I found a very interesting piece that summarises contemporary reactions (positive as well as negative) to
Song of the South. I’m pasting a lengthy excerpt, below which a link to the piece itself:
The film was a box-office success, showing a profit of $226,000 during its initial release, according to modern sources. [Modern sources list the production's cost as $2,125,000.] The picture received mixed reviews, however, with some critics applauding the animated sequences and acting while criticizing the live-action story. Bosley Crowther, the influential New York Times critic, commented, "the ratio of 'live' to cartoon action is approximately two to one-and that is approximately the ratio of its mediocrity to charm." The Timereviewer stated, "Artistically, Song of the South could have used a much heavier helping of cartooning. Technically, the blending of two movie mediums is pure Disney wizardry. Ideologically, the picture is certain to land its maker in hot water."
On November 27, 1946, Walter White, the executive secretary of the NAACP, sent telegrams to newspapers describing the NAACP's objections to the film. While expressing approval of the film's technical achievements, White stated that the NAACP "regrets, however, that in an effort neither to offend audiences in the North or South, the production helps to perpetuate a dangerously glorified picture of slavery....[the film] unfortunately gives the impression of an idyllic master-slave relationship which is a distortion of the facts." A December 4, 1946 Variety article about the NAACP's view of current films contained a statement from a Disney spokesperson who "expressed surprise over objections to the film. Picture, he said, did not take place during slavery days but after the Civil War and the most sympathetic character in it is a Negro."
The picture generated much controversy among African-American newspapers, some of which supported it while others did not. The reviewer for The Afro-American declared that he was "thoroughly disgusted" by the film, while the reviewer for Pittsburgh Courier stated that "the truly sympathetic handling of the entire production from a racial standpoint [would] prove of inestimable goodwill in the furthering of interracial relationships." The chief complaints leveled at the film concerned the subservient status, costuming and dialect of the African-American characters. In another New York Times article, Crowther accused Disney of committing "a peculiarly gauche offense in putting out such a story in this troubled day and age." Upon the film's release, groups such as The National Negro Congress, The American Youth for Democracy, The United Negro & Allied Veterans and the American Jewish Council organized racially integrated pickets at theaters in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston, as well as other cities. In New York, Broadway actors such as Kenneth Spencer and Sam Wanamaker joined the picket lines.
A scrapbook for the film held in the Walt Disney Archives contains an original handbill distributed by the National Negro Congress during its picket of the film at a Los Angeles theater. The handbill proclaims that the picture contains "dangerous stereotyping [that] creates an impression of Negroes in the minds of their fellow Americans which make them appear to be second class citizens." According to a December 12, 1946 Variety news item, the NAACP declined to join the National Negro Congress in its picket of a New York City theater "because it feels nothing can be gained by it." The Boston chapter of the NAACP did participate in picketing the film's exhibition there, however, according to a December 24, 1946 Boston Globe article. An January 18, 1947 Chicago Defender news item noted that although the film was being shown at the "white theaters" in Washington, D.C., it would not be exhibited by the "six theaters catering to Negroes."
The picketing sparked even more debate among African-American supporters and detractors of the film. Ebony magazine stated that the picture would "disrupt peaceful race relations and set back Negro progress," while the Pittsburgh Courier reviewer, discussing negative statements made by Ebony, Muse and Bradshaw, found their comments to be "unadulterated hogwash symptomatic of the unfortunate racial neurosis that seems to be gripping so many of our humorless brethren these days." In a February 1947 interview, printed in The Criterion, Hattie McDaniel defended the film by saying, "If I had for one moment considered any part of the picture degrading or harmful to my people I would not have appeared therein." In the same article, Baskett commented, "I believe that certain groups are doing my race more harm in seeking to create dissension than can ever possibly come out of the Song of the South."
Although Baskett was occasionally criticized for accepting such a "demeaning" role, his acting was almost universally praised, and columnist Hedda Hopper was one of the many journalists who declared that he should receive an Academy Award for his work. Baskett was not nominated for Best Actor, but received a special Oscar in 1948, a few months prior to his death. Baskett's Oscar, which honored his "able and heart-warming characterization of Uncle Remus in Song of the South, friend and storyteller to the children of the world," was the first Academy Award received by an African-American actor. [Baskett's Oscar was an honorary one; Sidney Poitier was the first African-American actor to win an Oscar for his performance in the 1963 picture Lilies of the Field (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1961-70; F6.2770). The first African-American actress to win an Oscar was Hattie McDaniel, for her work in Gone With the Wind in 1939 (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1931-40; F3.1674).] Song of the South also received an Academy Award nomination for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture and won an Oscar for the song "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" by Allie Wrubel and Ray Gilbert.
Notes about Song of the South, 1946, directed by Wilfred Jackson, with Ruth Warrick, Bobby Driscoll, James Baskett, available from Turner Classic Movies
www.tcm.com
