This is what the University of Florida did when I attended back in the 90s. Most of the general propaganda films and/or films with limited copies (like Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising) would be available for on-premise viewing for students or approved visitors, and films with graphic content like Pasolini’s Salo would be available for checkout to students or approved visitors to take home.
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This is how the film was initially received.
New York Times/ December 14 1946.
'SONG OF SOUTH’ PICKETED
Line at the Palace Protests Disney Portrayal of Negro
The Theatre Chapter of the National Negro Congress demonstrated against the Walt Disney film, “Song of the South,’’ by picketing the Palace Theatre, Broadway and Forty-seventh Street, late yesterday afternoon. Nineteen pickets marched in a circle under the marquee of the house, carrying placards stating: "We fought for Uncle Sam, not Uncle Tom” and “The ‘Song of the South’ is slightly off-key because Disney says its wrong to be free.”.
An effigy of “Jim Crow” in a wooden coffin was removed immediately when Capt. William Dor-gan of the Eighteenth Precinct told Kenneth Spencer, chairman of the Theatre Chapter, that it was a danger to pedestrians.
The picket line was made up of seven Negroes and twelve white persons, who chanted to the tune of “Jingle Bells” this parody: “Disney tells, Disney tells lies about the South. We’ve heard those lies before, right out of Bilbo’s mouth.”
Handbills were distributed labeling the film “an insult to the Negro people because it uses offensive dialect: it portrays the Negro as a low, inferior servant; it glorifies slavery and it damages the fight for equal representation.
Ten patrolmen had no difficulty preventing crowds from gathering.
I haven’t actually seen it. If it was racist in 1946, it’s racist now.
What’s the Bilbo reference?
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You know, fair enough. if people are offended, its offensive. if people are hurt, its hurtful. I really didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
When I first saw it, it was broadcast on telly, would have been the early ‘80s. According to Wikipedia, it’s never had a US home video release of any kind, even on VHS. But, it aired on the Disney Channel potentially as late as 2001! (I’ve got my doubts about that one personally.)
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It’s entirely possible were confused on seeing it on tape, then… Although it being broadcast means that it could have been recorded and shared, which I’m sure lots of folks did.
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I was too young for the 72 release but have a memory of seeing it in a theater sometime in the 70s. The one single contribution it made to my life was Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah which I still sing/whistle to myself while walking.
I’m old enough to have seen it in the theater (in its re-release!) and have seen it since on a bootleg DVD. There’s some fantastic golden-age animation but my memory is that the bulk of the movie are fairly dull live action segments.
It’s absolutely a product of its time, when white people thought that things like stereotypes, blackface, dialect, etc were ‘culturally sensitive’. The difficulty is that the more they refuse to release it, the worse its reputation gets. And if they do release it, it’ll look like they’re condoning it. They finally got around to releasing their incredibly-racist WW2 propaganda shorts a few years back, with intros that establish the context of why they were so racist, but Song of the South isn’t as simple as that.
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They don’t need to push it as a formal commercial product. It is available.
So how does it represent a “difficulty” that not releasing it as one might give it a potentially worse “reputation”? I don’t see where that’s a horrible downside.
A risk that people might think a racist stereotype film was “worse” than it was? Who’s harmed by that?
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Yet, it did cause a serious backlash (from both civil rights groups and even white supporters) at the time, which is mentioned above.
My argument against releasing it, is that it adds no value to have a new release, even with contextual material with it. It’s available for study and for the curious, too.
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Well, that’s what makes Song of the South an especially awkward situation; it’s not just a movie they can push aside and say “look, it was racist, it’s still racist, let’s move on”. Its characters are still popular, its songs are well known, and the Song of the South ride is one of the most popular attractions at Disney World… so of course visitors to their theme parks will be constantly wondering and asking about why they can’t see the movie these things come from. It may be that, as you and Mindysan say, that the current situation of letting people get ahold of it (from Canada, YouTube, whatever) if they’re truly curious is the best way to handle it going forward.
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My feelings about releasing this movie are mostly on par with my feelings about Mein Kampf, which was withheld from publication by the copyright holder (the Bavarian state government). But that copyright was due to expire, so they did finally release a copy with copious annotations and so on.
Because even Disney cannot stop this from entering public domain, they need to figure out how to make sure it has context. I don’t think it should be released without this context, to be honest, but I don’t think simply trying to bury it will work. Eventually, it will get out and eventually copyright will expire, so it’s best not to leave it to the racists.
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On some level, Disney’s decision is a nearly purely economic one (although it’s hard to untangle politics and economics), because there will be another backlash to it, and an economic boycott. In the sense that they recognize that some portion of their audience would look on this unfavorable is positive. It shows that they are at least trying to be sensitive and to promote better representation of all communities that regularly consume their products. They can’t change bad decisions made in the past, but they can learn from them moving forward (which they have not always done).
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We’ll see about that…Shaping US copyright law is Disney’s specialty—even more so than animation.
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Which both can be true, let’s remember. It’s the sort of thing any of us can do: act out a stereotype, thinking it’s being culturally sensitive, but in reality being insulting.
Both of you make salient points, I just want to be sure you both know I see you as supporting each other’s arguments and expanding them, not as arguing.
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In my personal experience, I have not seen evidence that the characters are popular, and I think the only well known song is “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”—which I had no idea was from a Disney movie for most of my childhood (having grown up after Disney began treating the film as a liability).
When my ten year-old self went on Splash Mountain at DisneyWorld, I did notice that there were some characters I didn’t know*, but I was not moved to seek out the film from which they came. I was attracted to that ride** because it involved moving fast and getting soaked, not because of Song of the South. In fact, the Song of the South elements quickly faded from my memory of Splash Mountain.
I can only speak from my personal experience, but I have a suspicion that most people my age and younger are only vaguely aware of Song of the South, if not completely ignorant of it, and have absolutely no affection for it.
* Actually, I was aware of Br’er Rabbit and the others, but not the Disney versions.
** Which I still contend should become Touchstone Pictures presents Ron Howard’s Splash Mountain
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It’s not awkward at all though. There’s plenty of racist bs-flavored cultural products that we don’t re-release as commercial products. Our cultural world is not irredeemably lessened by not having a ten-part DVD series of minstrel shows on the shelf.
Think of all the confused amusement park goers? The idea of them “constantly wondering and asking” is pretty ludicrous. I don’t think “branding history” is an argument to release the movie as a commercial product.
It may be that, as you and Mindysan say, that the current situation of letting people get ahold of it (from Canada, YouTube, whatever) if they’re truly curious is the best way to handle it going forward.
I didn’t say it’s the best situation, I just said it was available, and people are only complaining it’s not more commercially promoted. I don’t care if it’s not available to anyone who wants to get entertainment value out of it anymore, the same way that I’d not care if someone was unable to find minstrel shows if they were searching for entertainment.
“Something being popular once” is a good reason to let historians have access to it; it’s not a moral license that it should be promoted in perpetuity, over other cultural products that are better.
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If someone then, after being challenged, forcefully insists on re-acting out a stereotype a second time, because of “not wanting to let the tradition die”, then I think that becomes not the sort of thing “any of us can do.”
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I’m not arguing, at all, to release it as a commercial product. I’m saying that I imagine that quite a few people who ride one of the most popular rides at the world’s most popular theme park may wonder, and ask, what movie these characters are from (which they also sell toys of, have costumed characters of, etc). They actually used to show the animated segments on the Disney Channel back the 80s, but even those are consigned to history. If the legacy of Song of the South is just a fun flume ride at a theme park and a jaunty song, that’s likely for the best. (note: I am agreeing with you, in case it’s not clear. Sorry for any confusion there).
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Most of those people have only the haziest of ideas that Disney is the name of an actual person who lived.
You don’t have to feel that concerned for their debilitating confusion over the origin story of Splash Mountain.
People are usually pretty fine, not getting every cultural reference as they get water up their nose.
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