Disney's Most Notorious Film (19 page)

Being the first black man to receive an Academy Award (fifteen years before Poitier) complicated the otherwise-resistant reception of
Song of the South
. Baskett’s poor health had spurred Disney to promote the actor for an honorary award, which paid off a few months before his passing. Despite the promotional efforts of such journalists as the
Washington Post
columnist Nelson Bell, the
Defender
reporter Lawrence LaMar, and the famed gossip columnist Hedda Hopper,
Song of the South
was not much of an Oscar contender. Only “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” was recognized for Best Original Song. Baskett’s honorary award was a source of great pride in the African American community, an accomplishment that often existed in tension with unhappiness about the film itself. Being an Oscar winner did not necessarily grant
Song of the South
any more credibility right away. Yet it did ensure the film’s place in American history, especially within the pages of African American newspapers that otherwise had little Academy Award news to celebrate.

In 1954, only five months before
Song of the South
’s reappearance as a segment of the
Disneyland
television show, the
Defender
brought up the legacy of the film in relation to Baskett’s honorary Academy Award. Along with Hattie McDaniel’s recognition for
Gone with the Wind
, it was the only time the Oscars had recognized the work of African American performers to that point. The article took a historical approach to such landmark work, while also lamenting the continued lack of recognition for others in Academy Awards ceremonies over the years. The writer, Hilda See, argued that a fundamental lack of quality roles for African Americans was the central factor in the Oscars’ glaring absence of diversity. As with initial responses to
Song of the South
, See applauded Baskett’s performance on its own terms, and instead took issue with the larger industry. “Bias plays no part in the awarding of ‘Oscars,’ at the time of the awards,” See wrote. “If there is a bias we perfer [
sic
] to lay it at the door of the producers and directors.” She cited the casting of a white actress in the lead role of
Pinky
, a film about a woman of mixed ethnicity.
²³
Even “social consciousness” films had produced few visible opportunities for African American actors, and to that point the Academy had
recognized
only those (Baskett and McDaniel) who were showcased in anachronistic, stereotypical roles.

The passage of time may even have softened at least some of the resistance to
Song of the South
in the African American community. In April 1956, the film appeared at Chicago’s Regal Theatre, a major social center for the city’s black population, over a month after it had played in a white theater downtown.
²⁴
Song of the South
’s appearance was promoted by glowing articles in the
Defender
that expressed more interest in celebrating Baskett than in condemning Disney’s historical misrepresentation. Calling him one of “the great comic artists of our time,” the
Defender
pointed out that “he stole the show.”
²⁵
Five days later, the
Defender
again reminded viewers of the film’s appearance at the Regal: “See it. See the late comedian perform. His acting and singing must be included among the highlights of this Walt Disney production.”
²⁶
In both reviews, his work on
Amos ’n’ Andy
was as celebrated as his work in
Song of the South
. Baskett’s Oscar recognition and death created an aura around his legacy that largely overshadowed much of the resistance to
Song of the South
itself.

Such ambivalence among black communities and a lack of creativity inside the industry invariably established the conditions of possibility for the return of more troubling stereotypes. The only way Hollywood could go back to the lazy reassurance of those old stereotypes was if the United States’ larger attitude toward race relations, particularly among whites, were to change. Up to the mid-1960s, the civil rights movement was not only well organized, but also had widespread support among a fair amount of the white population. It reached its peak by 1966, after which, as McAdam shows, the coalition’s effectiveness dissipated through geographical shifts, an overcentralization of power, and strategic disagreements among the various organizations that the movement comprised. Yet the change was not due only to a decline in activist and organizational power;
Song of the South
’s return also came on the heels of a larger hostile response to decades of that same civil rights movement.

There was a “white backlash” against civil rights and urban rebellions, beginning with 1966 Republican electoral victories (including the election of Ronald Reagan as governor of California). This culminated in the election of Richard Nixon to the presidency in 1968, thanks to the “Southern strategy”—the successful plan to play on white resentment among Democrats both in the rural South and in Northern urban centers. In general, there was a significant decline in attitudes toward the importance of civil rights and social equality. In a series of Gallup
polls
taken during the 1960s and 1970s, white Americans’ support for this cause declined sharply. According to McAdam, whereas 52 percent of Americans had identified civil rights as “the most important problem” facing the United States in 1965, by early 1971 only 7 percent still felt the same way. The escalation of the Vietnam conflict was also a central factor in diverting the nation’s collective attention.
²⁷

The heightened racial sensitivity among white populations in the United States after World War II, which had successfully shamed Disney after the release of
Song of the South
, was long gone by the start of the 1970s. So it was not surprising that Uncle Remus would reappear. When
Song of the South
returned in 1972 to the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, where it had originally premiered in 1946,
Variety
quoted the theater owner as saying that “it grossed more money than any picture in any week at regular prices” there. He added that the “audiences have been ‘overwhelmingly white.’
”
²⁸
By the late 1960s, the power of the civil rights movement had waned and white support dissipated. In its wake, as Ray noted, older, racially insensitive “classics” like
Gone with the Wind
and
Song of the South
would return to considerable theatrical box office receipts.
²⁹

Somewhere between the white backlash against insurgent activism and urban riots, and the black ambivalence toward James Baskett’s legacy, there was surprisingly little critical resistance to
Song of the South
’s return in 1972. There was certainly far less than there had been twenty-six years earlier, and less than there would be in the 1980s. This was partially due to an acceptance of the old stereotypes. Amid
Song of the South
’s large box office reissue, the Black Cinema Library–Research Center in California hosted the “Black Cinema Expo ’72.” The festival’s explicit function was to bring back films from Hollywood’s past that had been shelved because of racist stereotypes and show them to new generations. According to the program’s director, Stan Myles, “While the films occasionally stretch back to the days of Uncle Tomism, it’s necessary to know what they’re about in order to progress.”
³⁰
Although
Song of the South
was not one of the titles screened, it is likely that such historical ambivalence also tempered black responses to the Disney film. A columnist for the African American newspaper
Oakland Post
, Bill Smallwood, responded to the film’s 1972 reappearance with underwhelming outrage. He offered mild skepticism to Disney’s insistence that
Song of the South
was one of its most requested titles in the vault: “Disney p.r. people say ‘Song of the South’ was never truly shelved, although mounting racial criticism did have it ‘put away.’ I remember the National Negro Congress in NY long ago picketed vigorously [in 1946] and after the film was
reissued
in 1956, it stayed in the wings since. Released again, the reason now given is ‘fans requested it.’ I sure didn’t. Did you?”
³¹
Many people in African American communities might not have been happy to see
Song of the South
reappear, but even this notice in the
Oakland Post
seemed to express annoyance more than any deep-seated resistance. It was certainly not the type of hostile criticism that would greet the next rerelease of
Song of the South
, in 1980. In 1972, the
Los Angeles Times
reporter Wayne Warga claimed that “there have—as yet—been no complaints [about the return of
Song of the South
]. It would seem the change is in the attitude of people as well as attitudes of films.” Warga went on to claim that people “know they are seeing a parody,” in which they are asked to “suspend their sense of reality and watch a Disney cartoon.”
³²
While such an argument is difficult to believe, there was not widespread controversy around the film when it finally reappeared. In any event, the popularity of
Song of the South
in 1972 was not taken seriously as symptomatic of a larger white backlash, as it would be eight years later. Then again, regardless of changing racial attitudes, without the power and influence of the Walt Disney Company behind it,
Song of the South
might never have come back at all.

THE “INTER-REFERENTIAL” DISNEY UNIVERSE

Song of the South
’s miraculous return from the dustbin of film history requires appreciating Disney’s larger history with media convergence since the very inception of the company in the 1920s. “Convergence” has become an increasingly commonplace description for various forms of media distribution and reception in the contemporary moment of new media and horizontal corporate integration. Traces and variations of it, however, have roots in the history of twentieth-century American media. Part of my goal in this chapter and throughout the book is to stress a greater awareness of how cross-media and -industry promotion developed historically, using Disney’s unique success with convergence, or synergy, as the case study. Although the current entertainment landscape is consciously designed aesthetically and legally to make such transmedia practices more desirable, there are certainly instances that go further back. Understanding how such contemporary practices may evolve in the future can benefit from looking at trends in the past. Meanwhile, more traditional film scholars and specialists in
reception
studies can profit from closer attention to issues of paratextuality, since interpretations of particular films can be as bound up in ancillary material as in the text itself.

Historically, however, it is also easy to overemphasize Disney’s industrial vision in anticipating the value of cross-promotion and transmedia exploitation. Ancillary texts such as books and records are not simply extensions of the more visible cinematic or televisual text that inspired them. They are also products of, and contributors to, the histories of their own distinctive media. As Jacob Smith has recently documented in
Spoken Word
, various LP and children’s book promoters had discovered the economic potential of combining various media for child audiences as early as 1917,
³³
decades before Disney began licensing its properties to other media companies, such as Western or Capitol. Looking in particular at the early phenomenon of the “Bubble Book,” Smith argues that other companies were quite savvy about marketing to children products that straddled the line between various media. This created a domestic and private media environment that Disney later embraced. The Bubble Books, he writes, “were the first book and record hybrids marketed to children and so represent a pioneering instance of cross-media synergy between book publishing and the record industry.”
³⁴
Smith offers a more complicated history of cross-media evolution than has thus far been presented by scholars of media convergence. The histories of many technologies, such as sound recordings, are not easily reducible to the more established accounts of developments in convergence, which stress the branching out of cinematic properties. Disney proved especially apt at identifying and exploiting the existing children’s market of products, such as read-along albums, while also anticipating how those markets would be crucial to promoting the theatrical commodities so central to its emergent media empire. I would highlight the extent to which Disney’s use of these ancillary markets was distinctly prescient in its anticipation of building a larger brand that not only solidified its own name recognition, but also worked to alter the subsequent reception of its particular titles.

As always, I am focused on the cultural impact of these paratextual developments, and on how they later reshaped audience reactions to
Song of the South
. Disney’s expansive cross-media universe does more than shift our historical consciousness in relation to studies on convergence, or problematize the traditional critical hierarchy between a full-length theatrical film and its ancillary material. These innovations and business decisions had a profound impact on how Disney and its early films were
later
perceived. They essentially washed away historical memories of initial criticisms and lukewarm box office performance. Part of this was incidental, as much of the company’s transmedia plans were motivated by the short-term need for additional revenue streams. In the beginning, most Disney films were not huge financial windfalls, especially in relation to the considerable time and money that went into making them. Nonetheless, these paratexts were powerful in their long-term material impact.

Like all feature-length films, a property such as
Song of the South
was crucial to Disney’s media empire, despite its controversial status. Films were only one part of a larger strategy toward Disney’s financial success as a multi-textual corporation. By the end of the 1950s, television and the theme park were the company’s bigger draws. Yet the feature-length films remained crucial to Disney’s larger artistic vision, as Christopher Anderson, Alan Bryman, and others have pointed out. All other convergence products reiterated and reinforced the particular brand initiated by the feature-length films—such as Jiminy Cricket and “When You Wish upon a Star” from
Pinocchio
. “Roy [Disney] had long realized the importance of inter-referential products,” writes Bryman, “and the films were very much the centre of that notion.”
³⁵
As a major theatrical release,
Song of the South
provided a deep well of recognizable songs and characters that could be endlessly repackaged.