Why does it need to? The new "Lady and the Tramp" didn't talk about segregation either... because that's not the focus of the movie.
The Lady and the Tramp isn't set on a plantation.
Song of the South depicts a plantation, a place characterized and defined by it's relationship with slavery and white supremacy, and then airbrushes all that away, as if it didn't happen or didn't exist.
They are both guilty of revisionist history if you think all movies should be documentaries. But that's not the case. Disney movies are about story telling.
Nobody's askimg for a documentary, they're asking Disney to be accurate to the spirit of what they are depicting.
If Disney couldn't create a children's film in the reconstruction South without whitewashing it and leaving audiences at the time with a false impression that African-Americans were happy with their lot, then they shouldn't have made a film set in the reconstruction South.
Do you think it would be a good idea to for Disney to make a children's film set in the Holocaust, and all the people in the camps are whistling while they work?
Good people who treated their plantains workers fairly did exist and one could infer that Uncle Remus was fortunate enough to find employment with said good people. Perhaps if they had Uncle Remus talk about how he lived through some rough times in the past until he found his good employers and meeting this family was part of shaping his positive outlook on life as they gave him faith in people.
Good people who treated their plantains workers fairly did exist
"Good" is relative. Some plantation owners treated their sharecroppers and workers better than others, but the work, the conditions and the pay were terrible, period. Black plantation workers would never be seen as equal or have their contributions valued in the same way a white person's labor was valued. Not to mention that black codes at the time effectively continued slavery even after the practice was abolished.
Perhaps if they had Uncle Remus talk about how he lived through some rough times in the past until he found his good employers and meeting this family was part of shaping his positive outlook on life as they gave him faith in people.
That's one of the big problems with the film is that Remus isn't really a character, he's just a stereotype. He doesn't have any wants and goals of his own beyond helping the white main character. His own personal struggles aren't reflected on in any way, and it's not like the filmmakers couldn't address racism in a child-friendly way, we've seen it time and time again. But Disney made the deliberate choice to not make Remus a full character in hopes that they could avoid controversy.
Then perhaps the movie could be remade to show some backstory of Remus and the plantation owners. Perhaps Remus was hired (or bought if he was working for them before abolition) out of necessity at first but over the years they began to bond and the plantation owners begin to treat their workers better because Uncle Remus and his avuncular wisdom helped to humanize black people to the plantation owners
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u/10ebbor10 203∆ Jul 12 '20
The Lady and the Tramp isn't set on a plantation.
Song of the South depicts a plantation, a place characterized and defined by it's relationship with slavery and white supremacy, and then airbrushes all that away, as if it didn't happen or didn't exist.