has anyone actually seen this movie?
i'd heard that this movie was banned in the United States. This is actually untrue. But, since it's theatrical debut in 1986, it has never been released again, on vhs or dvd, most likely because of the negative feedback they had been receiving in regards to Song of the South's reputation as being a "racial" film.
the 1946 Disney film was based on the "Uncle Remus" stories of Joel Chandler Harris. Harris spent a lifetime compiling and publishing the tales told to him by former slaves. Harris's Uncle Remus was a fictitious old slave and philosopher who told entertaining fables about Br'er Rabbit and other creatures in a Southern Black dialect.
Song of the South consists of animated sequences featuring Uncle Remus characters such as Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, and Br'er Bear, framed by live-action portions in which Uncle Remus tells the stories to a little white boy. The film has been criticized both for "making slavery appear pleasant" and "pretending slavery didn't exist", even though the film (like Harris' original collection of stories) is set after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery.
The NAACP acknowledged "the remarkable artistic merit" of the film when it was first released, but decried "the impression it gives of an idyllic master-slave relationship". Perhaps lost in all the controversy over the film is the fact that James Baskett, a Black man, was the very first live actor ever hired by Disney. Allegedly, though, Baskett was unable to attend the film's premiere in Atlanta because no hotel would give him a room.
I would LOVE to get my hands on a copy of this!
