Song Of The South

[Ms. Matterhorn]

I also want to get my two cents in, and remind everyone that the dialect spoken in the movie is based on a real dialect spoken in the south (it's actually called a language), Gullah. It was not poking fun at the way the slaves spoke. Joel Chandler Harris grew up listening to stories told by slaves and wanted to bring this dialect to the attention of an American audience.


Gullah: http://www.knowitall.org/Gullahnet/gull ... mlLanguage

Joel Chandler Harris: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/bio.html

:brerrabb: :brerbear: :tarbaby:

[drcorey]

I also want to get my two cents in, and remind everyone that the dialect spoken in the movie is based on a real dialect spoken in the south (it's actually called a language), Gullah. It was not poking fun at the way the slaves spoke. Joel Chandler Harris grew up listening to stories told by slaves and wanted to bring this dialect to the attention of an American audience.

Gullah: http://www.knowitall.org/Gullahnet/gull ... mlLanguage

Joel Chandler Harris: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/bio.html

:brerrabb: :brerbear: :tarbaby:

yeah really, it's not like ebonics.

[Doctor McKey]

Amen to the Doctor.

This has long been stuck in my craw and I wait for the day I can shake it loose.

Pretty soon people will start getting offended at everything they see/hear and make others not be able to get married or adopt children.

Or heaven forbid, make choices for the rest of us in their blind unknowing "my opinion is right regardless of facts" attitude.

But we are past that, right? Right?

I didnt know that my pulpit was showing....

All i have to say is that people look at something and see something else...

If I see an apple sitting on a teachers desk.... is it a gift, or is it from a student that is sucking up!

or

( and this hits close to home... ) If i have a guest at one of my attractions that has a GAK card i let him or her into the shorter line per the GAK card instructions.... but someone else who does not have a GAK card but with similar problems is not permitted to the shortened line.... Am i being selective, showing favorites, or am i just following the rules.

I have had guests curse me because I would not allow them into a short line because they claim to have a medical issue.... I am just following directive but non the less I am being berated the same.

So... happy flaming me for my views.... which brings me to another point.....

Points of view or like arse holes... everyone has one....

The Doctor
:walter:

[Amphigorey]

For those of you who don't see racism in "Song of the South," I strongly suggest you check out some websites that deal with issues of racism and culture, like http://www.racialicious.com. Or, if you have time, take a black history course.

There are a lot of white privilege issues tied up in Song of the South. It's complicated, but it's interesting and enlightening.

Oh! This is a tangent, but I also highly recommend http://www.thisweekinblackness.com. It's a web TV series done by a black comedian about, well, blackness, and it is some seriously funny stuff. I love Elon James White a lot. And his hats. The episodes are only four minutes long each; you totally have time to watch at least one, and it's totally worth it.

[felinefan]

Joel Chandler Harris simply wrote what he knew; Mark Twain in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", wasn't mocking blacks by referring to them with the "N word". That's the way it was in his time. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was written for the same basic reason "Black Beauty" was written--to open people's eyes the the elephant in the parlor, in the case of Uncle Tom, slavery, in the case of Black Beauty, humane treatment of animals.

Both books had their impact--Black Beauty started what would become the Royal Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Uncle Tom was the catalyst for Emancipation. Both Harriet Beecher Stowe and Anna Sewall were concerned for the subject of their respective books. Mrs. Stowe interviewed slaves both present and former, slave dealers, overseers, slave owners, etc.; she didn't just sit down and write something out of the blue. Anna Sewall observed how people treated animals, particularly horses, and chose to write the story from the horse's point of view.

The authors of these and other books cared about their subjects. Mark Twain, on the other hand, was a storyteller, just like Harris, and reflected his times. If you look at Twain's life, he had a lot of sorrow as well as joy in his life, but still tragedy hit close to home for him. It was either be funny and live, or become bitter and die, and he chose to live. He also satirized the times he lived in, in his speeches and other writings. He was well-traveled, and a keen observer. Harris, however, related the stories told him by the slaves in his acquaintence when he was a child.

But you're right, everybody will try to see something in a movie, book or any other media that isn't actually there, and make a big deal out of it. In the case of Song of the South, I agree, they should keep their hands off. Political correctness is all political, but it's not correct.

[Zazu]

The story is in a time of slavery....

I don't mean to be disagreeable, but...

NO IT AIN'T!!! :soap:

"Song of the South" was set in the 1880s, the era when Joel Chandler Harris did his research and writing. It was a generation after slavery ended, though obviously long before even technical legal inequality was done.

Harris felt his work in studying language and culture was important because he saw the last generation of slaves growing old and no one to document and record -- or even remember them. He viewed himself as a lingual preservationist, and others have since acclaimed him as a foresighted social historian as well.

And let's not forget the courage it took to make a film in the 1940s that showed blacks as the good guys and white trash as the villians!

As others have observed, and as Harry Nilsson so aptly put it, "You sees what you wants to see and you hears what you wants to hear." I just wish more folks could see this film and understand it for what it is, a film that reflected the best of mainstream America in the era before "civil rights" was a phrase in use, viewing a yet different time that was then at the edge of history.

[mechurchlady]

http://www.songofthesouth.net

I stand corrected.

[Amphigorey]

But you're right, everybody will try to see something in a movie, book or any other media that isn't actually there, and make a big deal out of it. In the case of Song of the South, I agree, they should keep their hands off. Political correctness is all political, but it's not correct.

Let's just be clear here.

Are you actually saying that you don't see racism in "Song of the South," and that I only see it because I want to see it? Because that's what it looks like you're saying.

[felinefan]

Okay, I will admit it's been quite some time since I saw SOS, but as Zazu pointed out, there are and always have been people who see things in media that aren't there. Sorry if I wasn't clear before. I guess I better get out more--my brain's getting fogged up.... and no, Grumpy, I don't need rum. :D:

[GRUMPY PIRATE]

Okay, I will admit it's been quite some time since I saw SOS, but as Zazu pointed out, there are and always have been people who see things in media that aren't there. Sorry if I wasn't clear before. I guess I better get out more--my brain's getting fogged up.... and no, Grumpy, I don't need rum. :D:

HEHEHEHE

The nice thing about RUM is that it will cloud up things if you want it to..or clear things up!!!