Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby

Wonder Magazine calls on Disney to re-release the shelved classic Song of the South and cites Chesterton in the cause:

The ordinary northern idealist preached generosity to the blacks, saying, 'We will give the Negro liberty; we will give the Negro light; we will give the Negro education.' Chandler Harris, in Uncle Remus gave an indirect, unexpected, and yet strangely forcible answer. He did not say, 'I will give the Negro whips and chains if he is mutinous,' or 'I will give him a better light and liberty if he is good.' He said, "This is what the Negro has given me. You talk of educating the slave; this is how he educated me. He taught me the primal culture of humanity, the ancient and elvish wisdom without which all other learning is priggishness, the tales which from the beginning our Mother Earth has told to all her children at night. The Negro has given something to the South...and I will give it to the North.

An entire web site, SongoftheSouth.net, is devoted to the return of the Disney film. Go there for a link to a petition, to listen to song clips, or to buy a video of the movie (expensive!). There is also a section on the Disneyland Splash Mountain ride that is a monument to the banned film.

If today's PC realities make Disney unwilling to tout what had been one of its most celebrated films, how about a remake? Why not Eddie Murphy, say, as the new voice of Brer Rabbit? The film would make a mint – and return a treasury of African-American folktales to the fore.