So, I just finished watching Song of the South for the first time, and I'm shocked. Shocked that there has been so much controversy over such a harmless film.
Obviously there is something I am not getting here. Maybe it's my age (I was born in 1986), so I am not getting what to others seem like racist references. Such as the tar baby scene, which I thought nothing of until reading online that it is an offensive term. I had never even heard the term before watching the movie, and the movie does not present the scene in a racist light whatsoever, it's just something that Brer Rabbit gets stuck in.
Now of course there are scenes depicting the "master" speaking to her "slaves," but I honestly don't know how that situation could be depicted on film in a way that would please everyone or even most people. So should we never even attempt to portray slavery of that time because of this? Should we just pretend it never happened? I can see why some might be unhappy about the movie's upbeat tone possibly giving the idea that slavery was positive, but would anyone watching this film really come away with the impression that slavery was all rainbows and sunshine? Any adult waching would know better, and any child watching probably wouldn't realize that there was even slavery going on, they probably think that Uncle Remus is just Johnny's neighbor. Sure he lives in a crappy little shack compared to their mansion, but there is also a white family of neighbors living in a crappy little shack of their own.
If I were to imagine a children's movie set in this time period, with this story of a small white boy befriending an old black man, I can't really imagine any way to do it less offensively than Disney did. Do people just not want this time period to be reflected in films at all? If someone has an idea of how the film could have been done more tastefully, I would like to hear it (I'm being serious, not sarcastic).
Actually, the only thing in the film that I saw as being negative for children is the scene in which Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit smoke a pipe.
Is this movie a case of Disney freaking out over something that's really not that big of a deal, or is it truly an offensively racist film? I guess I am looking for perspectives from people who are older than I and have been around when this film was re-released in the past.
Obviously there is something I am not getting here. Maybe it's my age (I was born in 1986), so I am not getting what to others seem like racist references. Such as the tar baby scene, which I thought nothing of until reading online that it is an offensive term. I had never even heard the term before watching the movie, and the movie does not present the scene in a racist light whatsoever, it's just something that Brer Rabbit gets stuck in.
Now of course there are scenes depicting the "master" speaking to her "slaves," but I honestly don't know how that situation could be depicted on film in a way that would please everyone or even most people. So should we never even attempt to portray slavery of that time because of this? Should we just pretend it never happened? I can see why some might be unhappy about the movie's upbeat tone possibly giving the idea that slavery was positive, but would anyone watching this film really come away with the impression that slavery was all rainbows and sunshine? Any adult waching would know better, and any child watching probably wouldn't realize that there was even slavery going on, they probably think that Uncle Remus is just Johnny's neighbor. Sure he lives in a crappy little shack compared to their mansion, but there is also a white family of neighbors living in a crappy little shack of their own.
If I were to imagine a children's movie set in this time period, with this story of a small white boy befriending an old black man, I can't really imagine any way to do it less offensively than Disney did. Do people just not want this time period to be reflected in films at all? If someone has an idea of how the film could have been done more tastefully, I would like to hear it (I'm being serious, not sarcastic).
Actually, the only thing in the film that I saw as being negative for children is the scene in which Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit smoke a pipe.
Is this movie a case of Disney freaking out over something that's really not that big of a deal, or is it truly an offensively racist film? I guess I am looking for perspectives from people who are older than I and have been around when this film was re-released in the past.
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