4 ms·
More disturbing is the refusal to make available movies that were incredibly significant culturally at the time of release but are now considered "offensive" to
by fallous 11y ago
More disturbing is the refusal to make available movies that were incredibly significant culturally at the time of release but are now considered "offensive" to modern sensibilities. Disney's Song of the South is a prime example, despite the fact that James Baskett was awarded an Oscar for his portrayal of Uncle Remus... the first black man to receive an Oscar and only the second black person to do so (Hattie McDaniel won in 1939 for her portrayal of Mammy in Gone With the Wind.)
Try and encounter someone who doesn't know the song "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah", then ask them the origin. Most people under 30 have never seen the movie, and those that have did so using unauthorized sources.
- vijayr 11y agoSomewhat similar is the behavior of families of famous personalities after their demise - MLK's famous speech is still private property a full 50 years later. Same with George Orwell's family aggressively going after people using the number "1984" and so on
- jmspring 11y agoWhile not significant in any particular way, we've seen a number of cartoons and television shows taken out of circulation/no longer available because of differing degrees of offense -- Duke of Hazard being a recent one; the old WW2 Bugs Bunny cartoons being another.
- fallous 11y agoYes, the Warner Bros WW2 cartoons (as well as some others deemed offensive) as well as some Disney shorts have been sent down the memory hole. Additionally, I remember when Cartoon Network, amongst others, began editing Coyote/Roadrunner cartoons to remove guns, explosives, etc. Also, Spielberg's re-edit of E.T. to remove the guns from all the government agents, replacing them with cellphones.
- jmspring 11y agoI understand not publicly showing things on broadcast media, but taking them completely out of circulation or revisionist edits without making the originals available is problematic. For me it is the same as the wanton edits Lucas has made on the Star Wars movies, etc.
- racl101 11y agoAnd yet we can see a small movie about a former POTUS getting his brains blown out in public in all its wantonness. Society is weird. We can't see a nipple on TV but we can watch people get stupid drunk or gunned down.
- stordoff 11y agoIt's not ideal, but at least the VHS release of Song of the South is fairly easy to find in the UK. I had it as kid (I'm 25 FWIW) and there are plenty of copies for sale on Amazon. It doesn't help that some people are very quick to claim something is offensive to them / a category of people, and can rather vocal about it, even if the thing in question is totally inoffensive (for example, I saw a forum thread this morning claiming that using 'niggles' to describe minor hardware issues was a 'borderline racist' term).
- Phemist 11y agoSong of the South seems to be available on youtube? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BtjW7PW2z0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BtjW7PW2z0
- erikpukinskis 11y agoNow blocked.