Has Disney pulled all cartoons with racist characters?

[billybluenose]

song of the south

i think the situation with movies like "song of the south" and the like isn't so much whether or not people will be offended as much as whether or not the walt disney company wants to open itself up to the potential (costly) backlash that would happen if it released something offensive. it's makes sense, really. why would disney risk itself when it can release edited films or not release films and avoid the backlash althogether? with an ambulence chaser around every corner, there is much more to losse than there is to gain by releasing this material.

my solution for "the song of the south?" release another movie with the animated characters from the movie. everyone who rides splash mountain wants to see what it is based on, so release a movie (maybe call it "splash mountain") featuring the br'ers and the songs from the ride, and bury the original worldwide.

-billy

 

[Woody13]

Originally posted by Wilt Dasney
What we consider bigoted today was acceptable to much of society half a century ago,...

Sorry, but it wasn't acceptable then, unless you were a bigot! You are clearly using time as an escape (for you) to wash away the sins of the past! In my opinion, that is wrong.

 

[Wilt Dasney]

Originally posted by Woody13
Sorry, but it wasn't acceptable then, unless you were a bigot! You are clearly using time as an escape (for you) to wash away the sins of the past! In my opinion, that is wrong.

I'm not discussing this in terms of right and wrong; I'm looking at it in context to understand why things that would never fly now were allowed in the past. Every generation will be scorned by its descendants for some shortcoming...no society is free from bigotry. It's not an "escape" to understand (not justify, but understand) why different generations were tolerant of different things.

We clearly disagree here, so I'm going to let that be my final word on this. Feel free to follow up as you see fit.

 

[lebernadin]

I think in this instance its best, because imo SOTS is terribly overrated because of the ban. The movie itself is dull. I remember seeing it as a kid, but when i grabbed it offline last year and sat down to watch it, i couldn't get through 20 minutes of it.

I agree with the rest that Disney is such a hypocrit for keeping a film with subtle innuendo out of the hands of a majority of Americans.

 

[mikesenger]

The treasures DVD of Mickey Mouse in black and white has a couple examples of the black characters. They also have the Maltin introduction before each short.

 

[bhg469]

If you want song of the south on dvd go to users.adelphia.net/~uncleremus there is no www on that. I bought one from this guy and was suprised how well it transferred to dvd.

this post was edited because the website was typed incorrectly.

 

[ZHoyt]

I agree that the movie is pretty boring. The animated sequences are great, but the live action is not only blatantly racist, but rather dull. The most impressive part of the film to me was the relatively seemless interaction of animated characters in a live action world, and live action characters in an animated world.

For me, Song of the South is not much worse than anything historical at WDW. For those who haven't seen it, the racism in the film is subtle. What people object to is the portrayal of slavery as an institution. According to SotS, being a slave was great fun, sitting around a campfire and listening to stories. No one is beaten or starved and everyone lives a comfortable country life.

This view of history is identical to that of the the Magic Kingdoms. In Disney history ('Distory'), parts of history that don't fit into Walt's idea of history were simply forgotten. There are three periods at the Magic Kingdom: colonialism, western expansion, and turn of the century. These are obviously displayed in Liberty Square, Frontierland, and Main Street. In these portrayals of history, negative events just don't exist. For example, the genocide of many native americans during western expansion.

A perfect example is the CoP in Tommorowland, where the show skips to the 40's (or is it 50's?) without mentioning the war. Who cares about WWII when there are vacuum cleaners?

The thing is, people know about these lapses. Obviously people know about WWII, but they don't want to think about it, the just want to think about the happy, funny, nostalgic, etc etc parts of history. It's neither inherently good nor bad, it just is. I really don't think PotC would be quite as fun of a ride if it showed women being raped or people being viciously murdered, or even the pirate's gang green. This has been a very sloppy, rambling discussion of this, and if you are interested in the issue, I highly advise finding a copy of Vinyl Leaves by Stephen M. Fjellman, in which Distory is discussed thoroughly (specifically in chapters 3 and 4).

While I can't convey the ideas quite as well as Dr. Fjellman, I can easily make the connection between intentional historical lapses in the theme parks and similar glossing over of history in the films (which Song of the South is one of many that take this view of history)

 

[Piebald]

I have the cartoon of Donald/WW2 on tape. As a kid I never understood the purpose and found it rather weird :dazzle:

 

[Wilt Dasney]

Originally posted by ZHoyt
This has been a very sloppy, rambling discussion of this, and if you are interested in the issue, I highly advise finding a copy of Vinyl Leaves by Stephen M. Fjellman, in which Distory is discussed thoroughly (specifically in chapters 3 and 4).

I second that recommendation. It offers a lot of intriguing (at times "deep") analysis of WDW from someone who is both a scholar and a self-professed WDW lover.

 

[Not For Sale]

Disney made the move Ruby Bridges which dealt with segregation in public schools. It is available to the public. If they have this why don't they have Song of the South?

 

[ZHoyt]

i'm just guessing, but probably because the film you mention doesn't portray segregation as a positive or even neutral event in history. the problem with SotS is because it treats slavery, at best, as a neutral historical 'event'