The Song of the South

(This is on the front cover of the movie)

The Song of the South (1946)

I chose to do my analysis on this particular story because not that many people know about it. They know about the songs and the rides at Disney parks but don’t really know where all of that came from. A couple years ago we came across the copy of the movie at the California State Fair. It was a copy from Europe because it’s a “banned” movie. I was so excited to watch it but worried about the reasons why it was banned. I was worried about what kind of racism I would see. Much to my surprise this movie is not racist, in my opinion, at all. There might be a little bit of racism, but I believe when it comes to movies and books it’s extremely important to be looking at them and watching in the correct context. In this essay I will be discussion my impressions of the movie, and the information and opinions I found in my research.

The first scene of this movie shows a typical white American family of the time. There was the Mom, Dad, son, and their slave in a carriage on their way to their Grandma’s plantation. They called her Aunt Tempy. When talking they did not ignore her and were completely respectful to her. A noticeable thing was the white people were wearing much nicer clothes then their slave. They arrive and the Grandmother greets everyone with a hug except their “Aunt Tempy”. Their Grandmother has many slaves working on her plantation and they have kids. The grandmas tells one of the children of color to take care of Jonny (the son) while he is staying there. They run off playing together. The Father of Jonny leaves him and his wife at the plantation to stay and we don’t know why. Jonny is very upset about this and tries to run away. But Uncle Remus, one of the older slaves who is famous for his wonderful stories, stops him by telling him some of his wonderful stories about Br’er (brother) Rabbit.

None of the movie showed any disrespectful treatment to the slaves at all. I was very surprised because it is not what I was expecting after all of the myths I had heard. The slaves didn’t use proper English when talking and were singing a lot of the time. We have to take into account this is a Disney movie called “Song of the South”. When children watch this film I think they really enjoy seeing the stories of come to life as Uncle Remus tells them. It shows people of color and white people getting along, being respectful to each other, and playing together. I think it actually sends a good message. But while kids are watching this they may get the wrong idea (sugar coating) about slavery and how it was because most children watching this movie don’t know the history and about the time it was taking place and what was happening in history at this time.

This movie takes place right after the Civil War. So, slaves were in fact free at this time. They were free to go if they pleased, but many had been born and raised into slavery. At one in the movie it even showed Uncle Remus leaving because he thought it would be best for Jonny if he left. He also goes against the wishes of Jonny’s mother when she had told him not to see Jonny anymore. Also, the antagonists in this movie are two young neighbors, white boys. (theforbidden-zone.com/scrolls/songofthesouth.shtml) This movie is based on African American folk tales and was made to try to preserve how things were in this time period. This also explains why they are using the old southern dialect. One thing I didn’t like was how vague this movie was. It does not explain the situation with parents or why they are now staying at their Grandma’s plantation. It is mostly just focused on Jonny and Uncle Remus. A problem some people found with the movie is that it may give children the wrong idea about slavery. It may show that the slaves were happy and that it was not a serious issue. This is not the case. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s about knowing the context the movie and the time period it is from. I think Disney should release this movie to America because there are much more offensive movies out there today. They could solve the problem by writing at the beginning of the film talking about the time period so people and children understand. (http://www.songofthesouth.net/movie/overview/defense.html)

I personally loved this movie and truly enjoyed watching it. I think Disney should release to the public because it is a wonderful tale and it is amazing how cartoon and live action film was combined. The stories told by Uncle Remus are clever and have good morals. :)

Sources:

http://theforbidden-zone.com/scrolls/songofthesouth.shtml

http://www.songofthesouth.net/index.php

(This is Uncle Remus with the three main children)

Here is Uncle Remus Telling the Grandma at the end of the story, "Things are lookin' mighty satisfactual."

Here is a Preview of the film :)

I also want to share these facts from a website I used:

Consider some facts about Song of the South (1946):

• Song of the South was one of Disney’s first films to successfully combine live-action and animation.
• Song of the South features the first Oscar-winning performance by a Black man (James Baskett won an honorary Oscar "For his able and heart-warming characterization of Uncle Remus, friend and story teller to the children of the world").
• Song of the South was the first film to feature performances by two Oscar-winning Black Americans, James Baskett and Hattie McDaniel, a feat which would not be repeated until 2001 by Rat Race, which featured Whoopi Goldberg and Cuba Gooding, Jr. (this is progress?).
• Song of the South won two Academy Awards in 1948. In addition to James Baskett winning an honorary Oscar, “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” won for Best Song.
• “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah,” sung by Baskett in the film, is one of the most famous songs in the Disney library.
• Song of the South is one of the first Hollywood films to feature a Black man as a main character and was released uncut in the South. Many Hollywood films at the time, if they featured Black characters at all, would shoot duplicate scenes without Black characters, for release in the South. For example, in Hold Your Man(1933), starring Jean Harlow and Clark Gable, two versions of the wedding scene were shot: one with a Black minister and one with a White minister.

(Source:http://theforbidden-zone.com/scrolls/songofthesouth.shtml)