Revisiting Disney’s ‘Song of the South’

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah: Here is the truth about the song and Splash Mountain ride

People of a certain age remember the classic Disney film Song of the South. It was released before I was born, but I distinctly recall somehow still seeing this film repeatedly. I certainly had the album and knew all the songs. The Black character, Uncle Remus, cheerfully sang tunes while he pranced and skipped about in this film set in the post Civil War era. He was hippity happy to be Black during Reconstruction, and he wasn’t too mad about slavery either. Watching tidbits of it now feels like watching a horror movie or an episode of The Twilight Zone. Of course, the film didn’t go into the actualities of life after chattel slavery was abolished on paper. We all know the truth now: Black people entered into another reign of servitude and terror, and some didn’t even learn about freedom until years later. [See our Juneteenth post for more on that.]

And while the music is catchy and unforgettable, it’s now hard for me to separate the tunes from the era in which they were created. I’m glad that Disney theme parks have decided to remove the characters of Brer Rabbit and others from the Splash Mountain water ride. As kids, we all knew what that ride was about, but we ignored the deeper context of the song and sang “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” with glee even as we waited for the terrible drop into the water. The U.S. versions of that ride will be rebranded with Princess Tiana, the Black princess from The…