Walt Disney had long wanted to make a film based on the Uncle Remus storybook, but it wasn't until the mid-1940s that he had found a way to give the stories an adequate film equivalent, in scope and fidelity. "I always felt that Uncle Remus should be played by a living person," Disney is quoted as saying, "as should also the young boy to whom Harris' old Negro philosopher relates his vivid stories of the Briar Patch. Several tests in previous pictures, especially in The Three Caballeros, were encouraging in the way living action and animation could be dovetailed. Finally, months ago, we 'took our foot in hand,' in the words of Uncle Remus, and jumped into our most venturesome but also more pleasurable undertaking." [2] Lastly, this is a fantasy film like anything else Disney produced. The very fact that the live action sections of the film were shot in Phoenix, Arizona about a make believe Georgia Plantation goes to show this is entirely fantasy fiction.

Although the film has been re-released several times (most recently in 1986), the Disney corporation has avoided making it directly available on home video or DVD in the United States because the frame story was deemed too controversial by studio management. Film critic Roger Ebert has supported this position, claiming that most Disney films become a part of the consciousness of American children, who take films more literally than do adults. [15] In the U.S., only excerpts from the animated segments have ever appeared in Disney's DVDs (such as the 2004 two-disc release of Alice in Wonderland (1951)), television shows, and the popular log-flume attraction Splash Mountain is based upon the same animated portions. finally the easiest thing to spot is the disdain and treatment that uncle remus faced from the aristocratic family. This is an intelligent, caring, and respected man who is very much treated as a servant, whether he is a slave or not. Tell me any of those critical conversations dont look more like you criticizing your employee than asking your friend to act a little different around your kid. Thank you to the poster, I can't wait to show this to my dad, he too has been searching for it, since we had it on VHS in the 80s. I watched the film for the first time in the early 1950s. I saw it at least once more on television in the 1950s. I have never associated it with slavery. My focus was on the stories and how they were used as lessons for the children. To criticize the story for the dialect the people and animals use would be the same as criticizing books because the characters use a French, German, Irish, Scottish, etc. accent that the authors spell out phonetically. VHS Videos with Walt Disney Home Video's children's trailer from Late 1991 (announced by Brian Cummings)

The Film Was a Box-Office Success Even 40 Years Later

I think we all end up being very biased when we try to evaluate Disney movies—perhaps because they will always be inevitably connected to the nice memories of our first viewing experience as children. Disney historian Jim Korkis, in his 2012 book Who's Afraid of Song of the South, alleged that White and June Blythe, the director of the American Council on Race Relations, were denied requests to see a treatment for the film. [11] When the film was first released, White telegraphed major newspapers around the country with the following statement, erroneously claiming that the film depicted an antebellum setting: The poor white family were much the same way, but of a middling quality, and the aristocratic southerners were nearly always portrayed as clean, even after something as absurd as being gored by a bull (I know its disney, but they could have smeared some dirt on him) Langman, Larry; Ebner, David (2001). Hollywood's Image of the South: A Century of Southern Films. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p.169. ISBN 0-313-31886-7.

Chen, Eve (December 2, 2022). "Disney World will close Splash Mountain in January for a new 'Princess and the Frog' adventure". usatoday.com . Retrieved December 5, 2022.As early as October 1945, a newspaper strip called Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit appeared in the United States, and this production continued until 1972. There have also been episodes for the series produced for the Disney comic books worldwide, in the U.S., Denmark and the Netherlands, from the 1940s up to 2012. [84] Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear also appeared frequently in Disney's Big Bad Wolf stories, although here, Br'er Bear was usually cast as an honest farmer and family man, instead of an antagonist in his original appearances. Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences". Oscars.org. March 20, 1948 . Retrieved January 19, 2021.

Thomas, Bob (1994) [1976]. Walt Disney: An American Original. New York: Hyperion Books. p. 205. ISBN 0-7868-6027-8.As had been done earlier with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio (1940) and Bambi (1942), Disney produced a Sunday comic strip titled Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit to give the film pre-release publicity. The strip was launched by King Features on October 14, 1945, more than a year before the film was released. The previous comic strip adaptations of Disney films lasted for four or five months, but the Uncle Remus strip continued for almost thirty years, telling new stories of Br'er Rabbit and friends, until the strip was discontinued on December 31, 1972. [33] Apart from the newspaper strips, Disney Br'er Rabbit comics were also produced for comic books; the first such stories appeared in late 1946. Produced both by Western Publishing and European publishers such as Egmont, they continue to appear. [34] Parsons, Luella (February 28, 1960). "That Little Girl in 'Song of the South' a Big Girl Now". Lincoln Sunday Journal and Star . Retrieved September 2, 2008. Rapf was a minority, a Jew, and an outspoken left-winger, and he himself feared that the film would inevitably be Uncle Tomish. "That's exactly why I want you to work on it," Walt told him, "because I know that you don't think I should make the movie. You're against Uncle Tomism, and you're a radical."