A video has surfaced featuring one of the greatest African American singers of all time performing a movie Disney now deems irrelevant.
The mainstream media has all followed along with former Disney CEO Bob Iger’s narrative that Song of the South is so problematic that it must be hidden. The movie was Walt Disney’s attempt to create a children’s film that could feature a lead African American male actor all the way back in the 1940’s. Think of it as Walt’s Jackie Robinson attempt for children’s movies. But because the movie does not represent the post-slavery south in the very harsh manner which was reality, it has been deemed unworthy of ever being displayed by modern Disney and their cohorts. This has led to one of the last living descendants of the movies’ stars seeking help to save the film for historical record… and thus saving the legacy of the African American stars who worked on the film.
One might wonder how long it will be before Martin Luther King Jr is no longer acceptable. It seems that as time goes on, those who pushed society forward are deemed less and less “relevant” even to the point of being hidden. It was just last year that Disneyland declared the Song of the South and Splash Mountain anthem, Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, an “irrelevant” musical piece. Thus it has been removed from Disney Parks’ soundtracks. That in spite of it being sung by the first African American man to ever win an Oscar and the song itself having won an Oscar.
It may be that in our rush to cleanse the past of that which doesn’t rise to some of our standards, we’re erasing the pioneers who made the world far better.
So it is that a video of musician Ray Charles singing Zip-a-dee-doo-dah has emerged on Twitter. Ray Charles is widely credited as one of the greatest musicians in American history. And as an African American man who pushed the world farther and farther into desegregation, it’s something to see him happily praising and singing the same song that James Baskett sang fifty years before him. If the song wasn’t offensive in the least to people like Ray Charles, what in the world has changed today? Why are we erasing the music and the history of African Americans who made such important strides in our world? It is a very sad loss for African American history.
Ray Charles singing Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah pic.twitter.com/hP3fdF0ReG
— Showcase of Wishes (@ShowcaseWishes) August 13, 2022
Of course, not everyone feels that way. Some try to tie the song to minstrel lyrics:
Disney wisely has buried its 1946 live action and animated film — it’s one of the few Disney classics you won’t find on Disney+. Whether author Joel Chandler Harris meant for his Uncle Remus stories to be respectful representations of 19th century Black folklore is irrelevant. Racism fueled their popularity. And even if Disney tried to disassociate Brer Rabbit and friends from “Song of the South,” Splash Mountain’s “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” theme song cannot escape its racist origin as the lyric of a minstrel song that included a racial slur in its title.
— Robert Niles, Theme Park Insider / OC Register
However, Disney historian, Jim Korkis has gone on the record that the song’s title was invented entirely by Walt himself as he enjoyed nonsense phrases in his company’s songs ala Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo.
In my opinion, if it was good enough for the great Ray Charles, it’s good enough to be around and embraced for generations to come.
Anyway, that’s how I feel about the topic. What do you think? Let me know in the comments below. And as always, keep reading That Park Place for all the latest news that should be fun!
