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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

To be released?

'Song of the South' release mulled despite possible controversy Bytebear 22:29, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Error on the main page

Song of the South has definately been released on VHS and I believe Betamax as well. The tapes have since been pulled from stores by Disney in their futile attempt to bury what is quite possibly their best live action film ever. —The preceding Smokachu 11:59, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Controversy

The article should include more on the controversy over the film's content. I've tried adding info from Karl F. Cohen's book, but I couldn't, because the author has such a negative POV against Disney and Song of the South, and I didn't want the article to look biased. (209.247.22.138 04:41, 26 April 2007 (UTC))

I found it rather easy to locate a DVD of this film on the Web. I have just seen all of it. There is nothing "racist" about it in the slightest, but I'd expect liberals such as Roger Ebert to support censoring this film. Uncle Remus is depicted as the most clever, most decent, and most admirable person in the film. His dialect is minimal. I am not surprised, however, that the PC Police continue to be busy. Great film. Heart warming. Zouave44 (talk) 02:53, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Article status

I stress the importance of improving this article. Attempts should be made to rewrite and expand the article by obtaining copies of the books currently mentioned in the references and additional books that discuss the production and release of the film and of the controversy over the subject matter. There should be attempts made to get this article up to FA status. (172.129.237.224 23:54, 4 May 2007 (UTC))

Simply put, this article sucks. Put some more effort into it. It's a major classic.

65.11.137.165 23:59, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I added two links to sites with SotS for sale, but somebody removed them. What's up with this? I was trying to add to the article but it seems like here doesn't want this movie seen by anybody. 75.56.58.187 18:00, 5 July 2007 (UTC)signed 7/5/07

According to the Manual of Style, such links (links to the article in question for sale) are considered spam and are inappropriate. For example, look at an article for any book. You shouldn't see links to Amazon.com, for example, to buy the book. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 14:10, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

GA on hold

A few notes:

  • "History" needs to detail Uncle Remus a little more, explaining what the storybook was for reader reading this for the first time. Mentioning "a collection of black folktales" would suffice. Also, the quote from Disney should be converted into prose instead of quoting so much of him at length. For example, say, "Disney believed that Uncle Remus should be portrayed by a living person..." Try to limit quoting to what would be Disney's opinion, such as "...were encouraging in the way living action and animation could be dovetailed." Regular production detail doesn't need to be quoted.
  • For "Production", can it be mentioned in the prose content that filming took place in Phoenix, Arizona?
  • Can I suggest Template:Cquote for Neal Gabler's quote? Also, try to clarify that it came from him, as it's not immediately clear.
  • You should not cite IMDb's trivia section. It is user-submitted and should not be drawn upon for verifiable information. You may need to revise the sentences which are referenced to the trivia page.
  • There is also a concern with using Song of the South.net as a reference for this film article. The About page clearly reflects that this is a personal website, with the author having no credentials. It's as bad as citing GeoCities. It may be better to find out what sources that webmaster used and draw from these instead.
  • Two sections have only one subsection, which I believe is frowned upon in WP:MOS. If subsections are used under a section, there should be at least two. Try to re-organize the headings accordingly.
  • The 1986 reissue poster has insufficient fair use rationale, saying, "[It] describes the film." So can any other image, but there needs to be directly-related content, per WP:FU.
  • Is there a reason to list the international release dates? A few editors, including myself, contest them on the basis that it's indiscriminate information and gives no encyclopedic understanding of the film. Also, I assume that the release dates are drawn from IMDb, which is questionable for reliable information. (You may need to take a look at WP:CIMDB for arguments opposing IMDb.)

The article is well-rounded enough, but there are glaring issues in regard to the citation of some of the information. Is it possible to draw upon subscription databases' articles from during the film's time period? Some heavier research may need to be done for a film of this age. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 17:50, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Failed GA

Due to the above changes not being addressed within 7 days of my review, I have decided that this article fails to qualify as a Good Article. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 11:02, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

GAC review

I agree with many of the concerns addressed above. I also feel that there are many instances in which the length of the article is inadequate. The length of the history section is reasonable, but the intro for the 'production' section is very short. The list of international release dates should be removed from the "Releases and availability" section. There should be more information from the cited books added. You should also look into the books and resources that were used to put together the information on the Song of the South fansite, and use those sources as references instead of the fansite itself. I generally try not to nominate articles as GA candidates unless I think that they are ready or almost ready for FAC. If you can get the quality and length of the article to where all it would take would be maybe a slight expansion or copyediting before it can be ready for to be nominated as a Featured Article candidate, then, I think, it would be ready for a GA nomination. This article definitely has potential, but it's a long way from being ready as a GAC. (Ibaranoff24 19:23, 11 August 2007 (UTC))

Plot

Has some one noticed that the Plot text is a rather literal copyvio of this site? MoiraMoira (talk) 15:48, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Splash Mountain

I didn't see the ride Splash Mountain mentioned in this article once. Splash Mountain is one of the things that this movie is most famous for, and it seems like a crucial thing to mention in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.184.243.179 (talk) 15:44, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

It is in the article. Feel free to expand its mention. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 16:41, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Banned

Is this film banned because of racist connotations? Chimeric Glider (talk) 21:33, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

bootleg

Does the subject of bootleg copies of Song of the South qualify as encyclopedic? A foreign outfit will "sell" you their DVD, make the legal VHS backup copy for you, send you the VHS backup, and buy back the DVD to "resell" to the next customer. I have also seen a DVD with a washed-out ink jet printed slip cover identified as Made in England. In some ways, the lengths to which one must go to get a copy in the U.S. are legitimate parts of the history. Naaman Brown (talk) 18:34, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

banned?

The current version of this article (19 October 2009) refers to Song of the South as "banned" but doesn't give details. By whom is the film banned? Not being released on home video is not equivalent to "banned".Pbr2000 (talk) 22:23, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

It was just a random vandalism from a recent anonymous IP edit. I've undone it. It is in fact a feature film. -Verdatum (talk) 22:29, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Disney Movie Club

Disney reportedly will release Song of the South on Blu-Ray and DVD. 64.131.243.173 (talk) 12:07, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid most online announcements published on April 1st are subject to doubt. This looks to be no exception. -Verdatum (talk) 22:41, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
As a matter of fact, if you read through the comments, there is one saying that it was indeed an April Fools' Day joke. --McDoobAU93 (talk) 22:45, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

why are the archives of this page such an inaccessible mess?

just curious. Naaman Brown (talk) 17:43, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Good catch! It looks like it was a problem with bot-archiving. The bot archived the talk page and itself, then that bot archived the first talk page archive and itself, repeating this a couple more times. I've fixed the archives, and we do not need bot-archiving because we do not have a high level of discussion here. Erik (talk | contribs) 19:02, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Where was its premiere?

This article says that Song of the South premiered at the Loew's Theatre and the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. It is highly unlikely if not impossible that the movie premiered at both theatres. The reference cited in this article, Neal Gabler's extremely well-documented book about Walt Disney, says Loew's Theatre only, and makes no mention of the Fox Theatre. The Wikipedia article on the Loew's Grand Theatre in Atlanta does not mention SotS, but the article on the Fox Theatre makes the unsubstantiated claim that SotS premiered there.

The closest thing to a citation in the Fox Theatre article is the unreferenced statement, "According to Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Celestine Sibley, in her review of the premiere...", but I cannot find that review on the AJC's web site. Their archives oddly omit the four decades between 1945 and 1985.

Since the only citation I can find, Gabler's book, clearly states Loew's only, I'm going to remove Fox from this article and the statement about the SotS premiere from the Fox Theatre article. If someone can furnish credible evidence that Neal Gabler was wrong, please correct both articles.--Jim10701 (talk) 21:36, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Walt Disney's Uncle Remus Stories book

The text of the article says that it was in publication for at least a decade. I am in possession of a copy that bears the publisher printing date of 1980. How can I properly use this information to update the article without it being considered "original research"? Bytemaster (talk) 04:37, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

We can just remove "and was in print for at least a decade" from the paragraph. It's not critical to indicate if such a minor book (as opposed to the classics) is still in print or not. Erik (talk | contribs) 19:16, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Timeless.

There is nothing in Song of the South that might reveal whether the framing story takes place before or after the Civil War. An argument can be - and most certainly has been - made either way; however, lacking such definitive evidence in the film itself or from another, authoritative source, this question ultimately cannot be resolved and remains open to speculation. I do not presume to second-guess the perspective or intentions of the user(s) who originally wrote this section of the article, yet I cannot help but note that the majority of claims which favor the postwar Reconstruction period are made by individuals who either seek to downplay the film's more controversial aspects or flatly maintain that the film is not, by any measure, racist. A visit to the film's contentious IMDB message board reveals as much; furthermore, the author of Song of the South.net, from whence more than a third of the article's reference citations are drawn, assumes this particular stance in his "Humble Defense". That said, I am not openly declaring allegiance to any side in order to justify my actions here, nor do I judge anyone with whom I disagree to be "wrong". Like the rest of them, I, of course, have my own thoughts on the matter; however, knowing that subjective opinion has no place on WP - and that really is what any position on this issue would come down to, in the end - it is precisely from a desire to avoid instigating (or perpetuating) conflict that I was motivated to make what I believe to be a reasonable adjustment to the previously indicated time period. - Apo-kalypso (talk) 04:34, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Dutchmonkey9000 – The evidence you submit to undergird your assertion that the events of the film are set during Reconstruction is, in actuality, quite vague and therefore open to alternate interpretations – which, of course, is why Song of the South has remained controversial 65 years after its release. Furthermore, the sources you cite contain basically what amounts to fiat declarations that the film is set during the Reconstruction; just because a certain number of people – be it five or five thousand – maintain something is this instead of that does not necessarily make it so (and it is not the case that one "side" is any more authoritative, and thereby more legitimate or correct, than the other). Placing such a strong, insistent emphasis upon the "Reconstruction era" perspective – valid though it may be – ultimately assigns a negative valuation to differing viewpoints with the inevitable consequence of marginalizing dissent, if not suppressing it altogether. This unequivocally goes against (at least) one of Wikipedia's core principles. The filmmakers' intent counts for something, to be sure, and it is only appropriate to present a balanced, comprehensive discussion about it somewhere in the article, but insofar as the "plot" section is concerned, the film neither makes any specific mention nor gives any specific indication as to the time period during which its events occur. To assume and maintain a definitive stance in a manner that dismisses or disregards this fact and the ambiguity it imparts to the proceedings constitutes subjective opinion. Please be aware that I am not saying that you and your contributions are not welcome on Wikipedia in general or this article in particular, nor am I saying that you are "wrong" and I am "right" where this issue is concerned. I can see the merits and shortcomings of both positions. Aside from giving each of them fair and accurate representation in the article, I believe it is important and necessary to identify the reason why this debate exists in the first place and why it will never be completely resolved: the fact that it cannot be determined, within the context of the film itself, when the events of the film take place. – Apo-kalypso (talk) 01:24, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Apo-kalypso -
Short answer:
My edit is sourced with reliable, published sources. It does not state opinions as facts, nor are any of its facts seriously contested by a reliable, published source. Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship. Good and unbiased research, based upon the best and most reputable authoritative sources available, helps prevent NPOV disagreements. When reputable sources contradict one another and are relatively equal in prominence, both approaches are to be described. I find no reputable sources that contradict the consensus of the cited film scholars, historians and the filmmakers. Of the two cited claims that I could find maintaining that an antebellum setting was presented, both were at the film’s premiere (one by Bosley Crowther, who had seen the film; and one by Walter White, who had not seen the film) and both of these are either ignored or treated as erroneous by film scholars.
Long answer:
There are indeed several things that indicate the framing of the story takes place after the Civil War (as referenced in my edit), and there is nothing that places the story during or before that period without ignoring these things. Additionally, above you write “lacking definitive evidence … from another, authoritative source this question ultimately cannot be resolved.” Eight authoritative sources have been added to the four already listed (including the filmmakers).
You write “the majority of claims which favor the postwar Reconstruction period are made by individuals who either seek to downplay the film's more controversial aspects or flatly maintain that the film is not, by any measure, racist.” I don’t know where you get such information – I certainly don’t see any of it in the actual Wiki article. None of the sources I have cited make any such statement, and neither have I. Nor do I presume to determine what agenda these film historians have when they make statements regarding the film’s setting. In fact, several sources acknowledge the Reconstruction era setting while maintaining that the film has racist elements. A particular setting does not somehow free this film from racist overtones (or racial insensitivity) anymore than it would for any other film.
You write that my information is “quite vague” when I have given you three sources that state plainly that the film’s setting is the Reconstruction, and one source that identifies the setting as the “late nineteenth century.” Encyclopedias categorize American History epochs as “Reconstruction” (1866 to 1877) and “Late Nineteenth Century” (1877 to 1900). In fact every authoritative source I check for this film, if it mentions the setting at all, states that it is set “post-Civil War” or during the Reconstruction era (no authoritative sources that I could find reference the Antebellum era). Indeed, in this case, one “side,” as you put it (that of published historians), is more authoritative and thereby more legitimate and correct than the other (that of web bloggers and forum posters) – and that understanding is per Wiki. Certainly this factual, sourced information cannot possibly assign “a negative valuation to differing viewpoints,” regardless of what you think the “inevitable consequence” might be. If anyone wants to mention that there are those who think/thought/feel/felt the film is actually set in a different time than what these sources state, that would be an excellent item to properly source and place in the “critical response” section of the article, and I welcome their contribution!
You write “the film neither makes any specific mention nor gives any specific indication as to the time period during which its events occur.” If this is actually the case, then how does one know it is even set in the nineteenth century at all? What in the context of the film makes you certain that it is even set somewhere between 1800 and 1900? The events? Storyline? Architecture? Props? Costumes? Perhaps the source material cited in the film’s credits? If “Song of the South” “gives no specific indication as to the time period during which its events occur,” then how does one even know if it’s supposed to be 1746 or 1946? With its bizarre animated scenes, musical numbers, special effects, and “United States of Georgia” locale, then, using your logic, how does one determine from the context of the film itself that it is intended to be portraying any authentic time in actual history – a place and time where certainly most of these things portrayed are not believed to ever have happened? There are many, many films that do not explicitly state a time period or year, but the setting is made known by the events, architecture, props, costumes, and source material cited in the film's own credits, as is the case with this film. To put forth anything more or less than that is misleading and unnecessarily ambiguous. Also, I hope this response doesn't sound rude - it is not meant to be. Dutchmonkey9000 (talk) 05:38, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Gross revenue

I'm not sure if the total lifetieme gross should be listed as gross, or if it is adjusted for inflation, as long as the original budget is still the same. It would perhaps be more accurate to just list the gross from the original run, which is claimed to have been 3,3 million dollars. 84.210.60.115 (talk) 15:22, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I believe there's an error but I don't know how to fix it

Resolved
 – I can't find the wikilink to which you're referring, so I am presuming another editor has already fixed it. --McDoobAU93 16:40, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

The actor credited as playing the role of the grandfather links to a page about Mahatma Gandhi's grandson who is a social activist and was 10 years old when this movie premiered. This just has to be wrong, but I don;t know how to fix it. Perhaps someone could check into it.–––– — Preceding unsigned comment added by Makethenews (talk • contribs) 00:54, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Reconstruction era

I looked through the noted archives of the talk page and through those subheads that have yet to be archived here, but I can't immediately find an answer to this question: Why in the world are there eleven separate sources linking to the sentence stating that the film is set during Reconstruction?!? I can't believe this issue was that contentious when it appeared in the article. Can we possibly pare this down a bit and/or find other uses for these sources? --McDoobAU93 16:43, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

In the version of the film I saw there is a title card, just after the credits, that identifies the film as coming "out of the singing heart of the Old South". The "Old South" is almost universally understood as the antebellum South. It does not say "old South" and it is a clearly a proper name. No argument need be constructed to assume this is literally true, and that the film takes place in the antebellum South. This article rather casually states it takes place in the "deep South", which would seem, given that the films states it is the "Old South", like a little fudging to help one's argument.
Also, Uncle Remus could have been a manumitted slave, in which case he would have been free to leave the plantation, shouldn't that be at least mentioned as a possibility ? Also, I am curious how we know the black people in the film are sharecroppers, not slaves ? IF the film had been set categorically in the Old South, I doubt we would have seen overseers with whips, rather a kinder, gentler slavery.
Neither Hollywood, nor Disney, have been particularly scrupulous about rigorous adaptions of the books they base their films on. Whenever Harris set the telling of the stories in the book, in the film, at least, we know (per the carriage ride to the plantation in the beginning) that Uncle R had been around telling those stories to Johnny's father when he was Johnny's age, and it sure sounds like the same old plantation. It would be quite a stretch to imagine that Johnny's father heard those stories when he was Johnny's age during the Reconstruction Era, and that it was STILL, the Reconstruction Era we are seeing in the film.
I think the arguments as to the indirect internal evidence of the films setting are remarkably weak and one-sided, particularly since there is direct evidence that it is indeed the antebellum Old South in question.
Thank you for your attention. 108.27.121.148 (talk) 17:59, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
"Old South" is a vague term with multiple meanings, so if that's the sole basis for this tortured bit of argumentation, then I'm afraid you are proceding from a faulty assumption. All evidence suggests that the intended setting is the Reconstruction era, but that it is historically very inaccurate. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 13:35, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

James Baskett's Oscar® not mentioned in Wiki SOTS article.

The sentence below, from the article on James Baskett, ought to be included or referenced in the first paragraph of the SOTS article. The Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Oscar reference is included but not Baskett's.

"James Baskett (February 16, 1904 – July 9, 1948) was an American actor known for his portrayal of Uncle Remus, singing the song "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" in the 1946 Disney feature film Song of the South. In recognition of his warm portrayal of the famous black storyteller he was given an Honorary Academy Award,[1] making him the very first male performer of African descent to receive an Oscar.[2][3]" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.108.51.244 (talk) 15:43, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

It is a disgrace that Disney will not release this classic. The first black actor to receive an Academy Award has been hidden from the younger generation. The last time James Baskett was seen on TV acting in this classic was 1974. It has not been shown from that point on. Disney is so afraid of losing black peoples money they will never show it again. So sad a great black actor is kept hidden at the back of the bus.

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