When it first came out, the NAACP decried the film for "the impression it gives of an idyllic master-slave relationship," and the National Negro Congress demanded a total boycott of the movie. As documented in James Snead's book White Screens/Black Images: Hollywood From the Dark Side, "At the film's New York premiere in Times Square, dozens of Black and white pickets chanted 'We fought for Uncle Sam, not Uncle Tom,'" in reference to African Americans returning home from fighting in World War II.ĭespite the initial backlash, Disney re-released the movie in 1956 but kept it out of circulation during the Civil Rights movement. From the time I began making animated features, I have had them definitely in my production plans." Baskett even received an Honorary Oscar for his performance, the first African-American man to do so. He was quoted in 1946 as saying, "I was familiar with the Uncle Remus tales since boyhood. RELATED: Family Guy: The Wire's Wendall Pierce Lobbies to Take Over Cleveland Roleĭespite its racial insensitivity, Walt Disney wanted to make the movie because the Uncle Remus stories inspired him as a child. However, although the story takes place during the Reconstruction Era after slavery was abolished, Uncle Remus, presumably a former slave, comes across as nostalgic for those days, making the story deeply offensive.
At the time of its release, the interactions of the live-action Remus, played by James Baskett, with animated animal characters like Br'er Fox, Br'er Bear and Br'er Rabbit were groundbreaking.
There's plenty of media from the past century that has aged terribly as social norms have evolved and changed. As the biggest entertainment company in the world, Disney's regrettable decisions can receive more scrutiny than others. Although many of the studio's older films include poorly aged stereotypes, such as the crows from Dumbo, the Native Americans from Peter Pan and the Siamese cats from Lady and the Tramp, the 1946 live-action/animation hybrid film Song of the South has stood out as its most problematic property.īased on Joel Harris's Uncle Remus fables from the late 19th century, Song of the South is about Remus befriending a young boy named Johnny.
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