Everything is not satisfactual
I have a vague recollection of watching Disney's "Song of the South" as a child. If I was even five years younger, I don't think I would. Before the company vault closed, possibly forever, on this racially-troubled picture, there were three re-releases in the 1970s and early '80s. We didn't see it in the theater either. I remember watching it on television, and it may have only been musical clips also (probably on the Sunday night Disney hour).The movie is now notorious for the stereotypically-racist depictions of Southern plantation life, and the conventional wisdom is that the scenes are simply out of date since the time of the movie's completion in 1946, but the truth is always more complicated. "Song of the South" was actually vilified by civil rights groups as offensive even upon its original release. The NAACP said that the movie "unfortunately gives the impression of an idyllic master-slave relationship which is a distortion of the facts" and New York City congressman Adam Clayton Powell called it "an insult to American minorities." Slate's John Lingan wrote Friday that it was during the '70s and '80s that the white supremacist film actually had a resurgence because, like many pieces of pop art, the nostalgia movement adopted it.
"But after succeeding generations experienced Song of the South's colorful imagery in their Golden Books and accompanying records, in episodes of the Disneyland television series, and through the omnipresence of "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah," Song of the South became an unlikely hit in three re-releases... 'People who grew up on Disney's Uncle Remus in their homes were more receptive [in 1972] than 1940's audiences had been to a jarringly inappropriate 'Uncle Tom'-ish Southern Melodrama,' (Jason) Sperb writes. And by the 1980's, when it was twice re-released theatrically, viewers brought nostalgia to Song that blinded them to its true offensiveness; in Sperb's telling, the film had become 'so outdated that its offensiveness was hard for some to see.'"
Progress is not a steady march forward, but a dance step forward and backward over time. What is amazing to me is that you can watch this full film, on your computer, at YouTube. Disney is a media company that jealously guards access to its films. It strategically releases classic films from its archive and then pulls them back again from distribution for as long as a generation. The YouTube version, it turns out, is from a UK broadcast so it's allowed to re-posted. We have then, unedited, the entire film.
Take a look at it if you get a chance. It's not appropriate for young children, but film students and cultural critics should be eager to watch any piece of art that's been purposefully guarded from public view for three decades. It's important to remember that racial segregationists were also opposed to the film when it was released so it does have that going for it. The source material is important. The Br'er Rabbit character, in Southern folklore ("Compair Lapin" in Creole Louisiana), originated among the enslaved Africans, and was passed down through an oral tradition. According to his Wikipedia page, Rabbit represented tricksters "who used their wits to overcome adversity and exact revenge on their adversaries." Jamie Foxx appears in movie theaters this weekend portraying a slave that overcomes adversity and exacts revenge on his adversaries in Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained." There's a lot in "Song of the South" to study, if not admire.
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The fiscal cliff never existed. They finally got around to signing their squishy compromise agreement a few days after the New Year's deadline. They simply made the bill retroactive. We got snookered.
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Democrats are fond of telling their liberal supporters and critics that negotiation and compromise are necessities in a democratic government, but this group of politicians isn't even skilled in negotiations.
posted by CM @ 11:43 AM
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