The company that never lets an occasion go unmarketed let the 60th anniversary of its first live-action feature pass last year without a peep. Why didn't Disney take an opportunity to put us under its marketing spell? Because the film in question was "Song of the South", a film better known these days for its controversy than its content. The film has never been released in the US on video or DVD, and hasn't been showed in American theaters since the eighties.
(Sidebar: I'm almost positive I've seen it, but pretty certain it wasn't in the theater. Could it have been broadcast on ABC's Wonderful World of Disney, did I actually see one of its theater revivals, or could I have just seen enough clips to make myself think I've seen the whole thing? Mom, you reading this one?)
Anyway, the "SOTS" question apparently gets batted around Disney shareholder meetings and other events quite a bit, and Disney CEO Robert Iger addressed it at the most recent annual meeting. The verdict: They're trying to figure out if they can do it in a way that isn't insensitive to the concerns that people have raised about the film's treatment of blacks. Which, coming from the folks who made Pocahontas only a few short p.c. years ago, is pretty rich. And after the recent kerfluffles I've witnessed amongst parents when "Peter Pan" was recently released on DVD, it's not hard to see why Disney would be cautious--people really are having to address "What Makes the Red Man Red" with their kids, this is stuff we're really not allowing our children to say or believe to be okay anymore. Disney's got their work cut out for them in a big way if they want to release "SOTS" in a way that is relevant to where American society should be heading.
