Comment by Magic Marmalade:
I found a home made rip / burn copy of this in the charity shop the other day, with what looks like a cut down VHS cover fitted in a CD jewel case...
...Knowing what it was, and certainly with no clear memory of ever having seen it, even back in the day, I grabbed it, to see what all the controversy was.
The copy I have seems to be at least DVD quality, possibly moving toward Blu-Ray quality, in terms of sharpness and clarity, so I don't think it came from a VHS rip.
(I believe it was released on Blu-Ray in Spain, at least, so half suspect this is from that source, ripped from that disc, then burned to DVD)
Now of course, I'm not really going to go into all the sociological issues with this, being neither capable or qualified to do so, and this not perhaps being the appropriate forum for that debate - after all you start a discussion along those lines and very soon we have to get our heavy modding wellies on! - Except only to say, that the principal sin committed here is that it makes the time, place and circumstance a litlle more... rosy than it should be.
...That said, there are certain hard-wired circumstantial elements that no amount of varnishing can clear away - the big house plantation is owned of course, by a white family, and the the servants, are, of course, black, and everyone knows their place without having to mention it (and don't), and everone seems of course, Disney-chipper about it... So yes, anyone can see how this would be "problematic".
I cannot say, however, that, given all the furore, there was anything over and above this that was in danger of prompting an outrage based aneurism, nor did my jaw hit the floor in incredulity... As there is nothing here really that doesn't exist, and indeed, persist in other movies and content elsewhere - eyebrow raising, certainly.
(Django Unchained, it ain't... Nor 12 Years a slave)
Looking for a moment (if possible) beyond these issues, just at the basic plot, in terms of the movie as a story, it is a pretty good one:
Undefined tension between Mummy and Daddy causes them to escort their young child to Grandma's house, where Mummy intends to live with him, while Daddy moves back home without them... child is bereft, and doesn't understand, feeling lost, and so intends to run away back home to be with dad... here he meets Uncle Remus, raconteur and teller of fabulous tales about Br'er Rabbit and his run ins with the fox and bear, who want to do horrible things to him - These tales being, of course, analogies containing little tricks and life lessons for the kid to learn from, and learn to cope, in the best traditions of the fable.
I can't help thinking the solution to this problematic movie might be something that Disney is doing already with their back catalogue whether asked for or not:
Remake it.
...And indeed, refurbish it, re-position it or do whatever to make it less troublesome.
(In fact, while watching it, I frequently thought of the Coen brothers for some reason... just a thought!)
As is though, as my find demonstrates, both in the finding, and the fact that I was aware of this movie because of all the bother about it, if you ban something, you are likely to create a mystique about it, even if it is not any more deserved than others of it's kind.
Had I not known about this, I would have simply left it on the shelf, rather than be prompted by curiosity.
After all, as I said at the start of this ramble, the principle sin is that it seeks to ignore or rewrite historical realities in favour of making things a little more rosy...
...But then, isn't banning a movie outright because if this, doing exactly the same thing?
