Here’s a piece of history for you - we have a racist past. Watch movies that were filmed prior to the civil rights movement and you’ll see a very different portrayal of African Americans on film. It shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, it’s history, but some studios would rather that history not be around as a grim reminder of our past. You know, because erasing history means we don’t have to acknowledge we were once ignorant, small people.
The Walt Disney Company is a particularly guilty party when it comes to this sort of revisionist thinking. That’s why one of their most beloved classics, which has its own ride at Walt Disney World, The Song of the South, still isn’t available on DVD (and may not be, since Disney chair Bob Iger flip-flops on the topic with nearly every calendar year). The movie is guilty of incredibly stereotyped portrayals of African Americans, and Iger would rather not put that back out in the world, regardless of the opportunities having that piece of film history out there would offer.
It turns out Song of the South isn’t the only part of the Disney catalog that has been withdrawn for its racist overtones. Over at the blog Sodahead, Peter Griffin is reminiscing about an element of Disney’s Fantasia that could easily exist in his memory. After all, the scene - showing a female black centaur servicing the other white centaurs - was disavowed by Disney, and suggestions that Fantasia was altered to remove the character were denied. Nevermind, the character even has a name and, after a little bit of research, this clip with the black centaur, named Sunflower, was found.
So, thanks to Sodahead, here’s a character in a Disney movie, that according to the official story never existed. Heads up Disney - film doesn’t forget. Stop denying the past, embrace and accept we were all once morons, and help bridge the way to the future by figuring out how to make those pieces of cinematic history a lesson to learn from instead of something you’d rather forget.
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People today are crybabies!! I didn't see anything wrong with that scene at all, and I'm as anti-racist as they come!!! I even saw a scene banned from Aladdin, and it wasn't even half as bad as other things I have seen!! Believe me, if they won't ban Spongebob (who shows buns underneath his pants that shouldn't be there) they have no business banning this scene from Fantasia. It's NOT moronic, nor is it small-minded!! In fact, I believe it shows great equality, much like putting African-Americans in a lot of remakes of old movies today that didn't have them in the original versions.
It's like damned if you do, damned if you don't. The crybabies would have been whining if that movie contained absolutely NO African-Americans, and they whine now that it does.
I honestly can't say I'm surprised. When I went to my local library one day searching for a biography of Walt Disney all I found was one official DVD biography. I suspect this wasn't because no one had tried.
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November 28, 2008 at 22:18
November 27, 2008 at 23:16
November 27, 2008 at 15:07