SONG OF THE SOUTH: Asinine Disney Censorship!

Since Disney has abandoned all interest in ever doing a North American
home video release of its wonderful _Song of the South_ (1946), is it
still morally wrong to want to see this important part of film of
history? We've all been teased with bits and pieces of this movie:
Nearly everyone knows the words to Johnny Mercer's "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah"
and most children are familiar with Disney storybooks featuring
illustrated versions of Uncle Remus' tales of Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox
and Br'er Bear.

I finally got the opportunity to purchase 2 DVD copies of Disney's
banned _Song of the South_ from 2 different eBay sellers. Both of these
DVDs came from now-you-see-it, now-you-don't eBay listings, but both of
the sellers quickly delivered the DVDs as promised, even though I
received notification that eBay had cancelled their auctions. These DVD
listings then reappear and disappear again. The weekends appear to be
the best time to find them.

The 2 DVDs came from 2 different sellers, with different homespun box
artwork and DVD labels, but their DVD contents and quality are
identical:

Blue Cover: A wide blue boarder with the top reading "The Best Movie
Collection" surrounds a color picture of Johnny, Uncle Remus, Ginny
and Br'er Rabbit.

Orange Cover: An orange and yellow sunset is shown behind Johnny,
Uncle Remus, Ginny Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear.

The picture and sound quality of these burned DVDs is totally
acceptable, but they are definitely not up to the high standards of what
Disney has produced on DVD. The subtitle-free source appears to be a VHS
tape, (the Japanese LaserDisc has burned subtitles during the songs) but
some kind of line doubling appears to have been used, because, while
fine detail and color depth are lacking, the overall clarity of the
picture is better than normal VHS.

The Extras include the 1972 TV trailer, 1986 theatrical trailer and a
15-minute 1946 radio plug featuring Walt Disney, Johnny Mercer, Bobby
Driscoll, Luana Patten, James Baskett and June Hutton (of the Pied
Pipers) who sings "Sooner or Later."

After twice watching _Song of the South_, I can say that this is a
wonderful movie that both adults and children can enjoy. The animated
Uncle Remus episodes are outstanding. In spite of Disney's morbid fears
that _Song of the South_ is politically incorrect and racially
offensive, there is NOTHING truly objectionable in this movie.

For example, in _Gone With The Wind_ we think nothing of seeing Hattie
McDaniel playing Mammy, Miss Scarlett's pre-Civil War slave servant and
hearing Miss Scarlett's slave servant Prissy called "a simple-minded
darky." There is nothing anywhere nearly as offensive as this in _Song
of the South_.

In _Song of the South_, Hattie McDaniel plays her traditional servant
role, but she is not a slave, she is a paid servant in the post war
South. When nobody tries to stop Uncle Remus as he runs off to
Atlanta (with all of his possessions, in a horse-drawn wagon), it is
obvious that he is not a slave and that he owns personal property.

It's true that _Song of the South_ does have some problems which Disney
probably finds embarrassing:

*** *** ***

Disney's 20th century re-creation of Harris's frame story is much more
heinous than the original. The days on the plantation located in "the
United States of Georgia" begin and end with unsupervised Blacks singing
songs about their wonderful home as they march to and from the fields.
Disney and company made no attempt to render the music in the style of
the spirituals and work songs that would have been sung during this era.
They provided no indication regarding the status of the Blacks on the
plantation. Joel Chandler Harris set his stories in the post-slavery
era, but Disney's version seems to take place during a surreal time when
Blacks lived on slave quarters on a plantation, worked diligently for no
visible reward and considered Atlanta a viable place for an old Black
man to set out for.

Kind old Uncle Remus caters to the needs of the young white boy whose
father has inexplicably left him and his mother at the plantation. An
obviously ill-kept Black child of the same age named Toby is assigned to
look after the white boy, Johnny. Although Toby makes one reference to
his "ma," his parents are nowhere to be seen. The African-American
adults in the film pay attention to him only when he neglects his
responsibilities as Johnny's playmate-keeper. He is up before Johnny in
the morning in order to bring his white charge water to wash with and
keep him entertained.

The boys befriend a little blond girl, Ginny, whose family clearly
represents the neighborhood's white trash. Although Johnny coaxes his
mother into inviting Ginny to his fancy birthday party at the big house,
Toby is curiously absent from the party scenes. Toby is good enough to
catch frogs with, but not good enough to have birthday cake with. When
Toby and Johnny are with Uncle Remus, the gray-haired Black man directs
most of his attention to the white child. Thus Blacks on the plantation
are seen as willingly subservient to the whites to the extent that they
overlook the needs of their own children. When Johnny's mother threatens
to keep her son away from the old gentleman's cabin, Uncle Remus is so
hurt that he starts to run away. In the world that Disney made, the
Blacks sublimate their own lives in order to be better servants to the
white family. If Disney had truly understood the message of the tales he
animated so delightfully, he would have realized the extent of
distortion of the frame story.

*** *** ***

And let's not forget that Tar Baby! Surely, someone will take exception
to that.

Oh well. The world didn't come to an end in 1946 when _Song of the
South_ was first released. Somehow Europe and Japan survived home video
releases of _Song of the South_ and I think that the United States would
be very receptive to a Disney DVD release of this important movie.

It just doesn't make sense that we can have Eddie Murphy, Spike Lee and

Chris Rock, but we can't have _Song of the South_.

In the meantime, I'm glad that _Song of the South_ is available on DVD
for those who really want to see it. Everything is satisfactual --
almost.

http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/sots.htm

One-Shot Scot

I have it on good authority that there may indeed be a R1 authorized release of
this film. Keep fingers crossed.

The Truth About Frances Farmer:
http://hometown.aol.com/jmkauffman/sheddinglight.html

JMKAUFFMAN

I'd bet there's a 2006 Disney Treasure that will have it to coincide with
the 60th Anniversary.


--
RnR Lesnar
It's True, It's True- Kurt Angle
Bush/Cheney 2004


"JMKAUFFMAN" <> wrote in message
news:...
>I have it on good authority that there may indeed be a R1 authorized
>release of
> this film. Keep fingers crossed.
>
> The Truth About Frances Farmer:
> http://hometown.aol.com/jmkauffman/sheddinglight.html
>

RnR Lesnar

JMKAUFFMAN wrote:
> I have it on good authority that there may indeed be a R1 authorized
> release of this film. Keep fingers crossed.

I heard this from a reliable source also...it sounds like a great candidate
for a "Treasures" collection, along with commentary and discussion over the
elements of the picture that haven't stood the test of time so well.

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mike Kohary mike at kohary dot com http://www.kohary.com

Karma Photography: http://www.karmaphotography.com
Seahawks Historical Database: http://www.kohary.com/seahawks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mike Kohary

>along with commentary and discussion over the
>elements of the picture that haven't stood the test of time so well.

That's exactly what I've been told is in the works.

The Truth About Frances Farmer:
http://hometown.aol.com/jmkauffman/sheddinglight.html

JMKAUFFMAN

"One-Shot Scot" <> wrote...
> I finally got the opportunity to purchase 2 DVD copies of Disney's
> banned _Song of the South_ from 2 different eBay sellers. Both of these
> DVDs came from now-you-see-it, now-you-don't eBay listings, but both of
> the sellers quickly delivered the DVDs as promised, even though I
> received notification that eBay had cancelled their auctions. These DVD
> listings then reappear and disappear again. The weekends appear to be
> the best time to find them.

That's probably because less eBay employees work on weekends.

> The picture and sound quality of these burned DVDs is totally
> acceptable, but they are definitely not up to the high standards of what
> Disney has produced on DVD. The subtitle-free source appears to be a VHS
> tape, (the Japanese LaserDisc has burned subtitles during the songs) but
> some kind of line doubling appears to have been used, because, while
> fine detail and color depth are lacking, the overall clarity of the
> picture is better than normal VHS.

The film was captured from the Hong Kong LaserDisc, not the VHS tape.
There is a HK SOTS LD up for auction on eBay at the moment (for a mere
$1,100 that is!):

<http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=6346144075>

The DVD that you describe was captured from the HK LD played on an RCA
LDR600 LD player into a Matrox RT-2000 capture card. The resulting
AVI files were encoded to MPEG-2 with TMPGEnc, and the assets were
authored with Sonic's DVDit! PE, IIRC.

The Hong Kong SOTS LD is the exact same film transfer as the UK PAL
VHS tape. In fact, if you press your pause button while playing your
DVD, you will see overlapping still fields -- a tell-tale sign of a
PAL-to-NTSC transfer. Also, the film runs a few minutes shorter than
the NTSC-mastered Japanese LD -- another indication that the HK LD is
a PAL-to-NTSC transfer.

> The Extras include the 1972 TV trailer, 1986 theatrical trailer and a
> 15-minute 1946 radio plug featuring Walt Disney, Johnny Mercer, Bobby
> Driscoll, Luana Patten, James Baskett and June Hutton (of the Pied
> Pipers) who sings "Sooner or Later."

I believe that the 1972 TV trailer was on 16 mm film and had a severe
case of Vinegar Syndrome before it was digitized. You can tell that
the original film elements of this trailer were substandard as
compared to the rest of the DVD.

The Johnny Mercer radio spot is really a "composite" of two of the
three commonly downloaded spots from Christian Willis's site
(www.songofthesouth.net). The one spot that is completely missing on
your DVD is the one where Johnny is interviewing Walt Disney and
Donald Duck (Uncle Walt is providing the voice for Donald I believe).
Did you find the Easter Egg? It is in this menu where you will find
it.

> For example, in _Gone With The Wind_ we think nothing of seeing Hattie
> McDaniel playing Mammy, Miss Scarlett's pre-Civil War slave servant and
> hearing Miss Scarlett's slave servant Prissy called "a simple-minded
> darky." There is nothing anywhere nearly as offensive as this in _Song
> of the South_.

However, SOTS was marketed maily to children as family entertainment.
GWTW was marketed to adults -- a big difference in the eyes of those
who object to the legitimate release of SOTS on DVD IMHO.

-Junior

unclejr

"unclejr" <> wrote in message
news: om...
"One-Shot Scot" <> wrote...
> I finally got the opportunity to purchase 2 DVD copies of Disney's
> banned _Song of the South_ from 2 different eBay sellers. Both of
> these DVDs came from now-you-see-it, now-you-don't eBay listings,
> but both of the sellers quickly delivered the DVDs as promised,
> even though I received notification that eBay had cancelled their
> auctions. These DVD listings then reappear and disappear again.
> The weekends appear to be the best time to find them.

<<That's probably because less eBay employees work on weekends. >>

Yeah, it takes eBay half a day to find the listings and remove
them. And I shouldn't have called them auctions, because all of them are
"Buy It Now" -- before it's too late. Then, a couple of days later,
another 50 _Song of the South_ DVD listings appear again.

> The picture and sound quality of these burned DVDs is totally
> acceptable, but they are definitely not up to the high standards of
> what Disney has produced on DVD. The subtitle-free source
> appears to be a VHS tape, (the Japanese LaserDisc has burned
> subtitles during the songs) but some kind of line doubling appears
> to have been used, because, while fine detail and color depth are
> lacking, the overall clarity of the picture is better than normal VHS.

<<The film was captured from the Hong Kong LaserDisc, not the VHS tape.
There is a HK SOTS LD up for auction on eBay at the moment (for a mere
$1,100 that is!):>>

I didn't know that there was such a thing. You would need to sell a lot
of bootlegs to pay for it.

<http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=6346144075>

<<The DVD that you describe was captured from the HK LD played on an RCA
LDR600 LD player into a Matrox RT-2000 capture card. The resulting AVI
files were encoded to MPEG-2 with TMPGEnc, and the assets were authored
with Sonic's DVDit! PE, IIRC.>>

<<The Hong Kong SOTS LD is the exact same film transfer as the UK PAL
VHS tape. In fact, if you press your pause button while playing your
DVD, you will see overlapping still fields -- a tell-tale sign of a
PAL-to-NTSC transfer. Also, the film runs a few minutes shorter than
the NTSC-mastered Japanese LD -- another indication that the HK LD is a
PAL-to-NTSC transfer.>>

> The Extras include the 1972 TV trailer, 1986 theatrical trailer and a
> 15-minute 1946 radio plug featuring Walt Disney, Johnny Mercer, Bobby
> Driscoll, Luana Patten, James Baskett and June Hutton (of the Pied
> Pipers) who sings "Sooner or Later."

<<I believe that the 1972 TV trailer was on 16 mm film and had a severe
case of Vinegar Syndrome before it was digitized. You can tell that the
original film elements of this trailer were substandard as compared to
the rest of the DVD.>>

The 1972 trailer does indeed look like total crap. The 1986 trailer
looks a lot better.

<<The Johnny Mercer radio spot is really a "composite" of two of the
three commonly downloaded spots from Christian Willis's site
(www.songofthesouth.net). The one spot that is completely missing on
your DVD is the one where Johnny is interviewing Walt Disney and Donald
Duck (Uncle Walt is providing the voice for Donald I believe). Did you
find the Easter Egg? It is in this menu where you will find it.>>

Actually, I think I found 5 Easter Eggs. I didn't know that each of the
5 song posters surrounding the Johnny Mercer page could be selected to
play full-length versions of the songs. Or, maybe I didn't find the
Easter Egg at all. Did I miss it?

> For example, in _Gone With The Wind_ we think nothing of seeing Hattie
> McDaniel playing Mammy, Miss Scarlett's pre-Civil War slave servant
> and hearing Miss Scarlett's slave servant Prissy called "a
> simple-minded darky." There is nothing anywhere nearly as offensive
> as this in _Song of the South_.

<<However, SOTS was marketed maily to children as family entertainment.
GWTW was marketed to adults -- a big difference in the eyes of those who
object to the legitimate release of SOTS on DVD IMHO.

Thanks for this wealth of information. I think this must be the most
complete documentation that has ever been done for a bootleg DVD. I'm
really glad that I finally got a copy of _Song of the South_.

-Junior

One-Shot Scot

----------
In article <>,
tose (JMKAUFFMAN) wrote:


>>along with commentary and discussion over the
>>elements of the picture that haven't stood the test of time so well.
>
> That's exactly what I've been told is in the works.
>
My, my, whatever will Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton say??

G. M. Watson

G. M. Watson wrote:
> ----------
> In article <>,
> tose (JMKAUFFMAN) wrote:
>
>>> along with commentary and discussion over the
>>> elements of the picture that haven't stood the test of time so well.
>>
>> That's exactly what I've been told is in the works.
>>
> My, my, whatever will Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton say??

Honestly, who cares?

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mike Kohary mike at kohary dot com http://www.kohary.com

Karma Photography: http://www.karmaphotography.com
Seahawks Historical Database: http://www.kohary.com/seahawks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mike Kohary

> Actually, I think I found 5 Easter Eggs. I didn't know that each of
the
> 5 song posters surrounding the Johnny Mercer page could be selected
to
> play full-length versions of the songs. Or, maybe I didn't find the
> Easter Egg at all. Did I miss it?

Yes, you did. Select the upper-right-hand song (Everybody's Got a
Laughing Place, I believe) and the song will play and the cursor will
go to the bottom of the menu. Press up twice to select the same icon
again, and voila... Easter Egg. Enjoy!

-Junior

watsona@kenyon.edu