African American Studies Commons^™

Reel Blacks: Everything Is Not Satisfactual, Patricia A. Turner

Trotter Review

An unaccompanied black adult female at a matinee performance of Song of the South is about as out of place as Big Bird at a cockfight. However, having encouraged the students in my course on black media images to see the film during its fortieth anniversary run, I felt obligated to reexamine it myself. So there I sat, surrounded by exuberant white pre-schoolers and their parents, watching as animation and live action seamlessly interchanged on the screen in Walt Disney’s adaptation for Joel Chandler Harris’ classic collection of Afro-American folktales.