Song of the South (November 12, 1946)

I put off writing my review for this film for a few days after watching as I wanted to digest it and formulate my thoughts. I am still not sure my review will capture the nuances of this controversial film, but I will try my best. Firstly, I will focus on the plot. There is not much of one. The main character is a young boy named Johnny who travels from Atlanta to his Grandmother’s plantation in the countryside to live there with his mother while his father remains in the city for work. The movie is set in the reconstruction era directly following the abolition of slavery. On that plantation he meets Uncle Remus who loves to tell stories. Johnny repeatedly listens to his many tales of a character named Br’er Rabbit which has parallels in Johnny’s current predicaments while on the plantation. These stories are told in animation while the rest of the story is live action. The story of the boy really only serves as a vehicle for the charming tales and thus is quite boring. A quick aside on technical aspects of the film. The live action segments are very dark (lighting-wise). I can barely make out the characters. The remastered version does fix this problem, however. Moving on to the animated portions, they are very well done and are the best parts of the film. The actors themselves do their jobs fine but are not spectacular, save Uncle Remus and Aunt Tempe (a servant for Johnny’s grandmother). The characters themselves, on the other hand, are were the real problems arise. None of them are particularly interesting, aside from Uncle Remus, or likable. The boy is whiney, and the mother is strict and mean. The black characters are stereotypical; they are subservient and talk with an almost indecipherable lowly accent and pattern of speech. I can see why the movie is decried by modern audiences and rightly so. However, it did very well during its original run and subsequent re-release. I believe Disney should not hide this film as it is an important part of its history which should not be forgotten. Song of the South also contains the memorable song, Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah, which most modern audiences do not even know that it comes from this film. The film is not interesting beyond being an oddity, but I do think it is important for Disney fans to experience once but it is not worth multiple viewings.

Final Rating: 3/10