"Song of the South" Coming to DVD

[filkertom]

Apparently, next year, Disney will release Song of the South to DVD. Questions are flying -- specifically, what they'll do in the extras to put the film into context. (There's also a side issue to some who feel that the film simply isn't all that good to begin with.)

For much more on the controversy, check out this page at Sacred Scrolls (which also has film clips!) and SongOfTheSouth.net.

Comments

[netpositive.livejournal.com]

Yay! I grew up on Uncle Remus tales like other kids grew up on Aesop's Fables or Grimm's Fairy Tales¹, so Br'er Rabbit and his kinfolk mean a whole lot to me.

It will be so weird to watch it once more without Japanese subtitles (several years ago a friend in Japan sent me a copy dubbed from laserdisc). But hey, as long as they don't mess with the animated sequences or recast it with Will Smith, *shudder* Snoop Dogg or *double shudder* Cedric the Entertainer/Bernie Mac as Uncle Remus², I think I can deal with it.

¹ ok, actually I absorbed a lot of the latter too, along with Andrew Lang's [Insert Color of Fairy Here] books, etc. If you say "Snow White and..." to me in word association, my answer is not "the Seven Dwarves" but "Rose Red".

² There are some actors I would consider for a remake that redid the live actors' sections of the film. Denzel Washington would probably be just a bit too noble looking for Remus - Samuel L. Jackson too quirky - James Earl Jones has done too many commercials... I always come back to Lawrence Fishburne, but then I am such a massive Fishburne fangirl.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

No matter what they do to the DVD release, remember this important fact about the original.

B'rer Rabbit shot first.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Would it help to confuse it... if we run away more?

[cogitationitis.livejournal.com]

I never considered _Song of the South_ to be racist, just as I never considered _Little Black Sambo_ to be racist. Now Al Jolson doing blackface, or Step'n'fetchit, or _Gone With the Wind_, yes.

Most people who point at these things have never seen (or read) them.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Is it racist? Yes.
Should it be released? Yes.

Racist or not, it was done, and should be remembered. Ignoring the faults of the past will not make them go away.

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

I remember thinking that it didn't have enough animated segments....and that the ending was too sentimental for words. But hey, I was a child....
If they could steel themselves to issue Mammy jokes and the like on the Mickey Mouse in B/W DVDs, they should issue it. Perhaps a second DVD with Leonard Maltin apologising and putting every frame in historical context?

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Kind of like the election of 2004...

[sciffy-circo.livejournal.com]

Actually, I picked up a copy of the VHS video several years back at a con. It was apparently a UK release or something. I also stumbled into the illustrated book at a flea market within the last few years. Go ahead, watch it, read it, everything. It is banned book week, isn't it? And remember to have your kazoos, horns, and other noisemakers ready to drown out all other FAA violations. *sigh*