Disney's Most Notorious Film (46 page)

38
. Ray,
Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema
.

39
. “Folksy Perennial, Disney’s ‘Pinocchio’ May Take $5,000,000 on 4th Reissue,”
Variety
(29 September 1971), 4.

40
. Earl Hutchinson, “Disney Sings Dollars and Racism with
Song of the South
,”
Miami Times
(22 May 2007), 3A.

41
. Douglas Gomery, “Disney’s Business History: A Reinterpretation,” in
Disney Discourse: Producing the Magic Kingdom
, ed. Eric Smoodin (New York: Routledge, 1994), 73.

42
. “Mickey’s Sideliner,”
Variety
(17 August 1938), 31.

43
. Gene Siskel, “Disney Film Profits Soar—Aided by Hippies Who Show Up Stoned,”
Chicago Tribune
(8 February 1970), G6. As his headline suggests, Siskel believed that not every successful Disney film, such as the 1969 rerelease of
Fantasia
, benefited as the result of family audiences or nostalgia.

44
. Gomery, “Disney’s Business History,” 74.

45
. Schickel,
Disney Version
, 21.

46
. Ibid., 18–19.

47
. Anderson,
Hollywood TV
, 146.

48
. Wade Sampson, “Disney’s B’rer Rabbit Hops into the Funny Pages,”
Mouse Planet
(17 January 2008), accessed 6 November 2008,
http://www.mouseplanet.com/articles.php?art=ww080117ws
.

49
. Leonard Marcus,
Golden Legacy: How Golden Books Won Children’s Hearts, Changed Publishing Forever, and Became an American Icon Along the Way
(New York: Golden Books, 2007), 12.

50
. “Timeline,”
Little Golden Books
(nd), accessed 26 September 2009,
http://www.randomhouse.com/golden/lgb/timeline.html
.

51
. Anderson,
Hollywood TV
, 141.

52
. Ibid., 134.

53
. As quoted in J. P. Telotte,
Disney TV
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004), 65. I have been unable to obtain a copy of the episode myself.

54
. According to Leonard Maltin,
The Disney Films
, 1st ed. (New York: Crown, 1973), 293.

55
. Anderson,
Hollywood TV
, 143.

56
. Ibid., 147.

57
. Jason Mittell,
Genre and Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture
(New York: Routledge, 2005), 64.

58
. Smith,
Spoken Word
, 14.

59
. Marcus,
Golden Legacy
, 239n16.

60
. For more information, see J. P. Telotte,
The Mouse Machine: Disney and Technology
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008); and Neal Gabler,
Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination
(New York: Knopf, 2006).

61
. Marcus,
Golden Legacy
, 156.

62
. Martin, “The Wonderful, Lovable, Universal, Wholesome World of Walt Disney,”
Washington Post
(15 July 1973), L4.

63
. “An Absolute Favorite of My Child and Me,”
Amazon
(31 March 1999), accessed 23 September 2009,
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2A1OO3NML9MGQ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
. Given the time frame, the author is assuredly referring to one of the rereleases of
Song of the South
, probably in the 1980s.

64
. “Isn’t It Ironic . . . ,”
Amazon
(25 July 2001), accessed 23 September 2009,
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1WS5H0R111ANZ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
.

65
. “Great Movie, but We Need to Know All the Issues,”
Amazon
(2 May 2003), accessed 23 September 2009,
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1D0SOI1L9QME3/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
.

66
. “Excellent Family Fare,”
IMDb
(12 December 2006), accessed 23 September 2009,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038969/usercomments?start=60
.

67
. “Song of the South,”
Amazon
(6 January 2002), accessed 23 September 2009,
http://www.amazon.com/review/R10ELLG152W5CN/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
.

68
. “Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby,”
Disneyland Records Blog
(4 April 2009), accessed 23 September 2009,
http://disneylandrecords.blogspot.com/2009/04/brer-rabbit-and-tar-baby.html
.

69
. “Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby,”
weRead
(18 February 2008), accessed 23 September 2009,
http://weread.com/reviews/B000EAPYZC/Brer+Rabbit+and+the+Tar+Baby+%28Walt+Disney+Presents+24+Page+Read-Along+Book+and+Record%29/FBK-B000EAPYZC_-1/English
.

70
. “An Outstanding Story That Is Timeless,”
Amazon
(30 July 1999), accessed 23 September 2009,
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1V1R2XER5E1IM/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
.

71
. “A Triumph of Southern Storytelling,”
Amazon
(10 April 2000), accessed 23 September 2009,
http://www.amazon.com/review/R16ELNEVMG0X6I/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
.

72
. “Hauled This out of My Closet . . . ,”
Amazon
(10 November 2000), accessed 23 September 2009,
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2XJEKCC25AN38/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
.

73
. Ibid.

74
. “Book in Good Condition Considering Age of Issue,”
Amazon
(24 August 2009), accessed 23 September 2009,
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3RCOPPELZGLRQ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
.

75
. “Great Seller,”
Amazon
(24 August 2009), accessed 23 September 2009,
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3AIQNLMQIBXIH/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
.

76
. “Isn’t It Ironic . . .”

77
. Quoted in “Live-Cartoon ‘South’ in Big Comeback,”
Variety
(2 February 1972), 7.

78
. Martin, “The Wonderful, Lovable, Universal, Wholesome World of Walt Disney,” L4.

79
. Joy Gould Boyum, “Do Today’s Kids Really Like Snow White?,”
Wall Street Journal
(27 July 1973), 8.

80
. Ibid.

81
. Ibid.

82
. Frank McConnell,
The Spoken Seen: Film and the Romantic Imagination
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 17.

83
. Gene Siskel, “The Movies:
Song of the South
,”
Chicago Tribune
(24 January 1972), B14.

84
. Wise, “Disney Shelves Big Coin Film,” 20.

85
. Ibid., 7.

86
. Quoted in Larsen, “
Song of the South
Resurrected, Too Late for Bobby,” V14.

87
. Ibid.

88
. Siskel, “The Movies:
Song of the South
,” B14.

89
. Larsen, “
Song of the South
Resurrected, Too Late for Bobby,” V14.

90
. “Inside Stuff—Pictures,”
Variety
(19 January 1972), 32.

CHAPTER 4

1
. Herman Gray,
Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004), 22.

2
. As quoted in Michael Wallace, “Mickey Mouse History: Portraying the Past at Disney World,”
Radical History Review
32 (March 1985): 35.

3
. Wallace, “Mickey Mouse History,” 52.

4
. Ibid.

5
. Susan Jeffords,
Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era
(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993), 6. Jeffords here engages with the work of George Mosse.

6
. Gray,
Watching Race
, 17–18.

7
. Ed Guerrero,
Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), 113.

8
. Quoted in Lou Cannon, “GOP: A New
Song of the South
,”
Washington Post
(31 December 1974), A10.

9
. Gray,
Watching Race
, 16.

10
. Guerrero,
Framing Blackness
, 69.

11
. The same sensitivity to this demographic, ironically, had also been a central reason why
Song of the South
stayed out of circulation as long as it had.

12
. Guerrero,
Framing Blackness
, 70–71.

13
. Michael Gillespie, “Significations of Blackness: American Cinema and the Idea of a Black Film” (PhD diss., New York University, 2007), 27.

14
. Using research left over from the current project, I am presently finishing
an
article that looks more closely at
Coonskin
’s reception during 1974 and 1975, tentatively titled, “Brer Rabbit with a Switchblade: Blaxploitation, the Politics of Representation, and the Reception of Ralph Bakshi’s
Coonskin
.” It is scheduled to appear in a forthcoming collection of essays on the legacy of Bakshi’s film.

15
. Kevin Thomas, “Movies,”
Los Angeles Times
(3 June 1973), Q73.

16
. Joseph M. Bloom, “Cheaper ‘Adult’ Films,”
Los Angeles Times
(17 February 1972), D6. One cannot help but wonder how Bloom came to know the cost of admission to X-rated films.

17
. Guerrero,
Framing Blackness
, 104.

18
. Ibid., 83–84.

19
. Arthur Cooper, “Color It Black,”
Newsweek
(18 August 1975), 73.

20
. Leonard Maltin,
The Disney Films
, 2nd ed. (New York: Crown, 1984), 78. I argue that Maltin’s book represents an industry point of view of
Song of the South
because of Maltin’s close ties to the Walt Disney Corporation. While
Disney Films
was not an official Disney product, Maltin himself would eventually align himself professionally with the studio. Maltin begins the book by describing himself as follows: “Once upon a time there was a writer who wanted to do a list of Walt Disney’s films. . . . He dreamed of expanding the list into a book-length study of Disney films” (vii). Needing access to the company archives, Maltin himself admits in the book’s preface that “obviously, this book could not have been done without the cooperation of the Walt Disney organization” (viii), suggesting that he consciously crafted a Disney-friendly, perhaps even Disney-influenced, perception of the films, including
Song of the South
.

21
. Leonard Maltin,
The Disney Films
, 1st ed. (New York: Crown, 1973), 78. The organization of Maltin’s discussion of the film mirrors Douglas Brode’s discussion of the same subject matter thirty years later in
Multiculturalism and the Mouse
, down to some of the same critics and quotations. This suggests that Maltin’s popular coffee table book may have been the extent of Brode’s problematic historical research in defense of the film—doubly ironic, given that Maltin’s sources included quoting a Disney spokesperson who was quoting an African American film reviewer, the
Pittsburgh Courier
’s Herman Hill, from 1946.

22
. Maltin,
Disney Films
, 1st ed., 78.

23
. Ibid. (emphasis mine).

24
. Maltin,
Disney Films
, 2nd ed., 78 (emphasis mine).

25
. Tom Shales, “Blacks in Movies: Seeking the Human Dimension,”
Washington Post
(10 September 1975), B4.

26
. Ibid.

27
. Ibid. Shales did not mention which “black celebrities” did not find the notorious
Amos ’n’ Andy
offensive.

28
. Ibid.

29
. Maltin,
Disney Films
, 2nd ed., 78.

30
. Haynes Johnson, “Eyes Shut, Clock Unwound, Seeking Shelter in Shades of the Past,”
Washington Post
(30 November 1980), A3.

31
. Richard Dyer,
White: Essays on Race and Culture
(New York: Routledge, 1997), 2.

32
. Jason Sperb, “Islands of Detroit/Affect, Nostalgia and Whiteness,”
Culture, Theory and Critique
49.2 (2008): 183–201.

33
. Ibid., 198.

34
. Ed Pearl, “
Song of the South
Wrap-Up,”
Venice Beachhead
135 (March 1981), accessed 27 May 2008,
http://www.virtualvenice.info/print/bhinstitutions.htm
.

35
. “Letters to the Editor:
Song of the South
Debasement of Blacks,”
Los Angeles Times
(10 January 1981), B4.

36
. Ibid.

37
. David C. Phillips, “Does Affirmative Action Work?,”
Los Angeles Times
(15 January 1981), A14.

38
. Ibid.

39
. Johnson, “Eyes Shut, Clock Unwound,” A3.

40
. Ibid.

41
. “Fox Features Fascist Flick,”
Venice Beachhead
134 (February 1981), accessed 27 May 2008,
http://www.virtualvenice.info/print/bhinstitutions.htm
.

42
. Ibid.

43
. Apparently, according to an insert titled “Racist Film Withdrawn! Community Celebrates!,” however, the Fox Theatre withdrew
Song of the South
as a result of complaints even before the issue of the
Venice Beachhead
hit newsstands. (The controversial film was replaced by another reissued Disney film,
Lady and the Tramp
.)

44
. “Fox Features Fascist Flick.”

45
. Pearl, “
Song of the South
Wrap-Up.”

46
. Ibid.

47
. “Letter to the Editor,”
Venice Beachhead
135 (March 1981), accessed 27 May 2008,
http://www.virtualvenice.info/print/bhinstitutions.htm
.

48
. “Fox Features Fascist Flick.”

49
. “Letter to the Editor.”

50
. Thomas Pleasure, “
Song of the South
: A Fascist Film?,”
Los Angeles Times
(2 August 1981), L46. It is unclear here exactly what or whom he is citing, as the quoted phrases “racist to the core” and “natives” do not appear anywhere in the relevant
Beachhead
articles. Possibly he was citing the pamphlets that the group (which he incorrectly labels the “Coalition Against Racism”) distributed in front of the Fox Theatre at the
Song of the South
protest.