Disney's Most Notorious Film (38 page)

The idea of Disney “fandom”—of a particular section of media audiences mobilized by an intensified level of devotion to the text—becomes especially relevant as we move into the modern era of digital convergence. As
chapter 3
suggested,
Song of the South
fans have no doubt existed as long as the film itself, just as the long-running Disneyana Fan Club has existed in various guises since the 1960s. But the fans’ role in relation to
Song of the South
becomes especially acute with the Internet, which allows greater forms of access and formal organization. Many scholars, such as Sara Gwenllian-Jones, have noted that “fandom itself has become a mainstream activity online.”
⁷
In this case, fans of the old Uncle Remus film, and those of Disney in general, most clearly work to ensure its continued visibility long after the company has pulled it (perhaps) for good.

Disney fans can often problematize “critical utopian”
⁸
notions of online audience communities. Traditionally, Internet fandom is articulated as an untapped pool of democratic aspiration and collectively shared knowledge. Yet the Disney fan who rails against the “PC police,” for instance, serves as an ironic deviation from the usually inclusive connotations associated with participatory culture. In his book
Convergence Culture
, Henry Jenkins articulates a form of Internet fandom that “reject[s] the idea of a definitive version produced, authorized, and regulated by some media conglomerate [to instead] envision a world where
all of us
can participate in the creation and circulation of central cultural myths.”
⁹
Looking at everyone from followers of the
Survivor
reality television show,
The Matrix
transmedia empire, and the
Harry Potter
books, Jenkins explores a wide range of case studies where fans work together. They build bases of knowledge that enhance their understanding of these respective franchises, to build a utopian world “where knowledge
is
shared and where critical activity is ongoing and lifelong.”
¹⁰
The fan is the hero of the
Convergence Culture
narrative, forcing media producers to maintain a more complicated attitude toward intellectual property consumption. To a point, this matches the
Song of the South
fans who reject Disney’s official position on the film.

There is less clearly defined space for a notion of fan behavior predicated on willful ignorance or resistance. I do not refer here to Jonathan Gray’s idea of “anti-fans,” those who define themselves in relation to that which they hate.
¹¹
Nor do I refer to “critics” of a text who take issue with its form or content. Rather, I mean those who are motivated first and foremost by a love of particular media texts. This is not to argue for a kind of “critical pessimism”
¹²
either. Instead, the Internet suggests the need for a continuing emphasis on a kind of audience ambivalence for which the case studies in
Convergence Culture
do not sufficiently account. For example, in the chapter on
Harry Potter
, Jenkins makes a problematic distinction between “traditional gatekeepers” who “seek to hold onto their control of cultural content”
¹³
(particularly the books’ religious and generally conservative critics), and “fans”—those who wish to use the possibilities of participatory culture to challenge such entrenched biases. Implicitly, “fans” champion knowledge while “critics” restrict it. Many fans, such as those of Disney, work passionately to defend the conservative ideologies of media, though not necessarily those of the corporations or authors themselves.

The most utopian aspect of new media may ultimately be in its ability to reveal
dystopian
impulses—to allow us to see the
unsightly
. When looking at online racism in the “virtual [Old] South,” Tara McPherson previously explored the many nostalgic websites that celebrate a conservative, often racist vision of Southern “heritage.”
¹⁴
These sites challenge optimistic discourses that otherwise emphasize identity play in the age of new media. Far from a post-racial utopia, material on the Internet consistently reiterates the ways racism is alive and well, and much more rampant than many will admit. When thinking about how people discuss racism online, users do not just “pretend” to be someone else. Rather, the veil of anonymity creates possibilities for a “true” self to step forward. Fandom is no exception.

Many defenders of
Song of the South
shun and attack those who would suggest expanding the base of knowledge regarding the film’s history. While they do not always support Disney the corporation, fans sometimes do support the idea of Walt himself. They often embrace a vision of the central (father) figure who produced a version of
Song of
the
South
that is not racist, but simply “a product of its time.” Or, as one writer posted on
Topix.net
in early 2007, “I am sick and tired of these liberal idiots who are [criticizing the film and] attempting to rewrite our history because of their own insecurities.” Similarly, another added, “I’m so tired of the pc crowd and their single minded agenda foisted on all of us.” These passages foreground active resistance to alternate ways of reading a conservative film such as
Song of the South
.

Instead of embracing collective information sharing, the mind-set of many Disney fans is more complicated. They may more closely align with the Judy Garland fans online who, according to Steve Cohan, “repudiat[e] the dominant reading of her gay associations kept in circulation by the media.”
¹⁵
The Garland fans discussed in that essay are not as hostile as are
Song of the South
fans toward the “dominant reading,” nor as verbally abusive toward people who disagree with them. Yet both groups share a common link in opposition to notions of inclusive, collaborative fandom. Put beside the results of Cohan’s research, this trend among fans is more common than Jenkins’s groundbreaking work adequately foregrounds. Any discussion of fandom is certainly complex, and we can explore further the Disney fan’s negotiation with race in our current moment of convergence.

Disney fans, even defenders of
Song of the South
, are not
automatically
reactionary or in any way simplistically interchangeable. As Janet Wasko argues, “Responses to Disney are certainly not automatic and mechanical, or universal and ubiquitous, but complex, somewhat diverse, and often contradictory.”
¹⁶
Instead, I seek to articulate a consistent pattern in the last ten years wherein many fans online often aggressively resist any political readings of the text and its complicated histories. Like many cult texts, the case of
Song of the South
’s Internet fandom mobilizes several interdependent, but still separate, issues: the right to access (obtaining copies of the film) and the accompanying question of legitimacy; the question of the film’s racist textual representations; the larger resistance to “collective knowledge” in the digital era that such interpretative debates raise; and defending the legacy and moral character of the Disney company and Walt Disney himself. These are related issues, but they are not synonymous, and no one fan addresses or easily embodies all of them.

Even for a film as widely regarded as problematic as
Song of the South
, with a relatively small but passionate fan base, we cannot regard all fan behavior as monolithic. For example, some fans concede that the film may have offensive elements, but they still wish to see it released. At
the
same time, we cannot presume that audiences are automatically defending Disney’s canonical or corporate authority, regardless of how they personally interpret the representation of race. Studies on “slash” fiction, for instance, have suggested that fans who offer what may be viewed traditionally as “resistant” readings of a primary text (such as Kirk and Spock’s hidden homosexual relationship) are not so much undermining the original creator’s authority as they are offering what Gwenllian-Jones called the “actualization” of otherwise-implicit elements already concealed in the text.
¹⁷

There is no simple binary between “Disney” as auteur and fans’ rights, as differences remain between notions of corporate authority, authorship, and restrictive and expansive fandom. An audience member could embrace or reject charges of racism with equal contempt for the Disney company as it exists today. Fans can draw a wedge between what they see as Walt’s original vision in the 1946 film, and the corporation’s desire today to be “politically correct” by self-censoring that same authorial dream. Meanwhile, fans who attempt to control interpretation do not necessarily privilege the rights of corporate ownership. This contradiction is seen perhaps most explicitly in their willingness to circulate illegal versions of the movie.

Affect and nostalgia are also crucial components in understanding Disney fandom. The question of what gets defended by fans, and why, is problematized by powerful feelings of affection regarding culturally difficult texts. In the most theoretically informed discussion on the relation between affect and fan studies, Matt Hills noted, “Without the emotional attachments and passions of fans, fan cultures would not exist, but fans and academics often take these [affective] attachments for granted.”
¹⁸
These attachments become especially crucial when dealing with politically charged texts. Such enthusiasm is undiminished by legitimate charges of racial and sexual insensitivity. It is too easy to argue that Disney fans are inherently conservative politically, or are merely duped by the narrative. Moreover, it would be dangerous to discount the powers of pleasure at work. Affective and cognitive approaches to Disney films are not easily reducible.

This chapter seeks to document the hows and the whys of
Song of the South
’s presence online today, with particular attention to fandom and nostalgia. A significant part of this requires being mindful of overtly conservative fandom within the contradictory workings of convergence culture. It also stresses the complex emotional reasons behind such defenses—remaining attentive to deep affective attachments that motivate
reactions
to the political. While such devotion does not excuse a particular film, it does point toward great complexities involved when fans overtly attempt to negotiate a text’s political ideology. There is room for a more nuanced position on what fans say online, and why, in relation to overt media representations of race. By looking more closely at Disney Internet fandom in the wake of
Song of the South
’s absence, we can begin to articulate an alternate space for how affect, nostalgia, and convergence intersect with the
political
in a way thus far underexplored by fan studies.

THE PERSISTENCE OF WHITENESS

The Reaganist “evasive whiteness” I articulated at length in the fourth chapter increasingly frames discussions of
Song of the South
today. A 2003 article in the
Los Angeles Times
, “Should ‘Dated’ Films See the Light of Today?,” proved particularly illuminating. It framed the larger controversy around the film in such a way as to both highlight questions of race and evade the centrality of whiteness in the discussion. People interviewed in the article did not simply argue that
Song of the South
’s perceived entertainment value overrode issues of racism, as Leonard Maltin had in the 1970s and 1980s (although he was still doing that as well).
¹⁹
Instead, some were now taking the exact opposite approach—highlighting its perceived racial value, filtered through the specific language of tradition and heritage. Clarence Page, a writer for the
Chicago Tribune
, said that, “to quote Bill Cosby, so much black history has been lost, stolen or strayed. . . . There’s a deep African American tradition in ‘
Song of the South
.’ Brer Rabbit is an emblematic figure of African folklore, a direct descendent of the trickster who gets by on his wits.”
²⁰
Page’s assessment of the film’s origins was essentially accurate, but an important distinction was marginalized. Numerous scholars have already noted that much of the qualities Page describes are tied to Joel Chandler Harris’s original literary work—as much
despite
the Disney version as because of it.

This
Los Angeles Times
article advocated for the rerelease of the film by refuting what few objections it notes, and quoting sympathetically the many people—old and young—who wished to see
Song of the South
again. The article relies on a considerable range of sources: Maltin, repeating much of his “color-blind” rhetoric left over from
The Disney Films
; Disney’s daughter, Diane Miller; the
Song of the South
actress
Ruth
Warrick; Christian Willis, a prominent
Song of the South
fan, who started the
SongoftheSouth.net
website and an online petition to have the film rereleased; and the University of Southern California film professor Todd Boyd. Willis’s nostalgia is especially acute. He saw the film as a six-year old during the film’s final theatrical rerelease in 1986, “and calls it a ‘cherished childhood memory.’
” Many fans of the film today recalled seeing it for the first time as children in the 1950s. Yet such nostalgia had already overtaken Willis and other members of this younger generation (such as James McKimson, founder of
UncleRemusPages.com
). The film’s star, Warrick, was quoted as saying that “I think I could talk [Walt] into releasing it.” Maltin says simply that “I hope [the film] has a chance to come out again and find a new audience. It would have to be done responsibly. I hope it comes to pass.”
²¹

More troubling in the article was its negotiations of the opinions of African Americans regarding
Song of the South
, in contrast to the many white people also quoted. With the exception of Boyd, all the other individuals interviewed passionately defended the film, advocating for its rerelease. As the lone dissenter on
Song of the South
, Boyd was quoted as saying, “It was a very racist film. . . . The character of Uncle Remus is a throwback. He affirms every negative and demeaning stereotype from slavery about Southern black men being happy-go-lucky, passive, carefree and non-threatening.”
²²
Boyd is explicitly framed as an academic—a move intended to marginalize his voice as much as lend credibility to it. His use of the past tense (“It
was
a very racist film”) emphasizes how
Song of the South
was something from the past, something to
remain in
the past. But what is most interesting here is that the author explicitly mentions how Boyd and Page are both African American. Yet the article never once notes that everyone else quoted (Maltin, Willis, Warrick, and so forth) is white. The article assumes that Page and Boyd’s racial background plays a role in their interpretation of
Song of the South
, though they have opposite opinions, but never considers that whiteness—the invisibility of whiteness—also plays a significant role in everyone else’s reading of the film.