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Authors: Jason Sperb
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on the heels of the white backlash,
Song of the South
was suddenly Disney’s biggest box office rerelease to that point.
Yet, as the film began to endure past its initial shelf life, this reemergence was also met with criticism and satire. Chapter 4 , “A Past That Never Existed:
Coonskin
, Post-racial Whiteness, and Rewriting History in the Era of Reaganism,” more closely examines the political climate underlying
Song of the South
’s sudden popularity in the new anti–civil rights era of the 1970s and 1980s. The Disney film’s sudden appeal was deeply rooted in a conservative desire to undermine the political and cultural gains made by African Americans in the preceding three decades. Exploring a range of texts from the period, this chapter documents how both critics and supporters of
Song of the South
explicitly posited its continuing theatrical success as symptomatic of a new conservatism overtaking the country. I begin with a brief discussion of Ralph Bakshi’s
Coonskin
(1974), an explicit, adult-rated satire of both
Song of the South
and the subgenre of “blaxploitation.” Though it failed to find an audience,
Coonskin
visually demonstrated a scathing cultural critique of the conservativeappeal of
Song of the South
in the 1970s. Given its antagonistic style, however, Bakshi’s film raised more questions than answers about white racial consciousness and progressive activism, issues that became more acute as the Disney film endured into the next decade.
By 1980
Song of the South
’s popularity was explicitly tied to the election of Ronald Reagan. In contrast to the post–World War II activism of the 1940s, a new generation of Disney fans defended the film passionately. Criticism from Bakshi and activist groups such as the Anti-Racism Coalition was met by stronger counter-resistance, as younger audiences who had been raised on the film itself, and on Disney’s transmediated universe, came to its defense. Following the president’s lead, this generation saw its own personal memories, and Disney’s self-built heritage as family entertainment, as a substitute for objective accounts of collective historical events. Their own fond nostalgia for
Song of the South
became more important than any institutional history of racism or racial inequality. It is during this period that we see the emergence of a more resilient form of post-racial whiteness, what I have termed an “evasive whiteness,” that reinforces racial privilege by denying the existence of any racial categories. Thus any acknowledgment of
Song of the South
’s representation of institutional racism and white racist nostalgia is rejected, reframed as itself a racist take on an otherwise color-blind children’s film. Befitting the era of Reagan,
Song of the South
’s narrative becomes reappropriated by supporters as an image of racial utopia.
On the heels of the white backlash and the conservative culture of Reaganism,
Song of the South
was a potentially rewarding but tricky property to exploit, especially since “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” had since become an integral part of the Disney brand of white, middle-class family entertainment. Since
Song of the South
presented a long-term risk to a company now under the direction of Michael Eisner, Disney began to dissociate itself from the film by the late 1980s. Chapter 5 , “On Tar Babies and Honey Pots: Splash Mountain, ‘Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,’ and the Transmedia Dissipation of
Song of the South
,” documents how Disney strategically remediated its problematic intellectual property into other profitable media platforms—versions of
Song of the South
that played up the affective and animated portions of the film while downplaying its most overtly racist live action content. These include everything from VHS sing-along tapes (1986) to Xbox 360’s
Kinect Disneyland Adventures
(2011). Using material from the period and from Internet discussions of the ride today, this chapter focuses in particular on the
Song of the South
was suddenly Disney’s biggest box office rerelease to that point.
Yet, as the film began to endure past its initial shelf life, this reemergence was also met with criticism and satire. Chapter 4 , “A Past That Never Existed:
Coonskin
, Post-racial Whiteness, and Rewriting History in the Era of Reaganism,” more closely examines the political climate underlying
Song of the South
’s sudden popularity in the new anti–civil rights era of the 1970s and 1980s. The Disney film’s sudden appeal was deeply rooted in a conservative desire to undermine the political and cultural gains made by African Americans in the preceding three decades. Exploring a range of texts from the period, this chapter documents how both critics and supporters of
Song of the South
explicitly posited its continuing theatrical success as symptomatic of a new conservatism overtaking the country. I begin with a brief discussion of Ralph Bakshi’s
Coonskin
(1974), an explicit, adult-rated satire of both
Song of the South
and the subgenre of “blaxploitation.” Though it failed to find an audience,
Coonskin
visually demonstrated a scathing cultural critique of the conservativeappeal of
Song of the South
in the 1970s. Given its antagonistic style, however, Bakshi’s film raised more questions than answers about white racial consciousness and progressive activism, issues that became more acute as the Disney film endured into the next decade.
By 1980
Song of the South
’s popularity was explicitly tied to the election of Ronald Reagan. In contrast to the post–World War II activism of the 1940s, a new generation of Disney fans defended the film passionately. Criticism from Bakshi and activist groups such as the Anti-Racism Coalition was met by stronger counter-resistance, as younger audiences who had been raised on the film itself, and on Disney’s transmediated universe, came to its defense. Following the president’s lead, this generation saw its own personal memories, and Disney’s self-built heritage as family entertainment, as a substitute for objective accounts of collective historical events. Their own fond nostalgia for
Song of the South
became more important than any institutional history of racism or racial inequality. It is during this period that we see the emergence of a more resilient form of post-racial whiteness, what I have termed an “evasive whiteness,” that reinforces racial privilege by denying the existence of any racial categories. Thus any acknowledgment of
Song of the South
’s representation of institutional racism and white racist nostalgia is rejected, reframed as itself a racist take on an otherwise color-blind children’s film. Befitting the era of Reagan,
Song of the South
’s narrative becomes reappropriated by supporters as an image of racial utopia.
On the heels of the white backlash and the conservative culture of Reaganism,
Song of the South
was a potentially rewarding but tricky property to exploit, especially since “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” had since become an integral part of the Disney brand of white, middle-class family entertainment. Since
Song of the South
presented a long-term risk to a company now under the direction of Michael Eisner, Disney began to dissociate itself from the film by the late 1980s. Chapter 5 , “On Tar Babies and Honey Pots: Splash Mountain, ‘Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,’ and the Transmedia Dissipation of
Song of the South
,” documents how Disney strategically remediated its problematic intellectual property into other profitable media platforms—versions of
Song of the South
that played up the affective and animated portions of the film while downplaying its most overtly racist live action content. These include everything from VHS sing-along tapes (1986) to Xbox 360’s
Kinect Disneyland Adventures
(2011). Using material from the period and from Internet discussions of the ride today, this chapter focuses in particular on the
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