Disney’s Most Notorious Film: Race, Convergence, and the Hidden Histories of Song of the South

295 Pages·2012·17.66 MB·English

by  Jason Sperb

Disney’s Most Notorious Film
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Disney’s Most
Notorious Film
Race, Convergence, and
the Hidden Histories of
Song of the South
By Jason Sperb
University of Texas Press
Austin
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Copyright © 2012 by the University of Texas Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First edition, 2012
A version of chapter 6 fi rst appeared as “Reassuring Convergence:
Online Fandom, Race, and Disney’s Notorious Song of the South
(1946),” Cinema Journal 49.4 (2010): 25– 45.
Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work
should be sent to:
Permissions
University of Texas Press
P.O. Box 7819
Austin, TX 78713-7819
www.utexas.edu/utpress/about/bpermission.html
○∞ The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements
of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sperb, Jason, 1978–
Disney’s most notorious fi lm : race, convergence, and the
hidden histories of Song of the South / by Jason Sperb. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-292-73974-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Song of the South (Motion picture) 2. Walt Disney
Productions. 3. Race relations in motion pictures. 4. African
Americans in motion pictures. 5. Stereotypes (Social psychol-
ogy) in motion pictures. 6. Motion picture audiences—United
States. 7. Convergence (Telecommunication) I. Title.
PN1997.S63337S64 2012
791.43′6552—dc23 2012025848
doi: 10.7560/739741
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For Melina
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Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
One Conditions of Possibility: The Disney Studios,
Postwar “Thermidor,” and the Ambivalent Origins of
Song of the South 37
Two “Put Down the Mint Julep, Mr. Disney”: Postwar Racial
Consciousness and Disney’s Critical Legacy in the
1946 Reception of Song of the South 62
Three “Our Most Requested Movie”: Media Convergence,
Black Ambivalence, and the Reconstruction of
Song of the South 86
Four A Past That Never Existed: Coonskin, Post-racial
Whiteness, and Rewriting History in the Era
of Reaganism 124
Five On Tar Babies and Honey Pots: Splash Mountain,
“Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” and the Transmedia Dissipation
of Song of the South 158
Six Reassuring Convergence: New Media, Nostalgia,
and the Internet Fandom of Song of the South 200
Conclusion: On Rereleasing Song of the South 227
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viii Disney’s Most Notorious Film
Appendix. Timeline for Song of the South and Its
Paratexts 235
Notes 239
Selected Bibliography 261
Index 269
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Preface
This book is dedicated to understanding the lost ideals,
disturbing truths, and hard facts underlying the histories of Disney’s
most notorious fi lm. I wish to state upfront that I empathize with the
more skeptical, even resistant, Disney fan. In many ways, I was a mem-
ber of the company’s key demographic. Raised by television, I was a child
of the Reagan ’80s, when the company most emphatically cemented its
retrospective status as both a unique brand and a tradition of family en-
tertainment. I am a white, middle-class American who grew up in the
suburbs in the wake of “white fl ight” from major cities in the 1970s. I was
also one of countless people who were themselves the product of a “Dis-
ney household.” A key factor to the company’s long-term business success
is that parents are “encouraged” to raise their own children on all things
Disney and to instill in their offspring the desire to raise their own kids
in the same reassuring environment (i.e., buy recognizable stuff and get
your kids to do likewise). Disney’s phenomenal, largely self-generating,
success in historical terms is really that simple—the plan to sell genera-
tional experiences, or more precisely, to sell the always already nostalgic
experience of being a member of a particular kind of generation. This
is not the only prospective audience for the company, but the one most
conducive to the Disney brand today.
Growing up, I was constantly brought along on a preprogrammed
journey for my parents’ own commodifi ed nostalgia. In that environ-
ment, I was initiated into a longing for a time I never experienced fi rst-
hand (and, as a new father myself, I can now understand the appeal of
that thoroughly selfi sh impulse). I remember hearing about how my par-
ents’ fi rst date was to a Disney movie. I remember seeing Snow White and
other rereleased “classic” fi lms in theaters when I was young—in the era,
before home video, when Disney still recycled their old fi lms theatrically
for every new generation of children. I remember the yearly pilgrimages
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