With all that’s going on, I want to quickly talk about media preservation and the outrage over Splash Mountain being re-themed. Some have renewed calls for Disney to not release song of the south. It will be released soon. It will be up public domain in about 30 years. However there is something that needs to be said.
Disney loves to do censorship of their products. Song of the South was movie that was shown multiple times in theaters with the latest release being on 1986 to promote Splash Mountain a work inspired by the story. Disney withdrew the film worldwide in December of 2001. That all being said, I have to agree with how Warner Brothers have released their cartoons from the golden age of Hollywood. In the Looney Toons Golden Collection, Warner Bros presented them as they were made. They did however come with a message.
"The cartoons you are about to see are products of their time. They may depict some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that were commonplace in the U.S society. These depictions were wrong then and they are wrong today. While the following does not represent the Warner Bros. view of today's society, these cartoons are being presented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming that these prejudices never existed."
They also go further than Disney. That being said what do we learn when we hide our films we made in the past because of what the social and political landscape was at the time? Yes these types of depictions were wrong but they were common. In 1927, Warner Brothers released a movie called the Jazz Singer. It was a historically significant movie as it was the first talking picture. However it has Al Jolson performing in black face. Mind you in 1927, black face in performance was common at the time. It’s a film that purely for its technological achievements one that will still be released, given that there is still blackface in the picture. There is also a bonus of the Blu-ray release of the film of Al Jolson in blackface singing ‘Mammy’ on a farm set called
A Plantation Act. (In this 1926 short, Jolson gives a straightforward musical performance of several songs, in blackface amidst a plantation setting. It was the success of this short that persuaded Warner Bros. to proceed with The Jazz Singer.)
But going back to Song of the South, we need to look at another Disney entity in the park that’s also rooted in racism. Tom Sawyer Island. Tom Sawyer island is based off The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, published in 1876 by Mark Twain. It’s sequel,
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which was published in 1884 is a product of its time, such as the basis of Song of the South, the 1881 book that was published as
Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings: The Folk-Lore of the Old Plantation. The book was written by Joel Chandler Harris in post-Reconstruction Atlanta. Uncle Remus is a collection of African-American stories, songs and oral folklore collected by Harris during his time at the Turnwold Plantation. While at Turnwold Plantation, Harris spent hundreds of hours in the slave quarters during time off. He was less self-conscious there and felt his humble background as an illegitimate, son of an Irish immigrant helped foster an intimate connection with the slaves. He absorbed the stories, language, and inflections of people like Uncle George Terrell, Old Harbert, and Aunt Crissy. The tales they shared later became the foundation and inspiration for Harris's book. George Terrell and Old Harbert in particular became models for Uncle Remus, as well as role models for Harris.
These two books are still be adapted to new media. But given that Huck Finn is still being thought in schools as a piece of Americana even though it’s set on the antebellum era. It’s writer, Mark Twain satires everything in the book. Society, morality, racism, politics, honor, status, romanticism, you name it. But does it mean we have to banish Tom Sawyer? Huck is Toms comrade and as I recall The Adventures of Tom Sawyer still has racism in it.
In Disney’s case, Do we need to rewrite the American Adventure because it’s host Benjamin Franklin had 6 slaves from 1735 until 1781 or do we keep him for his November 9th 1789, letter when he wrote against the institution of slavery? In Mark Twain’s case for do we need to have his portrayal removed due to the language of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn or do we keep him for his 1885 letter offered to provide financial assistance to Warner T. McGuinn, one of the first black students at Yale Law School? Are we going to act as these two men whom are Historical figures never existed because the of their actions or writings that are rooted in a different sociopolitical time then ours?
There’s a lot more in that realm we can cancel yet we don’t and truth be told we have a lot that we can cancel. Disney’s 1940 movie Fantasia, majority of the viewers don’t know about the black centaurs due to their depiction during the Pastoral Symphony, they were removed back from the film back in 1969. Original elements can be found with the centaurs. That’s if we would have said the 1915 movie, Birth of a Nation doesn’t exist. As of 2020 the film is public domain and is available in multiple streaming and optical formats and has gotten new scans including a HD transfer back in 2010/2011. Birth of the Nation, originally titled the Clansman. It was based off the 1905 book of the same name. The 1915 movie actually gave way to the return of the Ku Klux Klan. The return of the KKK was a direct result of its glorification of the source book by Thomas Dixon.
That’s going to be the same thing for Song of the South in 30 years time. It will be released albeit with hesitation. No matter how we hide it, it’ll be released some way or another. Disney is even still preserving Song of the South and actually had a new scan done in recent years with the help of the Library of Congress. More so on Song of the South’s case, you can find it online. So it still exists and is out there by archivists and collectors whom know that these materials are worth their historical value over the years.
Speaking as a person, I agree that the films have ethnic and racial prejudices that are wrong then and are wrong today. Speaking as a preservationist, as I do personally hold 35mm film from Major Studios as well has historical texts and works of significance. I have to agree with Warner Bros these are a product of their time, and if we didn’t acknowledge them it “would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.” We need to acknowledge the past because if we don’t learn from the past we are bound to repeat it.
Honestly, I think a lot of these issues is stemming from the fact that Disney won't acknowledge the movie, yet kept the ride. But will Disney gloss over the racial injustices that were commonplace for the time in New Orleans during the 1920s, they did in the movie.
Here's a good read on it from Duke University.
While Princess and the Frog will be a nice change to the park, all this is to myself is a band-aid on a bigger problem and one that Disney refuses to acknowledge.
