Song of the South

There seem to be some thick people who do not realize why this film is racist. There are three major reasons. Reason one - the black characters speak in an exaggerated dialect which is difficult to understand and probably never existed in real life. Their dialogue is based on the Uncle Remus stories, which were written down by a white man during the Reconstruction period after the Civil War. Probably, it is likely, the written version of the dialect did not and does not accurately represent the language that those people spoke. And while the black characters speak in this exaggerated dialect, the white characters do not have a Southern accent at all, which would be quite unusual for the time period.  Why not just make all the characters sound the same? Reason number two - the black characters are talked down to in a paternalistic way. A middle-aged woman speaks to an 83-year-old and like he is a child. The movie wants us to disagree with the decision she has made, but it doesn't say anything about the manner in which she communicates her decision to this character. The third reason that the film is racist is because they never make it clear when exactly this film is set. Disney was asked by the Hays office, which was like a self-censoring group in Hollywood at the time, to make it clear at the beginning of the movie at what date this takes place so that people would know that it's supposed to be set after the Civil War and not during it therefore the black characters are not slaves. They did not do this, and also references to the black characters not being slaves were removed from the script. This is quite jarring considering the fact that lynchings were still happening when this movie was being made, and segregation still existed when this movie was being made. Despite knowing that segregation existed, the Disney Company opted to hold the premiere of the film in Atlanta, Georgia which was very much still segregated at the time. This meant that the actor who played the main character could not actually attend the premier of the biggest movie in his career. They either did this out of ignorance, which was bad enough, or malice, which is even worse. I think that's the real reason you can't find this movie on Disney Plus not because of the specifically racist content inside of the film, because lots of racist things in Disney movies that can be found on Disney Plus, because of the racism that was inherent in the creation of the film. And all of this is a great shame because the movie is not bad. If you removed all the racism, and it was handled with more sensitivity, it would be a heart-warming tale of a man trying to help a young boy adapt to a very difficult situation in his life through the art of storytelling. And I really like the fact that the animated characters are coded black. What I mean by that is growing up I never thought about the race of a cartoon character, but it is pretty clear from watching other Disney films at the time that most are coded white even though they're not human, like Bambi. So representation matters right, and I do not know how to do this in a natural and non-offensive way, but I think characters in films should reflect the natural diversity that exists in the world. Should this movie be banned? No, I think it can be watched by adults with a modicum of critical thinking skills, but I think it's best to avoid showing it to children.