Movie Review: Song of the South (1946)
Disclaimer: The blog post you are about to read is a review of a very controversial movie. The opinions stated here are those of the reviewer's, and are not intended to offend or discriminate against anybody. Also, I do not own the film I am about to review. All rights go to their proper owners.
Ohhhhhhhhhh boy... It's hard for me to even type a single word of this review on my keyboard. This is a controversial film, guys. So controversial, in fact, that it has never been released for any home viewing format in the US, where I live. As such, I write this review with caution, because I know a single mis-worded phrase could get me accused of racism or something like that. Let's just get on with it.
Anyway, when I was a kid, I loved the stories of Br'er Rabbit. My parents used to read them to me, and I also read them myself when I was old enough to read. Even today, the stories are very very funny, and I think the reason they still work so well for me today is because of just how funny they are. For those who don't know, the stories are all told with the framing device of a black man named Uncle Remus telling the stories to a little white boy. Each story tells of trickster Br'er (dialect for "brother") Rabbit outwitting his enemies Br'er Fox and Br'er B'ar (bear), always in a humorous way. When I was a kid, in addition to the original stories, I also had some books in my collection that were published by Disney and based on their adaptation of the stories. One of them was this book (yes, this is a photograph of my old beat up copy of the book):
Another was this book, which contained more stories, but had a section in it called "Uncle Remus Stories," which was based on the Song of the South movie (yes, this is also a photograph of the book that I still have):
Considering that Disney has no plans to ever release this film for home viewing, I honestly find it kind of weird that they even released clips of it for home viewing in the 90's.
Having seen all this merchandise for the movie, I always wanted to see these characters come to life onscreen, and hoped to someday find the VHS of the film to watch (yes, this was still back when VHS was a thing). But I could never find it anywhere. Not at any stores, not at any yard sales, not anywhere. And for some reason I never gave a second thought to it. I just figured that I couldn't find it because I couldn't find it, and that eventually I would.
And then, during my late sixth grade year, in the Spring of 2010, slightly less than ten years ago, I looked up the film online and found out why I had never been able to find it; because the film was never released for home viewing in the US. And that news shattered me. The fact that I could never buy a copy of this film and watch it. Of course I could stream it on one of those sites we all know about, but I didn't feel like doing something that was in such a grey area legally.
So for ten years I still was unable to see the film, and I waited patiently, hoping that one day Disney would finally release the film. And I waited... And waited... and waited... But the film still remained unreleased.
Then, a few weeks ago, I heard about an HD restoration that a fan of the film was working on using a scan of a 35mm print that somebody on a message board had obtained. And when I heard about this new restoration, I finally broke and decided that enough was enough. It became clear that Disney was never going to release this film, and I might as well stop lying to myself about it. I downloaded the fan's HD restoration and finally watched the film for the very first time.
And what did I think of it? Did I enjoy it? Is it one of Disney's best? How racist is it? You may be asking those questions right now. Well, let me answer them one by one.
Did I enjoy the film?
YES!!!!! It is a wonderful film, and it is a shame that it is not officially available for home viewing, limiting its viewing to film buffs desperate enough to resort to "pirating" it. It's a cute movie, and I think many families and kids would enjoy the film. I loved the characters, subplots, and all sorts of things in the film. It's also, I believe, the first Disney movie to combine live action and animation, and it is done very impressively.
Is it one of Disney's best?
No. No it's not. While I loved the film, and think it deserves to be a classic, it is far from being in my top ten Disney films. It's a slower paced movie, and not much action happens in the story outside of the animated sequences. The movie doesn't have much of an overarching message aside from the power of friendship, which has been shown in multiple better films before and after this one. That's not to say the film is bad. Personally, I wouldn't really rank The Lion King or The Little Mermaid as some of Disney's best films either, but I think those films are really good as well. Song of the South is a really good movie that I would recommend for nearly any family, but it is certainly not one Disney's best.
How racist is it?
Oh boy, here comes the part of the review that's probably going to get me a lot of hate from some future readers of this blog. Personally, I didn't think the film was racist at all. I went into it expecting some plot revolving around racism and there being some message that was very obviously anti-racist but not done well enough for people to think the film wasn't racist. But the film doesn't really delve into anything like that.
Contrary to popular belief, neither the film nor the books it's based based on take place during the days of slavery, but rather take place ten years after the abolition of slavery. All of the black characters in the film are free men who are working on a plantation owned by a kind wealthy lady who is grandmother to the little boy that Uncle Remus tells his stories to (who is named Johnny in the movie). The story is shown mainly from Johnny's point of view, and he is a little kid who doesn't understand everything about the world yet, so it makes sense that we wouldn't shown much beyond what he sees.
Some have criticized the film because it doesn't show enough. It doesn't show that many black people were mistreated during this time, and in fact shows most of the black people in this film enjoying their lives on the plantation. But I don't really see how this makes the film "racist." As I stated above, the film is shown from the point of view of a little kid, and little kids do not understand all of these things, hence why we don't see beyond what he sees. In addition, this is the only plantation we are shown in the film which happens to be owned by a kind woman, and just because we are shown this one plantation doesn't mean that this is the only plantation that exists in-universe. I'm sure that off-screen there are lots of other plantations owned by not-so-nice people who do mistreat the black people. We don't need to be shown all of this in the film because it is not important to the story being told. This is a simple story about a boy who makes friends with some lower class people (Uncle Remus, a black boy named Toby, and a poor white girl named Ginny). That in itself is notable because it portrays an upper class little kid as being very good friends with people who are very different from him, and him not even caring (and likely not even noticing) how different they are. What he does notice is the common interests that they have as friends, and enjoying hanging out with them and playing and telling stories and all sorts of stuff. I don't see why the film should have to delve into more than that. Not every historical film about black people has to have a big "in-your-face" message about anti-racism (in fact I've seen a few anti-racist films where the message is too heavy handed and distracts from those films), and with the target audience being families and kids I don't think the film needs a giant message thrown in their faces like that. Save that stuff for when kids are a little bit older and able to understand this stuff better (much like Johnny hasn't reached the age where he understands those things in the movie).
The film is a simplistic story, so I will not be delving into a big long plot summary like I did in my review of Carrie awhile back. Instead, I will briefly summarize the movie and characters and what stood out to me.
The most notable thing about this film is James Baskett as Uncle Remus. He is wonderful, and I think most of the people who see this film will agree that he is one cool guy. I didn't find him a stereotype of black people. In fact, he came across more as a stereotype of a kind old man. And that's pretty much what he is. A kind old man. He tells stories to Johnny, Ginny, and Toby, about Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, and Br'er B'ar, and his friendship with these kids appears to be one of his ways of being happy during the times, to the point where he sadly considers leaving after Johnny's mother tells him not to go around Johnny anymore (believing that his stories are leading Johnny into trouble, when in reality they are teaching him life lessons, such as not to run away from home, how outsmart the bullies, and how to find his "laughing place."). I enjoyed seeing the portrayal of Uncle Remus in this film, and I found it pretty spot-on with the way the character was in the original books that I enjoyed as a kid.
Another very notable element of this film are the animated segments. There are five of them in the film, four of them being adaptations of Uncle Remus' stories from the books. The first is a new story about Br'er Rabbit running away from home and nearly being caught by Br'er Fox. This story is told to Johnny as a subtle way of teaching not to run away from home.
The second is "The Wonderful Tar Baby Story," where Br'er Fox and Br'er B'ar make a Tar Baby decoy to trap Br'er Rabbit. This is another controversial part of the film because "Tar Baby" has since morphed into a racist term (though I personally have never heard it used that way), which leads to this particular part of the movie being one of the alleged "racist parts." But I call that an anachronism. The term originated from this story and merely refers to the doll made to trap Br'er Rabbit. It is not intended to be racist.
The third is "How Mr. Rabbit was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox," the direct sequel to the Tar Baby story, where Br'er Rabbit tricks Br'er Fox into setting him free. This story is told to Johnny as a way of showing him how to outsmart the Faber brothers, and it actually works briefly when he uses a similar trick on them as Br'er Rabbit used in the story.
The fourth is "Brother Rabbit's Laughing Place," where Br'er Rabbit tricks Br'er Fox and Br'er B'ar into going to his "laughing place," where they are attacked by a swarm of bees.
The fifth and final animated segment is at the end of the film where the three kids and Uncle Remus encounter Br'er Rabbit and his friends "for real" and march of into the sunset with them. It's not clear whether Uncle Remus's stories were actually true or if the kids imagined the characters into existence, but it's all cute.
An interesting piece of information is that the books I have that were published by Disney contain adaptations of two Uncle Remus stories that did not make it into the film. "Old Mr. Rabbit, He's a Good Fisherman" (where Br'er Rabbit gets trapped in a well and tricks Br'er Fox into helping him out and getting trapped in the well himself), and "Br'er Rabbit's Astonishing Prank" (where Br'er Rabbit disguises himself as "Wuller de Wust" and scares Br'er Fox). I wonder if Disney intended at one point to adapt these stories into the film but ended up cutting them out to keep the movie better paced. I guess we'll never know.
I loved this film. I don't know why the Disney company thinks it's "too racist" to release for home viewing. If there is something racist in this film then it's very subtle and certainly not anything nearly as bad as the "What Makes the Red Man Red" song from Peter Pan which Disney has no problem with releasing for home viewing, and certainly not anything I would have noticed if I had watched this as a kid (since I don't even notice whatever is supposedly racist about this film now). There's no portrayal of racism in the film, there are no racial slurs or anything. Is it racist? No. Is it anti-racist? No. It's just a film about friendship. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so.
Personally, I think Disney would be fine if they released this film with a disclaimer mentioning it's controversial history of not being released for home viewing for so long, as well as a clarification that this takes place ten years after the abolition of slavery (since many viewers might not deduce that from any details in the film itself). I didn't really find anything offensive in this film and to be honest I think 99% of the people talking crap about this film haven't actually seen it in it's entirety (I say 99% because I know that there are indeed a few people who have seen it), because a lot of them mention stuff that doesn't happen in the film at all, pull stuff out of context of the film, and other absurd things. Show this film to a kid and ask them what impression they got from it, I doubt they'll even take much notice that certain characters were "different colors" because it wasn't important to the film. It's definitely not something that crossed my mind when I read these stories as a kid (I just saw Uncle Remus as a cool storyteller guy), and once again it's much like the character of Johnny in the film who doesn't seem to take notice either.
Maybe that's the coolest thing about the film, that the protagonist very much mirrors the younger members of the audience who also don't take notice of such things. Simple sweet cute film, not racist at all. I highly recommend it for those who just like to sit down and watch a good movie.
Ohhhhhhhhhh boy... It's hard for me to even type a single word of this review on my keyboard. This is a controversial film, guys. So controversial, in fact, that it has never been released for any home viewing format in the US, where I live. As such, I write this review with caution, because I know a single mis-worded phrase could get me accused of racism or something like that. Let's just get on with it.
Anyway, when I was a kid, I loved the stories of Br'er Rabbit. My parents used to read them to me, and I also read them myself when I was old enough to read. Even today, the stories are very very funny, and I think the reason they still work so well for me today is because of just how funny they are. For those who don't know, the stories are all told with the framing device of a black man named Uncle Remus telling the stories to a little white boy. Each story tells of trickster Br'er (dialect for "brother") Rabbit outwitting his enemies Br'er Fox and Br'er B'ar (bear), always in a humorous way. When I was a kid, in addition to the original stories, I also had some books in my collection that were published by Disney and based on their adaptation of the stories. One of them was this book (yes, this is a photograph of my old beat up copy of the book):
Disney also put out some sing-along video tapes that had clips from their movies with the words at the bottom of the screen, and included clips from Song of the South in some of them. Heck, one of them actually had Zippity Doo Dah (the most famous song from the movie) be the featured song of one of their tapes:
Having seen all this merchandise for the movie, I always wanted to see these characters come to life onscreen, and hoped to someday find the VHS of the film to watch (yes, this was still back when VHS was a thing). But I could never find it anywhere. Not at any stores, not at any yard sales, not anywhere. And for some reason I never gave a second thought to it. I just figured that I couldn't find it because I couldn't find it, and that eventually I would.
And then, during my late sixth grade year, in the Spring of 2010, slightly less than ten years ago, I looked up the film online and found out why I had never been able to find it; because the film was never released for home viewing in the US. And that news shattered me. The fact that I could never buy a copy of this film and watch it. Of course I could stream it on one of those sites we all know about, but I didn't feel like doing something that was in such a grey area legally.
So for ten years I still was unable to see the film, and I waited patiently, hoping that one day Disney would finally release the film. And I waited... And waited... and waited... But the film still remained unreleased.
Then, a few weeks ago, I heard about an HD restoration that a fan of the film was working on using a scan of a 35mm print that somebody on a message board had obtained. And when I heard about this new restoration, I finally broke and decided that enough was enough. It became clear that Disney was never going to release this film, and I might as well stop lying to myself about it. I downloaded the fan's HD restoration and finally watched the film for the very first time.
And what did I think of it? Did I enjoy it? Is it one of Disney's best? How racist is it? You may be asking those questions right now. Well, let me answer them one by one.
Did I enjoy the film?
YES!!!!! It is a wonderful film, and it is a shame that it is not officially available for home viewing, limiting its viewing to film buffs desperate enough to resort to "pirating" it. It's a cute movie, and I think many families and kids would enjoy the film. I loved the characters, subplots, and all sorts of things in the film. It's also, I believe, the first Disney movie to combine live action and animation, and it is done very impressively.
Is it one of Disney's best?
No. No it's not. While I loved the film, and think it deserves to be a classic, it is far from being in my top ten Disney films. It's a slower paced movie, and not much action happens in the story outside of the animated sequences. The movie doesn't have much of an overarching message aside from the power of friendship, which has been shown in multiple better films before and after this one. That's not to say the film is bad. Personally, I wouldn't really rank The Lion King or The Little Mermaid as some of Disney's best films either, but I think those films are really good as well. Song of the South is a really good movie that I would recommend for nearly any family, but it is certainly not one Disney's best.
How racist is it?
Oh boy, here comes the part of the review that's probably going to get me a lot of hate from some future readers of this blog. Personally, I didn't think the film was racist at all. I went into it expecting some plot revolving around racism and there being some message that was very obviously anti-racist but not done well enough for people to think the film wasn't racist. But the film doesn't really delve into anything like that.
Contrary to popular belief, neither the film nor the books it's based based on take place during the days of slavery, but rather take place ten years after the abolition of slavery. All of the black characters in the film are free men who are working on a plantation owned by a kind wealthy lady who is grandmother to the little boy that Uncle Remus tells his stories to (who is named Johnny in the movie). The story is shown mainly from Johnny's point of view, and he is a little kid who doesn't understand everything about the world yet, so it makes sense that we wouldn't shown much beyond what he sees.
Some have criticized the film because it doesn't show enough. It doesn't show that many black people were mistreated during this time, and in fact shows most of the black people in this film enjoying their lives on the plantation. But I don't really see how this makes the film "racist." As I stated above, the film is shown from the point of view of a little kid, and little kids do not understand all of these things, hence why we don't see beyond what he sees. In addition, this is the only plantation we are shown in the film which happens to be owned by a kind woman, and just because we are shown this one plantation doesn't mean that this is the only plantation that exists in-universe. I'm sure that off-screen there are lots of other plantations owned by not-so-nice people who do mistreat the black people. We don't need to be shown all of this in the film because it is not important to the story being told. This is a simple story about a boy who makes friends with some lower class people (Uncle Remus, a black boy named Toby, and a poor white girl named Ginny). That in itself is notable because it portrays an upper class little kid as being very good friends with people who are very different from him, and him not even caring (and likely not even noticing) how different they are. What he does notice is the common interests that they have as friends, and enjoying hanging out with them and playing and telling stories and all sorts of stuff. I don't see why the film should have to delve into more than that. Not every historical film about black people has to have a big "in-your-face" message about anti-racism (in fact I've seen a few anti-racist films where the message is too heavy handed and distracts from those films), and with the target audience being families and kids I don't think the film needs a giant message thrown in their faces like that. Save that stuff for when kids are a little bit older and able to understand this stuff better (much like Johnny hasn't reached the age where he understands those things in the movie).
The film is a simplistic story, so I will not be delving into a big long plot summary like I did in my review of Carrie awhile back. Instead, I will briefly summarize the movie and characters and what stood out to me.
I also found the portrayal of the three kid protagonists to be very good. Bobby Driscoll, Glenn Leedy, and Luana Patton are very cute as Johnny, Toby, and Ginny, and I thought they played the parts really well also. There's not as much to say about them as there is about Uncle Remus, but I just wanted to mention them because I enjoyed their performance.
Next we have the villains of the film, Ginny's brothers Jake and Joe Faber. They are bullies who pick on the kids in the film and threaten to drown Ginny's puppy. Most of the trouble in the film comes these characters, and they are actually what lead Johnny into so much trouble rather than Uncle Remus' stories as Johnny's mom believes. While not anywhere near as notable as many other movie villains, I think this works for this story, because, once again, the protagonist is a little kid, and bullies are a huge problem for many little kids, so I think they can relate to the protagonist of this film when he has to face enemies similar to those in many little kids' lives.
Another very notable element of this film are the animated segments. There are five of them in the film, four of them being adaptations of Uncle Remus' stories from the books. The first is a new story about Br'er Rabbit running away from home and nearly being caught by Br'er Fox. This story is told to Johnny as a subtle way of teaching not to run away from home.
The second is "The Wonderful Tar Baby Story," where Br'er Fox and Br'er B'ar make a Tar Baby decoy to trap Br'er Rabbit. This is another controversial part of the film because "Tar Baby" has since morphed into a racist term (though I personally have never heard it used that way), which leads to this particular part of the movie being one of the alleged "racist parts." But I call that an anachronism. The term originated from this story and merely refers to the doll made to trap Br'er Rabbit. It is not intended to be racist.
The third is "How Mr. Rabbit was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox," the direct sequel to the Tar Baby story, where Br'er Rabbit tricks Br'er Fox into setting him free. This story is told to Johnny as a way of showing him how to outsmart the Faber brothers, and it actually works briefly when he uses a similar trick on them as Br'er Rabbit used in the story.
The fourth is "Brother Rabbit's Laughing Place," where Br'er Rabbit tricks Br'er Fox and Br'er B'ar into going to his "laughing place," where they are attacked by a swarm of bees.
The fifth and final animated segment is at the end of the film where the three kids and Uncle Remus encounter Br'er Rabbit and his friends "for real" and march of into the sunset with them. It's not clear whether Uncle Remus's stories were actually true or if the kids imagined the characters into existence, but it's all cute.
An interesting piece of information is that the books I have that were published by Disney contain adaptations of two Uncle Remus stories that did not make it into the film. "Old Mr. Rabbit, He's a Good Fisherman" (where Br'er Rabbit gets trapped in a well and tricks Br'er Fox into helping him out and getting trapped in the well himself), and "Br'er Rabbit's Astonishing Prank" (where Br'er Rabbit disguises himself as "Wuller de Wust" and scares Br'er Fox). I wonder if Disney intended at one point to adapt these stories into the film but ended up cutting them out to keep the movie better paced. I guess we'll never know.
I loved this film. I don't know why the Disney company thinks it's "too racist" to release for home viewing. If there is something racist in this film then it's very subtle and certainly not anything nearly as bad as the "What Makes the Red Man Red" song from Peter Pan which Disney has no problem with releasing for home viewing, and certainly not anything I would have noticed if I had watched this as a kid (since I don't even notice whatever is supposedly racist about this film now). There's no portrayal of racism in the film, there are no racial slurs or anything. Is it racist? No. Is it anti-racist? No. It's just a film about friendship. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so.
Personally, I think Disney would be fine if they released this film with a disclaimer mentioning it's controversial history of not being released for home viewing for so long, as well as a clarification that this takes place ten years after the abolition of slavery (since many viewers might not deduce that from any details in the film itself). I didn't really find anything offensive in this film and to be honest I think 99% of the people talking crap about this film haven't actually seen it in it's entirety (I say 99% because I know that there are indeed a few people who have seen it), because a lot of them mention stuff that doesn't happen in the film at all, pull stuff out of context of the film, and other absurd things. Show this film to a kid and ask them what impression they got from it, I doubt they'll even take much notice that certain characters were "different colors" because it wasn't important to the film. It's definitely not something that crossed my mind when I read these stories as a kid (I just saw Uncle Remus as a cool storyteller guy), and once again it's much like the character of Johnny in the film who doesn't seem to take notice either.
Maybe that's the coolest thing about the film, that the protagonist very much mirrors the younger members of the audience who also don't take notice of such things. Simple sweet cute film, not racist at all. I highly recommend it for those who just like to sit down and watch a good movie.
Comments
Post a Comment