Do you know what movie the iconic song “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” is from? Or what movie Disneyland’s Splash Mountain is based on? If you answered no, Disney has succeeded in hiding its most offensive film, Song
Do you know what movie the iconic song “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” is from? Or what movie Disneyland’s Splash Mountain is based on? If you answered no, Disney has succeeded in hiding its most offensive film, Song of the South.
Song of the South is set on a southern plantation during the Reconstruction Period after the Civil War, although this tidbit isn’t overtly stated. This 1946 film depicts African Americans working at the service of the white wealthy plantation owners. While they are slaves no longer, their “happy” service greatly downplays their less than pleasant situation as they appear still perfectly content with life on a plantation. One is left to assume that the emancipation of slaves magically healed the master/slave relationship. The viewer can conclude that the horrors of slavery were erased from everyone’s memory – including the former slaves.
But we know the truth: No amount of Disney Magic can fix that.
Perhaps Disney sees this as they have chosen to keep this film locked away in its vault in the United States. But why has Disney deemed this movie “socially unacceptable” for us but perfectly fine to be sold abroad? Should a “socially unacceptable” movie have an attraction based on it as Splash Mountain is essentially a monument to this film?
I first saw this movie when I was 8 years old and my grandma procured a copy from abroad and had it converted to VHS. Though too young to fully realize how this film could be construed as offensive, I did pick up on the fact that the black people seemed inferior as they were talked down to and bossed around.
Knowing how even children can sense the racial disparity in the film, recent Disney Legends Award honoree Whoopi Goldberg wants to dialogue about this movie in the hopes of bringing it back to the public. I, for one, am in agreement.
Not acknowledgin