It’s right to save our children from Dumbo and this song of slavery
It’s 73 years since Song of the South was first released in cinemas, and Disney can now tacitly admit something cine-literate parents have known all along: not all films theoretically made for children are suitable to be viewed by actual human children. When Disney Plus, the company’s streaming site, launches in the US in November, this 1946 film about an idyllic, reconstruction era slave plantation will be omitted from the catalogue, as will the similarly controversial “Jim Crow” scene from Dumbo. Good.
Some will see this as just another example of history being rewritten to match current cultural sensitivities, but Song of the South hasn’t suddenly fallen foul of hyper-vigilant offencejunkies. It was always a bit racist. I remember, a full generation ago, my (black) mother banned me from watching the film when it came on terrestrial TV (as it did, semi-regularly, until as recently as 2006). And she was livid when she found out that I went and watched it anyway, while staying with my (white) father. Maybe I gave myself away by humming Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah round the flat on my return. It is demonically catchy.
At the age of seven, the only kind of Disney films I disapproved of were the ones without songs. Sure, Song of the South was no Little Mermaid, but otherwise I didn’t see the problem. And
that was exactly the problem.
Flash forward a quarter of a century and I have a three-year-old daughter of my own, who solemnly informs me as I brush her hair every morning that she hates her curls because “princesses have straight hair”. I try to steer her towards Brave, The Princess and the Frog or Moana – Disney princesses are, thankfully, a more diverse bunch these days – but the kind of curation my own mother once attempted has become even more difficult. The explosion of kid-targeted content on streaming sites such as Disney Plus has seen to that. (And yes, I know, this “princess” phase is troubling for other reasons, but we’ll have to leave the gender non-conformity, patriarchy-resistance and class consciousness for another day. There’s only so much dense material you can get through on the school run)
Most under-10s don’t yet have the necessary historical knowledge to see a racist stereotype for what it is, but such images still batter their self-esteem. Children are unlikely to appreciate the wider context that makes the very notion of a Jim Crow-era film celebrating slavery so political, but they’ll absorb its messages all the same. (Of course some adults don’t get all this either, but there’s less we can do about them.) Protecting young minds from on-screen sex and violence is utterly uncontroversial, why should racism be deemed any less of an obscenity ?
Part of this wider context is that Song of the South is far from an isolated case in Hollywood history. The dream factory has long specialised in a product designed to make white America feel better about the atrocity of slavery, while marginalising black experience. It’s telling, for instance, that the first black man to ever win an Oscar was James Baskett – as Song of the South’s smiling slave, Uncle Remus. Eight years earlier, Hattie McDaniel had won for playing Mammy, another racist stereotype, in Gone With the Wind. Note too that neither actor was permitted to attend the premiere of their own, Oscar-winning film, since both took place in still-segregated Atlanta, Georgia.
It’s infuriating, yet there’s no need to burn the negative. Indeed, I hope Disney make Song of the South available to view elsewhere, so it can stand as testament to all the troubling history it represents. Please let’s just spare the children while they’re still so young. Both from the film itself and from the tedious-yet-extremely-necessary lecture on the wiles of white supremacy that Mum would be forced to give as running commentary should it ever pop up on the watchlist.
May our children grow up to embrace all sorts of problematic favourites – I still love Gone With The Wind and watch it any time it’s on because, if it brings you joy, it can’t be all bad. But may they do so with their eyes open and their ears fully attuned to the bullshit. Until then, it’s our joyless duty as grownups to steer them, and we’d appreciate any help Disney is willing to give.
• Ellen E Jones is a film and television writer