Disney releases Song of the South?
controversial movie may get DVD release
Walt Disney's 1946 movie Song of the South may get released onto DVD. The movie was heavily criticized for its portrayal of blacks.
(Source: www.yahoo.com)
Will Disney release Song of the South onto DVD? Disney CEO Robert Iger isn't counting it out.
"The question of Song of the South comes up periodically, in fact it was raised at last year's annual meeting," Iger said at Disney's shareholders' meeting on March 13th. "And since that time, we've decided to take a look at it again because we've had numerous requests about bringing it out. Our concern was that a film that was made so many decades ago being brought out today perhaps could be either misinterpreted or that it would be somewhat challenging in terms of providing the appropriate context."
This was in direct contrast to last year's statement, when Iger categorically stated that Disney would not release the film.
Despite being Disney's first live-action hit (it was actually a hybrid of live-action and animation), Song of the South has never been released on home video. It follows the story of Johnny, a white boy who goes to live on his grandparents' Georgia plantation when his parents split up. There, he meets Uncle Remus, an older worker on the plantation, who tells him black folk tales about Brer Fox, Brer Bear and Brer Rabbit.
A hit when it first came out in 1946 ("Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" won the Oscar for Best Song and actor James Baskett received an honorary award for his portrayal of Uncle Remus), later generations criticized Song of the South's portrayal of African Americans as happy plantation workers, content with their lot in the segregated southern United States.
Despite this, several fan sites exist, the largest being www.songofthesouth.net, run by California IT administrator Christian Willis. As of March 13th, Willis had 114,887 signatures, petitioning that Disney bring the movie onto DVD. Copies of the film regularly sell for $50 to $90, and sometimes more than $100.
Some prominent blacks, like Disney veteran animator Floyd Norman, think the Song of the South controversy is overblown.
In an essay for Jim Hill Media, Norman (who was the only black animator at Disney during the 40's and 50's) said, "many African Americans still love Disney's Song of the South. Although some might call these comical images racially insensitive, I merely see them as funny."
