Read Disney's Most Notorious Film Online
Authors: Jason Sperb
51
. Ibid.
52
. Ron Finney, “
Song of the South
Again Sings Its Debasement of Blacks,”
Los Angeles Times
(2 January 1981), C5.
53
. Ibid.
54
. “Letters to the Editor:
Song of the South
Debasement of Blacks,” B4.
55
. Ibid.
56
. James Combs,
The Reagan Range: The Nostalgic Myth in American Culture
(Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Press, 1993), 44.
57
. Ibid., 45.
58
. Maltin,
Disney Films
, 1st ed., 78.
59
. “Letters to the Editor:
Song of the South
Debasement of Blacks,” B4. A private citizen writing to the
Times
, Coates is a self-identified black woman; the discourse of whiteness is not inherent to one race or another, but operates in part whenever race is denied as a cultural factor or even valid category of identification.
60
. Pleasure, “
Song of the South
: A Fascist Film?”
61
. James Snead, “Commentary:
Song
Not Ended for Disney,”
Los Angeles Times
(27 December 1986), 1.
62
. Charles Solomon, “Animation Sings in ‘
Song of the South
,’
”
Los Angeles Times
(21 November 1986), OC E6.
63
. “Fox Features Fascist Flick.”
64
. Snead, “Commentary,” 1. Much of the material on
Song of the South
that he wrote in December 1986 would eventually evolve into a chapter of his book
White Screens, Black Images: Hollywood from the Dark Side
(New York: Routledge, 1994), an early addition to the field of racial stereotypes and representation in the cinema.
65
. Snead, “Commentary,” 1.
66
. Hugh Keenan, “Twisted Tales: Propaganda in the Tar-Baby Stories,”
Southern Quarterly
22.2 (1984): 54–69.
67
. Douglas Kermode, “Truth in Disney’s
Song
,”
Los Angeles Times
(4 January 1987), 74.
68
. Ibid.
69
. “Letters to the Editor:
Song of the South
Debasement of Blacks,” B4.
70
. Ibid.
71
. “Letter to the Editor.”
72
. Charlotte Libov, “Movie Theater Is Back in Mainstream,”
New York Times
(25 January 1987), CN2.
CHAPTER 5
1
. Paul Grainge,
Brand Hollywood: Selling Entertainment in a Global Media Age
(New York: Routledge, 2008), 53.
2
. Henry Jenkins,
Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
(New York: New York University Press, 2007), 63.
3
. Christopher Anderson,
Hollywood TV: The Studio System in the Fifties
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994).
4
. Grainge,
Brand Hollywood
, 48.
5
. Jason Isaac Mauro, “Disney’s Splash Mountain: Death Anxiety, the Tar Baby, and Rituals of Violence,”
Children’s Literature Association Quarterly
22.3 (1997): 115.
6
. Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin,
Remediation: Understanding New Media
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), 171.
7
. Scott Bukatman,
Matters of Gravity: Special Effects and Supermen in the 20th Century
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003).
8
. Douglas Gomery, “Disney’s Business History: A Reinterpretation,” in
Disney Discourse: Producing the Magic Kingdom
, ed. Eric Smoodin (New York: Routledge, 1994), 79.
9
. Janet Wasko,
Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy
(Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001), 32.
10
. Grainge,
Brand Hollywood
, 56.
11
. Quoted in Beth Dunlap,
Building a Dream: The Art of Disney Architecture
(New York: Abrams, 1996), 53.
12
. Mary Ann Galante, “In Search of a New Magic Splash Mountain,”
Los Angeles Times
(18 June 1988), 5.
13
. Michael Eisner, with Tony Schwartz,
Work in Progress
(New York: Random House, 1998), 210.
14
. Snead, “Commentary:
Song
Not Ended for Disney,”
Los Angeles Times
(27 December 1986), 1.
15
. Mary Ann Galante, “Disneyland to Offer Ride with Lots of Zip (a-Dee-Doo-Dah),”
Los Angeles Times
(30 January 1987), 1.
16
. Ibid. (emphasis mine).
17
. Ibid.
18
. Kim Masters,
The Keys to the Kingdom
(New York: Harper, 2000), 181.
19
. Bolter and Grusin,
Remediation
, 171 (emphasis mine).
20
. Bukatman,
Matters of Gravity
, 5.
21
. Ibid., 28–30 (emphasis mine).
22
. Dunlap,
Building a Dream
, 50.
23
. Karal Ann Marling, “Imagineering the Disney Theme Parks,” in
Designing Disney’s Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance
, ed. Karal Ann Marling (New York: Flammarion, 1997), 83, 80, 79, 83.
24
. Ibid., 85 (emphasis mine).
25
. Galante, “In Search of a New Magic Splash Mountain,” 5.
26
. Michael Sorkin, “See You in Disneyland,” in
Variations of a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space
, ed. Michael Sorkin (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992), 207.
27
. Jean Baudrillard,
Simulacra and Simulation
, trans. Sheila Faria Glaser (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994).
28
. Michael Billig, “Sod Baudrillard! Or Ideology Critique in Disney World,” in
After Postmodernism
, ed. Herbert Simons and Michael Billig (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994), 151.
29
. Project on Disney,
Inside the Mouse: Work and Play at Disney World
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995).
30
. Karen Klugman, “Under the Influence,” in ibid., 105.
31
. “Thrilling ‘Splash Mountain’ Attraction to Be Unveiled This Summer at Disneyland,” Splash Mountain press release, Walt Disney Company Publicity Department (1988).
32
. Ibid.
33
. “Splash Mountain Disneyland California Ride Through,”
YouTube
(15 September 2005), accessed 16 September 2009,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGd0PNz636A
.
34
. “Splash Mountain POV,”
YouTube
(10 November 2007), accessed 16 September 2009,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr7CqJmCCyI&feature=related
.
35
. “Splash Mountain Tribute,”
YouTube
(7 February 2008), accessed 16 September 2009,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRbgBy7Vg5U&feature=related
.
36
. “Splash Mountain at Disneyworld Shot in High Definition,”
YouTube
(16 January 2008), accessed 16 September 2009,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYHaUilaN7w&feature=related
.
37
. Ibid.
38
. “Splash Mountain in Magic Kingdom,”
YouTube
(17 December 2007), accessed 16 September 2009,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgBPrdwSxjo&feature=related
.
39
. “Splash Mountain at Disneyworld Shot in High Definition.”
40
. Klugman, “Under the Influence,” 104 (emphasis mine).
41
. “Splash Mountain Disneyland California Ride Through.”
42
. Klugman, “Under the Influence,” 105.
43
. Eisner,
Work in Progress
, 211.
44
. “Man Dies in Fall at Disney World,”
CNN
(5 November 2000), accessed 12 October 2011,
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/11/05/disney.death/index.html
.
45
. Brady MacDonald, “Safety Concerns for Disneyland’s Splash Mountain,”
Los Angeles Times
(18 January 2008),
http://qa.travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-blog/index.php/safety-concerns-for—1235/
.
46
. “Splash Mountain,”
Retroland
(nd), accessed 6 September 2009,
http://www.retroland.com/pages/retropedia/places/item/6302/
.
47
. Laura Kiernan, “The Tune of $10 Million,”
Washington Post
(1 May 1980), F9. I cannot find any reference to the resolution of the lawsuit.
48
. “New Name Gives Duda Wonderful Day,”
Los Angeles Times
(27 June 1987), 29.
49
. The film has been released in full-length form on VHS and laser disc in Europe and Japan, which in turn fueled the bootleg market back in the United States.
50
. “Disney’s Sing-A-Long Songs—Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah [VHS],” Amazon (nd), accessed 5 September 2009,
http://www.amazon.com/Disneys-Sing-Long-Songs-Dee-Doo-Dah/dp/6300276554/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=video&qid=1252171013&sr=8-1
. Not surprisingly, many fans also use this platform to advocate for
Song of the South
’s rerelease, an issue I explore in the final chapter, on Disney Internet fandom.
51
. John Hughes, “Vacation ’58,”
Bizbag.com
(nd), accessed 5 September 2009,
http://www.bizbag.com/Vacation/Vacation%2058.htm
. The article originally appeared in the September 1979 issue of
National Lampoon
.
52
. Svetlana Boym,
The Future of Nostalgia
(New York: Basic, 2001), 351.
53
. Peggy Russo, “Uncle Walt’s Uncle Remus: Disney’s Distortion of Harris’s Hero,”
Southern Literary Journal
25.1 (1992): 20.
54
. Michael Cieply and Charles Solomon, “Disney ‘Rabbit’ Hops into the Spotlight,”
Los Angeles Times
(13 April 1988), 1.
55
. Ibid.
56
. Patricia Turner
, Ceramic Uncles and Celluloid Mammies: Black Images and Their Influence on Culture
(New York: Anchor, 1994), 114.
57
. Ibid., 115.
58
. Ibid., 116.
59
. Mike Brantley, “
Song of the South
,”
Alabama Mobile Register
(1 January 2002), accessed January 13, 2012,
http://www.songofthesouth.net/news/archives/mobileregister.html
.
CHAPTER 6
1
. Earl Hutchinson, “Disney Sings Dollars and Racism with
Song of the South
,”
Miami Times
(22 May 2007), 3A.
2
. As quoted in Donald Liebenson, “Should ‘Dated’ Films See the Light of Today? ‘
Song of the South’
Fans Want Disney to Release Its Ode to ‘Uncle Remus,’
”
Los Angeles Times
(7 May 2003), E4 (my emphasis).
3
. Lucas Hilderbrand,
Inherent Vice: Bootleg Histories of Videotape and Copyright
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009).
4
. J. P. Telotte, “
Song of the South
,”
Quarterly Review of Film and Video
27.5 (2010): 392.
5
. Scott Schaffer, “Disney and the Imagineering of Histories,”
Postmodern Culture
6.3 (1996):
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/postmodern_culture/v006/6.3schaffer.html
.
6
. Hollis Henry, “Song of a Never-Was South: Will Disney Re-release a Twisted Film?,”
Black Commentator
139 (19 May 2005):
www.blackcommentator.com/139/139_south.html
.
7
. Sara Gwenllian-Jones, “The Sex Lives of Cult Television Characters,”
Screen
43.1 (2002): 80.
8
. Henry Jenkins,
Convergence Culture: Where New and Old Media Collide
(New York: New York University Press, 2006), 247.
9
. Ibid., 256 (emphasis mine).
10
. Ibid., 184.
11
. Jonathan Gray, “New Audiences, New Textualities: Anti-Fans and Non-Fans,”
International Journal of Cultural Studies
6.1 (2003): 64–81.
12
. Jenkins,
Convergence Culture
, 247.
13
. Ibid., 204.
14
. Tara McPherson,
Reconstructing Dixie: Race, Gender, and Nostalgia in the Imagined South
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 105.
15
. Steven Cohan, “Judy on the Net: Judy Garland Fandom and ‘the Gay Thing’ Revisited,” in
Keyframes: Popular Cinema and Cultural Studies
, ed. Matthew Tinkcom and Amy Villarejo (New York: Routledge, 2001), 135. As Cohan notes, “Whatever demographic picture results [from online research] includes only those people who have access to the web and an inclination—not to say education, leisure time, and income—to use it” (120). This also applies to my research on what fans have posted regarding
Song of the South
’s various controversies, which does not intend to be exhaustive. I do believe, however, that the comments are fair representations of what fans say on the Internet.
16
. Janet Wasko,
Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy
(Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001), 217–218.
17
. Gwenllian-Jones, “Sex Lives of Cult Television Characters,” 82.
18
. Matt Hills,
Fan Cultures
(New York: Routledge, 2002), 90.
19
. Liebenson, “Should ‘Dated’ Films See the Light of Today?,” E4.
20
. Quoted in ibid.
21
. Ibid.
22
. Ibid.
23
. Richard Dyer,
White: Essays on Race and Culture
(New York: Routledge, 1997), 1.
24
. Susan Miller and Greg Rode, “The Movie You See, the Movie You Don’t: How Disney Do’s That Old Time Derision,” in
From Mouse to Mermaid: The Politics of Film, Gender, and Culture
, ed. Elizabeth Bell, Lynda Haas, and Laura Sells (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995), 88.
25
. Richard Dyer,
Only Entertainment
(New York: Routledge, 1992), 25.