily Motion.
You can check and see if they're still there.
I think the account name was Cartoon-Sentinel

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "first two seasons". There were only two seasons.

There. Were. ONLY! TWO! Seasons.

 

I'm interested in seeing The Mandalorian among other announced new shows.

 

New Muppets material will be coming to Disney+.

https://thedisinsider.com/2019/05/2...VHNsOM-hY4jqWc4mJl1W50kADdsmogSDD9cd4m9uloAXo

 

The premise of the movie makes me think of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer. His use of the N word I know has been censored but I don't think anybody has talked about removing the books, as of yet but maybe someday it will happen. Even though it's a classic.


Jason

 

McG claims that he is working on a True Lies series for Disney+. I enjoyed the movie when I saw it a few years ago, and like the idea of a series, but it seems to me like something that would be more appropriate for Hulu rather than Disney+.

 

We've gotten out first look at the Monster Inc series' main character, Tylor Tuskman, thanks to actor Ben Feldman, who is voicing him.

 

You used the wrong link. That's an article about The Phantasm.

 

Oops, sorry, here's the right one.