What do you think of Disney's "Song of the South"?

[scotpens]

To say that depicting a black man in the Civil War era or Reconstruction era whose main goal in life is taking care of white people's children is not an expression of an certain ideal of race relations as framed by white racism, is to reveal one's self as supremely ignorant of the ways white supremacy manifests itself as an ideology. Song of the South is a racist film.

Uncle Remus befriends and amuses one boy with his storytelling, and you extrapolate that his "main goal in life is taking care of white people's children"? You're looking for and finding subtext that isn't there and never was.

They're certainly in the tradition of minstrel show stereotypes, but I'm not that offended by them. In the very least, they're not voiced by white guys.

IIRC, the head crow, the one who does most of the talking, was voiced by a white actor. The other crow voices were performed by members of a black gospel choir.

 

[Spot's Meow]

I think I started a thread here about this movie a few years ago, asking basically the same question; what's the big deal? To me the movie is simply a product of its time, and as someone upthread said, it's really more racist by omission than anything else. To me, I don't feel it is a highly racist film, and I think that there are some very touching moments in it that even go to show how meaningful friendship can be regardless of race. But I understand that Disney wants to avoid controversy, and I can't really blame them. It does remind me of people who like to ban books like Huck Finn because of the "racist language" though...you kind of feel like they are entirely missing the point of the story.

 

[CaptainCanada]

I saw it as a kid. Calling it "racist" is a little like calling "Huck Finn" or even "To Kill a Mockingbird" racist, simply because, in each, some people in the movie are racist in a racist time.

That's not really an accurate comparison. To Kill A Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn are aware they're depicting a racist society; that's the whole point of those stories. Song of the South is inadvertently racist -- it's just repeating what was then the traditional view of the postbellum South.

 

[Sci]

I saw it as a kid. Calling it "racist" is a little like calling "Huck Finn" or even "To Kill a Mockingbird" racist, simply because, in each, some people in the movie are racist in a racist time.

That's not really an accurate comparison. To Kill A Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn are aware they're depicting a racist society; that's the whole point of those stories. Song of the South is inadvertently racist -- it's just repeating what was then the traditional view of the postbellum South.

Exactly. Song of the South both depicts and romanticizes a system of race relations in which whites are in charge of black folk and blacks faithfully work on white men's farms. It's an idealized version of a white supremacist system in which interracial friendships do not occur on a basis of equality and mutual consent, but on the basis of one race holding power over the other.

 

[Maurice]

The film's racial portrayal was criticized at the time of its release, so even in its time it was not seen as harmless by everyone.

 

[Kegg]

The film's racial portrayal was criticized at the time of its release, so even in its time it was not seen as harmless by everyone.

Indeed. If there's one thing in particular that 'of its time' arguments rankle me with (Song of the South here, Gone With the Wind in another thread) it's the implicit idea that criticizing these films as racist is a modern, post-Civil Rights notion.

As opposed to an argument that was actually made when the films were released.

 

[suarezguy]

Some of the animated sequences are OK but I did find it on the whole very offensive with such a idealized view of white dominance and the black characters being perfectly happy in "their place" (and the implicit message that it would be wrong to "get involved" and try to change the conditions).

 

[Joel_Kirk]

This film is good for historical content, showing the "Magical Negro" stereotype....a stereotype that Morgan Freeman has arguably portrayed in some early roles (and which, I believe, Will Smith was said to portray in "Bagger Vance").

A discussion in one of my undergrad courses was whether or not Huck Finn should be banned because of the n-word....I thought it should be available uncensored.

Already, we have some people ignorantly thinking because Barack Obama is in the white house "racism is abolished" ignoring the many things going on presently....so, I think having these items available (at least for academic and non-academic learning purposes) is needed.

(I may want to pass this thread along; I have a friend - also a black male - who is interested in getting into an African American Studies graduate program; this may interest him).

I watched "Emperor Jones" not too long ago; that film was made around the same time as "Song of the South" or earlier...and it was interesting seeing some images - for "Emperor Jones" that were stereotypical, but other images -for that same film - that were actually daring for that time period (i.e. showing black intimacy).

 

[Sci]

A discussion in one of my undergrad courses was whether or not Huck Finn should be banned because of the n-word....I thought it should be available uncensored.

This argument always puzzles me.

Between Gone With the Wind and Song of the South, I think I've establish pretty strongly where I come down on the issue of Confederate apologia. But the idea that these things should be censored and banned just appalls me. Free speech applies even for racist louts.

In particular, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an example of a novel that should never be banned. Not only is it an important literary milestone in American culture, but it's an example of the sort of work that needs to be read to be evaluated on whether or not it is itself a racist work. Is Huck Finn racist for its use of the n-word, and for the constant references to "[N-word] Jim?" Or is it, as some have argued, an anti-racist novel that uses those elements ironically, in order to draw attention to the moral inferiority of those who believe in white supremacy? I've heard both arguments about that book, and it seems like the sort of thing that only an uncensored reading could yield an educated opinion on.

 

[Harvey]

I watched "Emperor Jones" not too long ago; that film was made around the same time as "Song of the South" or earlier...

Definitely earlier; The Emperor Jones (1933) and Song of the South (1946) were made thirteen years apart. Keep in mind that when comparing the two that the earlier film was made in the so-called "pre-code" era, which (probably -- I'm not personally familiar with the film) had some effect on its content.

--

I'm not comfortable with banning art of any kind. The Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind have been rightly attacked for racist attitudes, but I don't see the benefit of removing them from circulation. Pretending they don't exist is about as useful as claiming that racism is dead because we have a President of African descent.

Banning The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn seems particularly egregious, but I've always viewed the novel as an anti-racist work (been a long time since I've actually read the thing, though).

 

[Alidar Jarok]

A discussion in one of my undergrad courses was whether or not Huck Finn should be banned because of the n-word....I thought it should be available uncensored.

This argument always puzzles me.

Between Gone With the Wind and Song of the South, I think I've establish pretty strongly where I come down on the issue of Confederate apologia. But the idea that these things should be censored and banned just appalls me. Free speech applies even for racist louts.

Well, the argument is typically about removing it from school curricula rather than completely banning it from print.

 

[Kegg]

^
While it's been much mocked on the internet, I do think replacing that word with 'slave' is a reasonable compromise. I'm not that comfortable with that word being in books given to children to learn in school.

 

[Mr Light]

I've never seen Gone With The Wind, what's so racist about it?

 

[scotpens]

Exactly. Song of the South both depicts and romanticizes a system of race relations in which whites are in charge of black folk and blacks faithfully work on white men's farms. It's an idealized version of a white supremacist system in which interracial friendships do not occur on a basis of equality and mutual consent, but on the basis of one race holding power over the other.

The avuncular or grandfatherly role of Uncle Remus to the young white boy certainly isn't based on power or dominance, and neither is the friendship between the white boy and a black boy his own age. Children don't see race as an issue unless the adults around them make it an issue.

And don't forget there were white sharecroppers as well, as shown in the movie (the "white trash" kids).

While it's been much mocked on the internet, I do think replacing that word with 'slave' is a reasonable compromise. I'm not that comfortable with that word being in books given to children to learn in school.

Works of art and literature should never be bowdlerized or purged of "offensive" content. Any child old enough to read and understand Huckleberry Finn is old enough to know that certain words ought not to be used except in a self-referential context.

 

[Kegg]

I've never seen Gone With The Wind, what's so racist about it?

We actually had a thread on that subject recently. Here's some articles I dredged up at the time:

http://thegrio.com/2009/12/15/gone-with-the-wind-shouldnt-be-romanticized/
http://sadbetty.wordpress.com/2011/03/12/african-american-reactions-to-david-o-selznick%E2%80%99s-adaptation-of-gone-with-the-wind-in-1939-causes-and-context-part-iii/

And the tl;dr is that Gone With The Wind's account of the antebellum South, the civil war, and the aftermath is strongly built on the Lost Cause neo-Confederate mythology of a noble but hopeless war, and that black characters are reduced to largely docile stereotypes.

Any child old enough to read and understand Huckleberry Finn is old enough to know that certain words ought not to be used except in a self-referential context.

You do not talk to a lot of children (and perhaps worth noting the first objection to Huckleberry Finn on school curricula was by a black parent).

We all probably accept that there are certain books it's not wise to teach in schools for whatever reason, be it their offensiveness (Thomas Dixon's The Clansman is a pointedly racist work on a level that defies all subtelty) or their irrelevance (Varney the Vampire may be important in the context of penny dreadfuls, but it's hardly literature), etc.

And given the alternative is to just not talk Huckleberry Finn (which I'm also fine with, there's a lot of books you could teach kids), I think removing the word is an acceptable compromise.

 

[Sci]

^
While it's been much mocked on the internet, I do think replacing that word with 'slave' is a reasonable compromise. I'm not that comfortable with that word being in books given to children to learn in school.

No, it's really not a reasonable compromise. About the only thing worse than banning a book from publication is altering it.

Twain deliberately uses the n-word, and he has an artistic purpose to it. Those who interpret the novel as anti-racist say he specifically does it to draw attention to the moral inferiority of white supremacists. Particularly if we accept this to be the case, we should not alter his text.

And while I agree that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn shouldn't be taught to younger students, I think that whether or not it's taught in schools should be the teacher's judgment of the academic merit of that novel in the larger context of the cirriculum. The book is just too important to the evolution of American literature to ban it uniformly.

ETA:

Exactly. Song of the South both depicts and romanticizes a system of race relations in which whites are in charge of black folk and blacks faithfully work on white men's farms. It's an idealized version of a white supremacist system in which interracial friendships do not occur on a basis of equality and mutual consent, but on the basis of one race holding power over the other.

The avuncular or grandfatherly role of Uncle Remus to the young white boy certainly isn't based on power or dominance,

Of course it is. The "Uncle Remus" character distinctly and obviously draws upon neo-Confederate iconography of the "kindly old servant" -- the idea of an older slave or servant who is loyal to his white masters and so given the privilege of being called an "aunt" or an "uncle" (but of course not afforded the respect or deference that would be due a real aunt or uncle). "Uncle Ben" and "Aunt Jemima" are other prime examples of this archetype.

Children don't see race as an issue unless the adults around them make it an issue.

Whether or not a child is consciously aware that he is being conditioned to associate African ancestry with servitude and European ancestry with social supremacy has nothing to do with whether or not such messages are being sent.

 

[Kegg]

Children don't see race as an issue unless the adults around them make it an issue.

Whether or not a child is consciously aware that he is being conditioned to associate African ancestry with servitude and European ancestry with social supremacy has nothing to do with whether or not such messages are being sent.

Likewise the use of racist language in a classroom context, making it acceptable material in that context, which is obviously what offended the parents to begin with. Lots of books with issues can be defended on the basis of their value to literature, and while it may be true, there are also other valuable books you could teach children instead so that's not inherently a problem.

And whether or not altering a book is worse than banning it (which given the continued existence of non-altered versions seems an excessive opinion) not teaching Huckleberry Finn in a school is not the same thing as banning the book. Mein Kampf isn't banned just because it's not used in German courses.

 

[Thestral]

I don't see how Huck Finn can be read as anything but anti-racist in the same vein as To Kill a Mockingbird. How many American novels of the 1800s have their protagonist declare "Well then, I'll go to Hell" for their beliefs?

Given that, its unaltered text if used in curricula seems extremely important.