Steve Buscemi is WALT DISNEY!

[compound]

What are the "Zip..." origins? Does it have anything to do with a certain SNL cartoon, perhaps?

Nope. It's very strongly influenced by the kind of music played on minstrel shows, and is modeled after the blackface "coon" song so popular in the early part of the century (and through much of the 19th century

As for the movie it came from -- Song of the South -- it has never been released on home video, due to its controversial depiction of plantation life.

This is adapted from the Wikipedia entry about the film:

While Disney Studios tried to avoid the more offensive stereotypes of African Americans still common in the 1940s, Disney also tried to make sure that nothing in the film would be objected to by the white segregationists then in political and cultural control of the Southern United States. This resulted in the subservient relationships of the black children towards white child Johnny, played by child star Bobby Driscoll, in his Fauntleroy suit, that are particularly stilted and perhaps unintentionally revealing. Few recent critics found the results of this attempted balancing act successful, though it passed without comment in 1946, aside from a mild rebuke from the NAACP. Blacks are shown as subservient to whites, and singing contentedly about "home". The framing story has therefore been accused of idealizing the harsh lives of blacks on rural southern plantations in the Jim Crow era.​

There is no getting around his eccentric side. That has to be shown.

... which is precisely why Buscemi ought to be cast in the role. He could present Disney's quirks as charming peculiarities, while still giving the character a "relate-able" human side.

As far as the blatant rascims. It was the times. Rascism can be shown and done tastefully. I think the key thing Disney should try to do is to show that Walt wasn't actually a rascist per se....but a product of the times.

Exactly, I think it can be acknoweldged, without being needlessly showed down our throats, or conversely, without being overly defensive about it.

Nothing beats a good siamese cat stew though

*sigh* If you can't beat them...

Hey, i'm always up for eating a little *****

 

[ourchair]

I love how this thread just totally veered WAY off topic. In hopes of getting it somewhat back on track.....

I think if Disney was to sit down with whatever company that wanted to do this film....and come to an agreement concerning how Walt would be played and how some of the "hot topics" would be addressed...this movie would be amazing.

While compound may have already pointed out that the Disney corporation is fiercely guarded about the depiction of Walt Disney, I must say that this is a total understatement.

I love this film since the moment compound pitched it to me, but I think it's an absolute impossibility. The only way this movie would ever get made is if the company was utterly gutted. "Coming to an agreement" towards a fair and balanced biopic would never happen. NEVER. EVER.

The Disney company is so uptight about the representation of its founder that it has become its number one priority to deny access to its archive of documents, letters, photographs and interviews and any other biographical information from anyone who would seek to attempt a biography without editorial input from the company itself.

Rascism can be shown and done tastefully. I think the key thing Disney should try to do is to show that Walt wasn't actually a rascist per se....but a product of the times.

Maybe even an epilogue kinda disclaimer in which Disney states an apology to the public for the many blatant racist stereotypes they've portrayed in the past.

Walt Disney wasn't very much of racist actually, at least not compared to the prevailing attitudes of most other entertainment monarchs of the time, and I have no idea why people even make a big deal out of it. The films themselves perpetuated racial stereotypes for sure, but no worse than might have existed in the average output of Hollywood back in the late 30s.

If anything Disney was more egregious in the extent to which he would credit himself in his studio's output and frequently downplay the contributions or compensatory entitlement of his collaborators, probably moreso than people have accused Stan Lee of doing to Kirby, Ditko, etc.

 

[Victor Von Doom]

Wow....good bump.

The Disney company is so uptight about the representation of its founder that it has become its number one priority to deny access to its archive of documents, letters, photographs and interviews and any other biographical information from anyone who would seek to attempt a biography without editorial input from the company itself.

After rewatching "Song of the South" can you blame them?

Walt Disney wasn't very much of racist actually, at least not compared to the prevailing attitudes of most other entertainment monarchs of the time, and I have no idea why people even make a big deal out of it. The films themselves perpetuated racial stereotypes for sure, but no worse than might have existed in the average output of Hollywood back in the late 30s.

If anything Disney was more egregious in the extent to which he would credit himself in his studio's output and frequently downplay the contributions or compensatory entitlement of his collaborators, probably moreso than people have accused Stan Lee of doing to Kirby, Ditko, etc.

I hate when you use big words. It just reminds me of the fact that I didn't go to college.

I think the reason that people make such a big deal of it is because of what the company represents. Today it's portrayed as a global "family friendly of all walks of life" empire. But when you look back on it's earlier products, the stereotypes portrayed are so blatant that there is no getting around that.

It's like Germany...while they play an important role in the world scene and economic state---there's always that underlying fact that "Oh yeah...didn't you guys make Nazis?".

 

[ourchair]

After rewatching "Song of the South" can you blame them?

I have no idea what you're implying.

I hate when you use big words. It just reminds me of the fact that I didn't go to college.

I think the reason that people make such a big deal of it is because of what the company represents. Today it's portrayed as a global "family friendly of all walks of life" empire. But when you look back on it's earlier products, the stereotypes portrayed are so blatant that there is no getting around that.

I don't even recall any absolutely blatantly negative depictions of racial stereotypes in any of Disney's animated productions actually. There were some broad strokes perhaps... as well as quite a few productions they eventually pulled off the market twenty years ago. As far as I'm concerned, Disney films were marketed as family friendly for a white America... and THAT is where the racial biases come into play.

What I find absolutely more offensive about The Disney Company is that they are aggressively protective of their intellectual properties, even though much of their stuff was based on material from the public domain. On other occasions, they have 'plagiarized' ideas from copyright source such as Osamu Tezuka's Kimba the White Lion and Studio Gainax' Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water.

And honestly, I don't care if they WANT to copy from other works or draw inspiration from other stuff. It absolutely doesn't bother me at all. If they would just acknowledge their inspirations or lighten up on their stance on intellectual property then it wouldn't be a big deal. But they don't and that makes the company a ****ing hypocrite.

 

[compound]

After rewatching "Song of the South" can you blame them?

I have no idea what you're implying.

Read the quote from the Wiki entry about Song... that I posted earlier in this thread. Basically, critics accuse it (quite justifiably) of normalizing -- perhaps even idealizing -- the real conditions of slavery.

It's not so offensive, in terms of crude stereotypes, so much as it is just very insidious, in the way it presents Jim Crow-style indentured servitude as a fact of life, rather than something to be actively opposed.

Speaking of which...

I hate when you use big words. It just reminds me of the fact that I didn't go to college.

Silly quadroon! College is for white folks.

 

[Random]

I hate when you use big words. It just reminds me of the fact that I didn't go to college.

Don't worry Doom, even us college educated guys don't understand big words

 

[Hibiki]

at least you understand my words and that's all that hardly matters.

 

[ourchair]

Read the quote from the Wiki entry about Song... that I posted earlier in this thread. Basically, critics accuse it (quite justifiably) of normalizing -- perhaps even idealizing -- the real conditions of slavery.

It's not so offensive, in terms of crude stereotypes, so much as it is just very insidious, in the way it presents Jim Crow-style indentured servitude as a fact of life, rather than something to be actively opposed.

That wasn't what I was asking.

I was asking why he would bring up Song of the South and what it has to do with The Disney Company's need to be fiercely protective of Walt Disney's life details.

The Disney company is so uptight about the representation of its founder that it has become its number one priority to deny access to its archive of documents, letters, photographs and interviews and any other biographical information from anyone who would seek to attempt a biography without editorial input from the company itself.
After rewatching "Song of the South" can you blame them?

The Disney company is so uptight about the representation of its founder that it has become its number one priority to deny access to its archive of documents, letters, photographs and interviews and any other biographical information from anyone who would seek to attempt a biography without editorial input from the company itself.
After rewatching "Song of the South" can you blame them?

 

[moonmaster]

I'm mildly disturbed by how far-reaching Disney's control of their founder's legacy is. Apparently, DC Comics was originally forced to censor the line "Walt Disney was a ****" in an issue of the Invisibles, until they were later allowed to reprint it.

What are some of the other controversies about Disney, other than the Song of the South thing? Wikipedia doesn't have so much as a single-paragraph "controversies" section.

 

[Random]

I'm mildly disturbed by how far-reaching Disney's control of their founder's legacy is. Apparently, DC Comics was originally forced to censor the line "Walt Disney was a ****" in an issue of the Invisibles, until they were later allowed to reprint it.

What are some of the other controversies about Disney, other than the Song of the South thing? Wikipedia doesn't have so much as a single-paragraph "controversies" section.

I'm not sure if it's Disney, but there are a bunch of movies known as the Censored 11, basically 1 cartoons locked away because of a lot of racial and ethnic stereotype

 

[ourchair]

Silly quadroon! College is for white folks.

+250 Ourchair Points.

 

[Zombipanda]

I'm mildly disturbed by how far-reaching Disney's control of their founder's legacy is. Apparently, DC Comics was originally forced to censor the line "Walt Disney was a ****" in an issue of the Invisibles, until they were later allowed to reprint it.

What are some of the other controversies about Disney, other than the Song of the South thing? Wikipedia doesn't have so much as a single-paragraph "controversies" section.

Well, he was an outspoken anti-Semite, for one. And this has been confirmed by a handful of people who worked close to him. A substantial portion of the Disney staff in the early years was anti-Semitic, and he personally approved a number of anti-Semitic gags.

He attended Nazi Socialist Parties before the War, and after, he worked hand-in-hand with the House on Un-American Activities Committee. A substantial portion of the Disney staff in the early years was anti-Semitic, and even if he himself wasn't an anti-semite, he did approve numerous anti-Semitic gags.

He also hated unions and communists, but hey.... That was just the times, right?

 

[Grocer Man]

While I'm afraid I have nothing to say about the cast, (I can never remember actors) I really think this movie needs to have a scene where Walt and his wife are on a train, and he draws Mickey for the first time. Then he turns to his wife and says "I'll call him Mortimer."

Mostly because that actually happened, if the DisneyWorld attraction based on his life is to be believed.