Originally Posted By irishfan Some new merchandise for Song of the South is now on disneyshopping. Good quality stuff too! <a href="http://disneyshopping.go.com/DSSectionPage.process?Merchant_Id=2&Section_Id=13600" target="_blank">http://disneyshopping.go.com/D SSectionPage.process?Merchant_Id=2&Section_Id=13600</a>
Originally Posted By FiveBearRugs Of course not! Why would you want the movie when you have a perfectly good ride where no one knows the story and plenty of cool merchandise! Song of the South isn't a movie, it's just a marketing phrase!
Originally Posted By Autopia Deb Back in the ancient times when there were LaserDisc players, I was able to rent Song of the South. But it was the Japanese version. I had my choice spoken Japanese or spoken (sung) English with Japanese sub-titles. I know it's pollitically incorrect, but I found the movie to be quite delightful.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad ^^^ You should have kept the disc paid for it and gone about your way. I wonder what it would bring on ebay today.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad You know if Iger could get some interest group to sign on to a re-release...I dunno maybe the NAACP or something, he could probably release the movie without a lot of blow back. But then again, I can't imagine asking permission of such a group for releasing a movie. Still, it SEEMS like a good idea.
Originally Posted By LadyKluck What gets me is there was NO problem with them making a new version of the Brer Rabbit stories with most of the characters (if not all of them) voiced by black actors. I just DO NOT get it.
Originally Posted By LadyKluck Oh, and in response to the merchandise - I'm trying to convince DH that we need a couple of the lanterns - I love them!!!
Originally Posted By basil fan "The Briar Patch welcomes one and all to your favorite memories from "Song of the South" That's the blurb for the lantern. What a joke! Memories are all we'll ever have until they release the thing. And most Disney fans don't even have that. Very, very nice items, though. For Disney Girls Only <a href="http://www.whatsitsgalore.com/disney/girls.html" target="_blank">http://www.whatsitsgalore.com/ disney/girls.html</a>
Originally Posted By Hound >>>Back in the ancient times when there were LaserDisc players, I was able to rent Song of the South.>> I purchased an imported copy of the laser disk (in English) years ago and still have it. I still have a laser disk player to play it on, too.
Originally Posted By GMouse How politically incorrect could it be? I don't know anything about this movie except that I can't easilly get a copy of it. Of course that makes me want to see it even more. Question for anyone that has seen the movie, what specifically is so bad about it?
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Nothing other than some of the characters are stereotyped. I have a problem with the censorship of these things as it does not explain to people what life was like in the 1870's, or what perceptions of the 1870's were like in the 1940's. Now it's difficult for me to say as I am not an african american, but I don't understand why it's such a big deal. It would be like me saying they should censor the Godfather as it is offensive to my Italian American heritage. Ok, I know it is about a family that made choices, while a population of freed slaves and sharecroppers is a different proposition all together. But having seen the film (I own a legit copy sold here in Europe in the 80's), I find Gone with the Wind to be far more derogitory, and that is still heralded as a classic. Even Roots or North and South are possibly more offensive. So GMOUSE, I agree. If someone holds a contrary view to mine and has seen the film, I too would like to be educated.
Originally Posted By Lisann22 Controversy 2000 UK Song of the South video tape.The frame tale does not follow the original framing narrative by Harris. While Disney Studios tried to avoid the more offensive stereotypes of African Americans still common in the 1940s[citation needed], Disney also tried to make sure that nothing in the film would be objected to by the white segregationists then in political control of the Southern United States[citation needed]. This resulted in the subservient relationships of the black children towards white child star Bobby Driscoll, in his Fauntleroy suit, that are particularly stilted and perhaps unintentionally revealing. Few recent critics found the results of this attempted balancing act successful, though it passed without comment in 1946, aside from a mild rebuke from the NAACP. Blacks are shown as subservient to whites, and singing contentedly about 'home'. The framing story has therefore been accused of idealizing the harsh lives of blacks on rural southern plantations in the Jim Crow era[citation needed]. Although the film has been re-released several times (most recently in 1986 in the US), the Disney corporation has avoided making it available on home video tape in the United States or DVD anywhere because the frame story was deemed controversial (i.e. racist) by studio management. Film critic Roger Ebert has supported this position, claiming that most Disney films become a part of the consciousness of American children, who take films more literally than do adults.[11] The film has been released on video in various European and Asian countries. In the U.S., only excerpts from the animated segments have ever appeared in Disney's DVDs and television shows, and the popular log-flume attraction Splash Mountain is based upon the same animated portions. Despite rumors of a forthcoming DVD release, this exchange took place between a shareholder and Disney CEO Robert Iger on Friday, March 10, 2006 at a Disney Shareholder Meeting: "My name is Howard Cromer. I live in Cypress, I'm a Disney shareholder. I'm actually delivering a message from my son, 10. He wants to know in recent years, in the midst of all your re-releases of your videos, why you haven't released Song of the South on your Disney Classics?" [Applause] "And, he wonders why. Frank Wells told me many years ago that it would be coming out. Well obviously Frank Wells isn't around anymore, so we still wonder why. And by the way, Mr. Iger, he thinks it was a very good choice when they made you CEO of Disney." [Applause] Iger: "Thank you very much. You may change your mind when I answer your question, though. Um... we've discussed this a lot. We believe it's actually an opportunity from a financial perspective to put Song of the South out. I screened it fairly recently because I hadn't seen it since I was a child, and I have to tell you after I watched it, even considering the context that it was made, I had some concerns about it because of what it depicted. And thought it's quite possible that people wouldn't consider it in the context that it was made, and there were some... [long pause] depictions that I mentioned earlier in the film that I think would be bothersome to a lot of people. And so, owing to the sensitivity that exists in our culture, balancing it with the desire to, uh, maybe increase our earnings a bit, but never putting that in front of what we thought were our ethics and our integrity, we made the decision not to re-release it. Not a decision that is made forever, I imagine this is gonna continue to come up, but for now we simply don't have plans to bring it back because of the sensitivities that I mentioned. Sorry."[12] Thus, the Disney company will not be releasing the film in the U.S. in the near future. The Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah and Br'er Rabbit tricking Br'er Bear into the trap scenes are found in the 1950 special "One Hour in Wonderland" included on the 2004 two-disc release of Alice in Wonderland. Above is from here... <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_South" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S ong_of_the_South</a> Might want to read this too... <a href="http://www.songofthesouth.net/news/archives/herald052003.html" target="_blank">http://www.songofthesouth.net/ news/archives/herald052003.html</a> This is just info, not my personal opinion.
Originally Posted By pleddy36 I remember when all the controversy over "Song of the South" began. The NAACP had problems with the film, and supposedly that's why Disney originally didn't release it. And if the reason the NAACP was upset is true, they really need to open their eyes. There was a big writ-up in the papers in Houston about this. And the reason given was a scene in the movie where the slaves are viewed in the files, singing. The NAACP said this scene might make people think the slaves were happy doing the work they were doing, because of the singing.
Originally Posted By AladdinAZ Bre Rabbit and Roger Rabbit must have some sort of curse, with Disney refusing to release Song of the South on dvd/video and with Roger's sequels apparently never to be. Poor bunny wabbits! I know, Bugs must be behind it all! He just wants make sure no other rabbits steal his spotlight.
Originally Posted By alexbook I saw it as a kid during one of the re-releases. Not sure exactly the year, might have been late 60's or early 70's, but even as a kid and even 30+ years ago, it struck me as weird and a bit unpleasant. And some of it was just plain confusing, because society had changed that much. If and when it's ever released on home video, they'll need to add a heck of a lot of explanatory material to set the context.
