What caused them to do a ride (Splash Mountain) based on a movie they weren't releasing?

[Yert3]

Disney seriously needs to take lessons from Warner Brothers.

Disney has actually done this before with Leonard Maltin on the "Mickey Mouse: in living color volume 2" DVD. I don't know why they can't just put a disclaimer before SotS. I can't find a clip of the disclaimer, but found the short Disney made him apologize for.

 

[Yert3]

Where have you been? The Walt Disney Treasures collections have Leonard Maltin explain about each short and it's situations that reflected the time as a fair warning....

Yes but, this animated short was...Annnd...You'll see why it was Controversial...

It's moments like this I should probably read the whole thread before replying.

 

[Yert3]

I saw 'Song Of The South' in it's entirety a couple of years ago.
The animated segments I had seen previously, but up until two years ago I had never seen the entire animated film.

I enjoyed it.
I didn't find anything overly 'racist' about it at all.
Uncle Remus was lovable and appealing.
The animated segments were gorgeously animated and brilliantly staged.
The music was terrific, too.

I can however understand how other folks may view it with a different perspective.
There were a few things that made me raise an eyebrow slightly and realize why it is likely being held back from a official home video release.
It is a film, and a art form, and as such I feel that it should be made availible for those who wish to see it as intended and own it for home viewing.

Thank the Tiki Gods for YouTube.....one can watch the entire film there right now ( but in horrendously poor quality ).

-

Exactly. It's not like if they released the movie they're forcing everyone who is offended by it to purchase it. And the people who do want it have a legal and easy way to own it that's not VHS quality and doesn't have that pesky PAL 4% speed up (shudders).

 

[Otterhead]

The problem isn’t necessarily what Song of the South depicts, but what it chooses not to depict. Although Harris’ Uncle Remus stories were set in Georgia after the Civil War, the film adaptation never makes it clear when the story is taking place.

I find it hard to accept the idea that Song of the South is badly racist simply because it's a bit vague.

 

[Goofyernmost]

I recently just saw the whole thing and while I see where people are concerned, there were some things that had to be explained to me as to why it was racist. For instance I did not know that Brer was meant to be brother and was used mostly by slaves. I did not connect that Brer Bear and Brer Fox were meant to represent slaves being slow and dumb or shifty. I thought these were just characters that had these personality traits as a foil to Brer Rabbit. I also did not immediately get why the tar baby was offensive. To me it was like a scarecrow (just made out of tar), an obviously fake person that fooled Brer Rabbit. I had to go online to read about these things. If someone had not told me that these things were offensive I would not have known.

I don't have the actual meanings for that, but, sounds like something that is made up. Brer indeed means brother and since the slaves probably used that long before they became slaves it doesn't mean anything. It also has French connections. The Bear and the Fox represent the enemies of the "slaves", those that wanted to do them harm.. that would be white folks who also may have been referred to as "brothers". The stories may have been racist, but, only in the general idea that there where people out there that can and will do them harm and warning them to be cautious. If they were representing slaves that were slow, dumb and shifty why would they be trying to do harm to Brer Rabbit. No it represented the enemies of Brer Rabbit or people in general. Tar baby wasn't a scarecrow and that was stereotypical representation of how a group of people could, at the time, carry comedy a bit to far. It was not, at the time, intended to be offensive, but, with time and changing attitudes it did, with justification, become just that. The interpretation that you received was a very white one. That is how they saw it in their minds.

 

[Seabasealpha1]

Disney seriously needs to take lessons from Warner Brothers.

THIS.

As a fan of Disney, (and especially when I was a media student in college) I've often been through the muddy patches with other people who like to point out all the "evils" Walt and Co. put out. And it's been rough on occasion. People go so far now a days into wanting to be on either the "politically correct" or the "quit being so offended" camps that they overlook the facts...and they almost get so righteous that they forget why they're adamantly one way or the other about it. The film is very much a product of it's time. Walt didn't make the film intending any sort of malice or offense. He made the film out of an interest in the stories and how he could present them all together in a film. And as a man of the time who was born in 1901, who was from the Midwest, he may not have fully understood all of the nuances of the subject matter. Or he may not have fully grasped (or considered) the ways in which society would change and how the film would be perceived by people.

For a personal example of this, my wife is biracial. I live in a state in the Midwest, even my own family, immediate family, has stuck many a foot squarely in their mouths or have made really stupid commentary or assumptions based on what they think they know and based upon the times in which they have lived. It's 2017, and trust me, there are people who are still either ignorant, or outright hateful. Want to know why they made a ride but won't release the fim? Look at this discussion...look at all the friction and stuff that comes out of the wood work...yeah, they're not gonna release it. It's (unfortunately) a skeleton that's kept in the closet fer sure.

Personally, I love the film, and I appreciate it for what it is. I understand why there are issues with the film, I do NOT support ANY of the generalizations or stereotypes that the film builds on. However, I get my best Disney kicks when I learn about the history behind the films and theme parks. I don't feel the need to pick it apart and criticize. Enough of that goes on without me. That goes for anything the company has put out over the years...like anything else in this world, whether it be a loaf of bread, or an automobile, or an old episode of "Mr. Rogers Neighborhood" , it's of the time in which it's made and there are parts of each thing that make it so. Right, or wrong. It's the nature of human creations. So, take the film for what it is. A piece of history. Give James Baskett his due, he was phenomenal! The animation is beautiful... there are plenty of reasons to appreciate the film as much as there are reasons to have disdain for it.

As for the ride. Really, it's about all there is keeping the film's memory alive...maybe there was some of that in the planning of it too...

 

[Incomudro]

I know when it took place. My point still stands though. Even after slavery ended, it's not like things got peachy keen for Black Americans. Blacks were still servants. Song of the South's interpretation is still wrong, painfully wrong.

So, every black person was miserable all the time?
Does everything have to be a documentary and focus on the negatives?

 

[Incomudro]

Really? Some of the most bigoted people I have ever met were born and raised in the Northeast. And slavery was definitely glossed over in my (Northeastern) history classes. I spent half of my life in the Northeast, and the other half (so far) in the South. Plenty of misconceptions by both groups about the other.

We learned a lot about slavery in Catholic Grammar School on Staten Island in the mid 1970's.

 

[The Mom]

We learned a lot about slavery in Catholic Grammar School on Staten Island in the mid 1970's.

Of course it varied from school district to school district - even teacher to teacher. But my point was rewriting history and bigotry weren't limited to the South - other areas were just as bad.

 

[brb1006]

Where have you been? The Walt Disney Treasures collections have Leonard Maltin explain about each short and it's situations that reflected the time as a fair warning....

Disney has actually done this before with Leonard Maltin on the "Mickey Mouse: in living color volume 2" DVD. I don't know why they can't just put a disclaimer before SotS. I can't find a clip of the disclaimer, but found the short Disney made him apologize for.

I wish if Disney ever planned on releasing Song Of The South on DVD in the future they should at least bring back Leonard Maltin to a disclaimer about this film before the movie begins.

 

[Goofyernmost]

Of course it varied from school district to school district - even teacher to teacher. But my point was rewriting history and bigotry weren't limited to the South - other areas were just as bad.

If you went to a Catholic School in certain parts of New England you never even heard about it at all. Even public schools did not really touch upon it. I remember high school in a town called South Burlington. This was in 1965! Talk about naive, we were the top of the pile. Our school team was called the Rebels and our school flag was the Confederate Flag, that we only called the Rebel flag. Honest to god, we were oblivious to the slavery connection or even the details of the reason for the Civil War. In Vermont, at the time, there probably weren't more then three black families in the whole state. Pretty much the whitest state in the union.

In 1965, in the wake of riots and the like it was recommended that we get rid of the Flag. The student body almost unanimously voted to keep it. Again, I will repeat we were never thinking of it as racist. Later on after we got out of High School and were more worldly we became completely conscience of its meaning and during that time, it was removed. However, the name Rebel remained as the school sports name.

Just this month it came up for a school board vote to change the name and get rid of the Rebel name completely. Now I understand that Rebel has come to be identified with the Civil war, but, really, it was also what our forefathers, that resisted British rule, were called. The very people that fought for our independence. The word Rebel is not, in and of itself a racist word and only is to those that have tunnel visioned their ideas through one event. Important event, indeed. But, it has brought a whole lot of non-racial rebellion to the school. A full 52 years since it first came up. The world will survive without that particular High School being named The Rebels, however, it will be an attempt to alter history from a group of people that never had racism in mind when the adopted that name. Many people are very saddened by this, but, I guess to prevent someone from being mistakenly offended by this, I guess it's the right thing to do. I would prefer it be changed because of actual racist motivation, but, I don't guess our world is there anymore.

 

[MMFanCipher]

It has been a few years since I've watched it, but I thought that at the beginning it displayed the year. I'm probably mis-remembering. But even if there was no date anyone with an elementary education of US history should know that it is AFTER the Civil War, because at one point in the movie Uncle Remus says he's going to pack-up and leave. If he was a slave he wouldn't have been allowed to leave. I find the portrayal of the Mammy in Gone With the Wind far more offensive than what is in SOTS. But that's just me I guess.

 

[KBLovedDisney]

For the OPs original question, my opinion as to why they did a ride based on a film they weren't releasing is that I do believe Disney (and the Disney company) like to always push the limits on things regardless of outcomes. I mean there are rides that I love and there are rides I still question of their existence (and of course the anger of why they took some of the best rides out).

Honestly though, with all creativity, there must always be a dark side.

Use the force, people. Use the force.

 

[Otterhead]

For the OPs original question, my opinion as to why they did a ride based on a film they weren't releasing is that I do believe Disney (and the Disney company) like to always push the limits on things regardless of outcomes.

The truth in a nutshell is that Eisner was pushing to do a log flume ride (originally based on Splash!) and Tony Baxter came up with the idea of putting it in Critter Country/Frontierland and theming it after the Song of the South characters, because it'd fit really well in an underused part of the parks -- and would let them use the decommissioned America Sings AAs. And the movie itself was re-released when the ride opened.

 

[KBLovedDisney]

The truth in a nutshell is that Eisner was pushing to do a log flume ride (originally based on Splash!) and Tony Baxter came up with the idea of putting it in Critter Country/Frontierland and theming it after the Song of the South characters, because it'd fit really well in an underused part of the parks -- and would let them use the decommissioned America Sings AAs. And the movie itself was re-released when the ride opened.

 

[Matt_Black]

I find it hard to accept the idea that Song of the South is badly racist simply because it's a bit vague.

Well, certainly, it brings up the notion of patronage, which some have argued is just a benign form of oppression. Not to mention it's very much the embodiment of a trope which I will not say the most commonly used name of here, but it's the storytelling trick of having black people's sole purpose in the narrative be to give advice to the white protagonist.

 

[lazyboy97o]

For the OPs original question, my opinion as to why they did a ride based on a film they weren't releasing is that I do believe Disney (and the Disney company) like to always push the limits on things regardless of outcomes. I mean there are rides that I love and there are rides I still question of their existence (and of course the anger of why they took some of the best rides out).

Honestly though, with all creativity, there must always be a dark side.

Use the force, people. Use the force.

The film was last released in 1986. The attraction was conceived in 1983. When the attraction was approved the film was not yet locked into the vault.

The truth in a nutshell is that Eisner was pushing to do a log flume ride (originally based on Splash!) and Tony Baxter came up with the idea of putting it in Critter Country/Frontierland and theming it after the Song of the South characters, because it'd fit really well in an underused part of the parks -- and would let them use the decommissioned America Sings AAs. And the movie itself was re-released when the ride opened.

The attraction concept was developed before Eisner joined. He saw the concept on his first visit to Walt Disney Imagineering when his son came upon the model.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

The characters os Splash weren't kept alive so much by the movie, as through books and comics. Brer Rabbit was a popular character throughout the 60s and 70s. Most kids would never even have heard of SotS, but were intimately aware of the world of the cartoon bits of SotS. There was no VHS or DVD or Netflix. You didn't watch all that much Disney movies back then, despite the worlds of Disney animation and characters having just as large a presence in a kid's imagination.

It is this tradition that found its way into Splash, more than the movie itself, certainly the live action part.

This is a famous postcard sold throughout WDW in....the 1970s! I own it, I bought it at the MK in 1982, a decade before Splash made its debut in these Rivers of America:

 

[Otterhead]

The characters os Splash weren't kept alive so much by the movie, as through books and comics.

And as your postcard shows, by the parks. Brer Bear (and I believe Brer Fox and Rabbit) have been walk around characters for decades.

Weirdly, I had that book-and-record set, but it was bowdlerized into Brer Rabbit and the Glue Baby.

 

[Californian Elitist]

So, every black person was miserable all the time?
Does everything have to be a documentary and focus on the negatives?

Did I say Blacks were miserable 24/7 (even though that's not far-fetched)?

What was so positive for Black Americans after the Civil War? My point was the portrayal needed to be more realistic and not so blatantly false.