The same way that Mammy from Gone With The Wind is a stereotype despite being portrayed by a black actress.
Totally different. a) She was a character based on history in the old south. There were Black "Mammy's" in the south.
b) Hattie McDaniel won the Oscar, the first Black to win an Oscar for her role. So she took great pride in that role.
c) A talking fox is a made up character.
d) The tales retold in "Song of the South" were actual Black American Folk Tales.
"
Uncle Remus is the fictional title character and narrator of a collection of Black American folktales compiled and adapted by
Joel Chandler Harris and published in book form in 1881."
"
Uncle Remus is a collection of animal stories, songs, and oral folklore collected from southern black Americans. Many of the stories are
didactic, much like those of
Aesop's Fables and
Jean de La Fontaine's stories. Uncle Remus is a kindly old freedman who serves as a story-telling device, passing on the folktales like the traditional African
griot to children gathered around him.
The stories are written in an
eye dialect devised by Harris to represent a
Deep South Black dialect. Uncle Remus is a compilation of
Br'er Rabbit storytellers whom Harris had encountered during his time at the Turnwold Plantation. Harris said that the use of the Black dialect was an effort to add to the effect of the stories and to allow the stories to retain their authenticity.
[2] The genre of stories is the
trickster tale. At the time of Harris's publication, his work was praised for its ability to capture plantation Black dialect.
[3]
Br'er Rabbit ("Brother Rabbit") is the main character of the stories, a character prone to tricks and troublemaking who is often opposed by
Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear. In one tale, Br'er Fox constructs a doll out of a lump of tar and puts clothing on it. When Br'er Rabbit comes along, he addresses the "
tar baby" amiably but receives no response. Br'er Rabbit becomes offended by what he perceives as the tar baby's lack of manners, punches it and kicks it, and becomes stuck.
[4]"
So I guess those Black Americans on the plantations who made up the stories were creating racial stereotypes too.
Learn history.
