Chances are that if you’ve heard of Disney’s movie Song of the South, it’s in reference to the controversy of racism that’s depicted in it. Because of this, the movie has become very difficult to be able to watch. Disney has effectively banned the movie, making it pretty hard to find a method of viewing it. It’s not available on any streaming service, you can’t rent it from the services that offer this option for most movies, and Disney itself has made it so that no home video release of the movie is available in the United States. I had to retreat to my methods from the days of my youth, where I would just find websites that show movies for free. I managed to find a copy of it on one such website, and so this was the only way I was able to watch it.

To talk about the implications of whether or not a movie like this should be made available to watch, we first need to know what it’s actually about. The movie follows a young boy named Johnny, who’s taken to his grandmother’s plantation. His mother and father are going to be living apart (for reasons I wasn’t completely clear on), and so he has to say goodbye to his father. Johnny obviously has a hard time adjusting to this new life, but he finds a friend in Uncle Remus, one of the plantation workers who likes to tell stories to the kids. Uncle Remus tells some stories about Br’er Rabbit, Br’er Fox, and Br’er Bear to Johnny, and these stories contain some lessons that help Johnny with his new struggles. It’s an endearing story, one about an old black man trying to help a young boy cope with the hardships of his new life.

So, if you’ve read this plot summary, you’re probably asking yourself what’s so offensive about this movie. Well, I asked myself the same thing. I actually had to look into the matter a bit more, because I really didn’t find anything to be that offensive about it. The film doesn’t use any racist rhetoric, and there’s not even any scenes of white characters treating black characters badly. Apparently the big hang-up that a lot of people have is just the way that the black characters are portrayed in the movie. I’m sorry, but I just don’t see it myself. I think the most that you can say against the movie in this regard is maybe just that the white contemporary writers didn’t fully understand the plights of the black characters at the time, but any inconsistencies were hardly due to any sort of malice. I’ve definitely seen way more offensive movies than this, and so I think the controversy behind it is a bit overblown.

Now, let’s talk about the animation. Song of the South is similar in the vein of something like Mary Poppins, where it’s a blend of live-action and animation. The sections dealing with the human characters of Johnny and Uncle Remus are live-action, while the animated sections are simply the depictions of the stories that Uncle Remus is telling about Br’er Rabbit. Because of this, the animation isn’t nearly as prevalent as you might think. I’d say it’s about 70% live action, 30% animation. I don’t consider this a knock against the movie or anything, moreso something to just keep in mind in case you only wanted to watch this for the animation.

I found that the movie actually kept a good balance between the live-action and animation. I didn’t really dread either section. With that being said, I also didn’t really LOVE much about the movie. It’s a perfectly adequate movie, but it’s not one that I’m rushing to rewatch anytime soon. I appreciate it for being a heartwarming movie, especially towards the end, but past that I just don’t think it’s anything really special. I think it’s worth checking out just to see what all of the fuss is about, but I also don’t think you’re missing out on anything great by not watching it. Song of the South is an interesting entry in the Disney catalog, and despite Disney’s wishes for us to forget that it ever happened, it’s still a pretty neat movie to check out if you get the chance to.

3/5