Disney Plus Streaming will not offer 'racist' Song of the South film

[Sarpedon]

Well, given that Chico is a jewish guy pretending to be an italian guy...

Then there's the Big Store, and its collection of ethnic stereotypes visiting the store with ever larger broods of children...
And Horsefeathers, where the supporters of the Brothers' underdog horse are a very stereotypical group of African americans.
Then there's the Marx brothers go west, with worse than usual Native American stereotypes.
And Groucho's jokes come and go so fast, its easy to miss some of the more racist ones: "And that's how darkies were born..."

Yeah, sorry to say, it can be pretty awful at times. And not to mention Harpo's behavior with the women. Say what you will about Groucho, at least he seeks consent.

 

[Eldarion Lathria]

Why not just ban everything made before last year? Then we'll know it's politically correct. And do the same for history. The US has always been friends with North Korea.

Eldarion Lathria

 

[J842P]

Why not just ban everything made before last year? Then we'll know it's politically correct. And do the same for history. The US has always been friends with North Korea.

Eldarion Lathria

It isn't being "banned".

 

[ideologyhunter]

No, but restricting a film to the vaults is in some ways the same thing. A number of 30s films have been edited or kept out of view or removed from the franchise packages that TV stations buy. I saw Song of the South on VHS years ago -- found it treacly overall -- there are venues today that attempt to show the old films "warts and all", and that's a good ideal, I think.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

No, but restricting a film to the vaults is in some ways the same thing. A number of 30s films have been edited or kept out of view or removed from the franchise packages that TV stations buy. I saw Song of the South on VHS years ago -- found it treacly overall -- there are venues today that attempt to show the old films "warts and all", and that's a good ideal, I think.

Disney doesn't want to release it because they think it'll interfere on their overall products profitability. And they are probably right. There are likely more people that won't want to get a streaming service with that as an option verses those that want to see Song of the South. Why even court trouble?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Why wouldn't they?

Demand? Condition of the film? Amazon and Netflix exist, yet there is plenty of media that isn't available to stream. The creators have decided not to give it away under the current set up.

Today the moderating role and the library role is baked in together for the providers. But there's no technical limitation to decoupling these. The only reason people still tolerate it is because we've just come from the cable TV paradigm and are used to other people telling us what we're allowed to watch. But that's going to change. I have Netflix. But I search things less and less. If I don't instantly find exactly what I want I'm just going to pirate it. I'm not going to let Netflix (or anyone) dictate to me what I'm allowed to watch or not. The boat has sailed since long. As the culture will shift towards this, I can't see the old model being sustainable. I want to pay for stuff I watch, but there's a very stiff and low limit to the degrading hoops I'm willing to jump through.

If the providers have the options getting "some money" vs "getting no money" from the people watching it, they'll obviously go for "some money".

And there is plenty of objectionable material out there from Gone with the Wind to The Littlest Rebel to Breakfast at Tiffany's to It Happened One Night (nothing like getting that whip near the end with Gable saying, 'She needs a man that'll hit her good even if she doesn't deserve it' *eegh!*). You need not put all of your hopes on a single film. Song of the South isn't remotely a classic.

Hopefully Jerry Lewis's holocaust film also never gets released, and he wasn't even trying to be offensive!

The most interesting one's are the progressive films that used to be progressive, but which today are racist as hell. I saw Guess Who's Coming to Dinner a few years ago. It's about a white women who brings her black boyfriend to meet her parents, and haven't said that he's black. The parents are displeased, yet, try to hide it. It rests upon the assumption that, of course, white people will want their children to only date white people. It also rests upon the assumption that black people marry upwards when dating white people. And this is a film that tries to be progressive.

 

[ronburgundy]

Demand? Condition of the film? Amazon and Netflix exist, yet there is plenty of media that isn't available to stream. The creators have decided not to give it away under the current set up.
And there is plenty of objectionable material out there from Gone with the Wind to The Littlest Rebel to Breakfast at Tiffany's to It Happened One Night (nothing like getting that whip near the end with Gable saying, 'She needs a man that'll hit her good even if she doesn't deserve it' *eegh!*). You need not put all of your hopes on a single film. Song of the South isn't remotely a classic.

Hopefully Jerry Lewis's holocaust film also never gets released, and he wasn't even trying to be offensive!

The most interesting one's are the progressive films that used to be progressive, but which today are racist as hell. I saw Guess Who's Coming to Dinner a few years ago. It's about a white women who brings her black boyfriend to meet her parents, and haven't said that he's black. The parents are displeased, yet, try to hide it. It rests upon the assumption that, of course, white people will want their children to only date white people. It also rests upon the assumption that black people marry upwards when dating white people. And this is a film that tries to be progressive.

"Guess who's coming to dinner" doesn't rest on either of those assumptions, or any assumptions about whites or blacks as people. It portrays the extremely widespread phenomena that many white people in that time and context did not want their daughter dating a black man (or any non-white). It also portrays the objective fact that since the vast majority of blacks were below the average wealth of whites, almost all black-white couplings would entail the white person's family being more wealthy. It implies nothing about the intentions of the black person to try and "marry upwards". They would have had to go out of their way to find a white person that wasn't richer than them.

 

[ronburgundy]

No, but restricting a film to the vaults is in some ways the same thing. A number of 30s films have been edited or kept out of view or removed from the franchise packages that TV stations buy. I saw Song of the South on VHS years ago -- found it treacly overall -- there are venues today that attempt to show the old films "warts and all", and that's a good ideal, I think.

Disney doesn't want to release it because they think it'll interfere on their overall products profitability. And they are probably right. There are likely more people that won't want to get a streaming service with that as an option verses those that want to see Song of the South. Why even court trouble?

It certainly is more than just not wanting to interfere with that particular service. They have actively kept the film form any form of circulation for decades. They don't want it to be seen by anyone in any context. From a practical standpoint that is essentially "banning" it, but their motive for banning it is to protect their companies reputation (cough) rather than to control speech of ideas they don't like. That is a critical difference.

On a side note, any customer that would stream Disney but let that movie be the deal breaker is an ignorant hypocrite.

 

[southernhybrid]

Demand? Condition of the film? Amazon and Netflix exist, yet there is plenty of media that isn't available to stream. The creators have decided not to give it away under the current set up.
And there is plenty of objectionable material out there from Gone with the Wind to The Littlest Rebel to Breakfast at Tiffany's to It Happened One Night (nothing like getting that whip near the end with Gable saying, 'She needs a man that'll hit her good even if she doesn't deserve it' *eegh!*). You need not put all of your hopes on a single film. Song of the South isn't remotely a classic.

Hopefully Jerry Lewis's holocaust film also never gets released, and he wasn't even trying to be offensive!

The most interesting one's are the progressive films that used to be progressive, but which today are racist as hell. I saw Guess Who's Coming to Dinner a few years ago. It's about a white women who brings her black boyfriend to meet her parents, and haven't said that he's black. The parents are displeased, yet, try to hide it. It rests upon the assumption that, of course, white people will want their children to only date white people. It also rests upon the assumption that black people marry upwards when dating white people. And this is a film that tries to be progressive.

"Guess who's coming to dinner" doesn't rest on either of those assumptions, or any assumptions about whites or blacks as people. It portrays the extremely widespread phenomena that many white people in that time and context did not want their daughter dating a black man (or any non-white). It also portrays the objective fact that since the vast majority of blacks were below the average wealth of whites, almost all black-white couplings would entail the white person's family being more wealthy. It implies nothing about the intentions of the black person to try and "marry upwards". They would have had to go out of their way to find a white person that wasn't richer than them.

The movie also portrays that black people didn't like it when their children married white people. It's the same today among many people. I'm married to a man of Arabic heritage and his mother had a fit when she found out he was marrying a woman of European heritage. She wanted him to marry a nice Arabic girl. She eventually got over it.

I like that movie, which was ahead of its time in many ways. It demonstrated that some white people who were thought to be very progressive still had some issues with their kids marrying someone of a different race or culture. If you recall, it was primarily the father who objected to the marriage, while the wife came around after her initial shock. The wife was able to convince her husband that his attitude was wrong. It had a happy ending. Plus the Sidney Poitier character was a doctor, so how was that a negative stereotype? It was made during the time when my generation actually was naive enough to believe that racism was going to end.

But, I watched a show on PBS a few months ago, hosted by three black women. One of them said that she was going to insist that her son was going to marry a very black woman and give her black grandchildren. WTF! If a white woman said that her son was going to marry a very white woman and give her very white grandchildren, we'd all call that racist. It seems that some things never change. The show also had the same women opening up their DNA results and the one who had the most African heritage, got up and yelled, "I'm blackity black. I win." She said her white heritage didn't count because it was probably the result of forced sex during slavery. Maybe it was, but where I live, there are so many mixed race couples, that it's hard for me to believe that every mixed race person is the result of forced sex during slavery. In fact, I have friends in a mixed race marriage. They have four kids, and their mother is lily white. We live in strange times.

Anybody watching the newish show, "The Neighborhood"? It's about a white family that moves into an all black neighborhood. It's full of racial stereotypes about both white and black folks. But, it's funny as hell. Maybe it would be best if we embraced our cultural heritage, while also being able to laugh at ourselves now and then.