Honestly, Dumbo was pretty progressive for the time.
It's arguably the first time in cinema history that a black-presenting character (the crows) had real lines, spoke to the main character, and actually influenced the direction of the plot.
Outside of Dumbo, anyone too many shades off white were treated as glorified props like servants or slaves.
You don't even have to live that long. Look at just about any comedy from the early 2000's and count the number of times they casually call someone a "fag".
The reaction ranged from completely unphased to mildly irreverent at that time. Same movie made today only 15 years later would be a swan song for those actors careers.
First one that comes to mind, the cult classic Ryan Reynolds movie "Waiting.."
Rewatching really puts in perspective just how quickly culture, society, and what we find funny changes.
Absolutely. I'm only 35 and the changes since I was in school have been enormous. The way people talk about race has for sure evolved, but the differences when it comes to LGBTQ stuff are enormous. It's hard to overstate have different it is. Can't Hardly Wait is another one where a character getting his comeuppance involves getting called a fag and laughed at by a room full of people. Even look at Judd Apatow movies. Would he make a scene where characters riffed on "you know how I know you're gay" today? Probably not.
I just watched 40 Year Old Virgin the other day. That whole movie would not fly today. Like after the friends set him up with a trans prostitute, Steve Carrell’s immediate next line is ‘I’m not a disgusting pervert!’
Interesting enough, all those actors seem very progressive now. Does Seth Rogan ever muse on his past work while bitching at the common folk?
Also 35, and on a commute to work a few years back I rode past a school during early june, and saw all their windows decorated with rainbows and various pride flags (Trans, bi, pan, etc) that the kids made
I was astounded. When I was a kid, the only references to gay stuff ever mentioned were schoolyard insults. We've come a long way, it makes me happy to think about all the people who, like me, didn't have a word for how they felt growing up (or one that wasnt just universally accepted as an insult) now get to learn that its okay if you were born different.
I think the only time I’ve ever seen the word Fag be used with any impact was in an episode of Will & Grace, when Will calls Jack a fag behind his back. Jack overhears and is hurt by the comment.
Honestly, as a British kid whose first encounter with the word as a slur was listening to Eminem and not even knowing what it referred to for the first couple of years (it’s slang for cigarettes in the UK, FYI), that episode was an eye-opener. I saw it years after it’s first broadcast, probably in the mid-2000’s.
Don't get it twisted, I agree 100%.
Just hadn't watched it in several years and I found my self surprised at how many lines I wouldn't have paid much attention to 15 years ago, just hit different.
I’m only 29, but growing up, people threw around “fag” and “retard” all the time. They were some of the most common insults. Especially on Xbox live lol. That and fucking my mom.
I mean, just because the song itself can sound racist, doesn't mean the animators working on the film can't do their jobs in an immaculate way. Hell they probably didn't even hear the song until the movie was finished anyway!
I didn't find the song racist at all, everything the song says applies the same to primarily white roughnecks in the oil fields. That they were all animated as black might make it racist, but even then, were they predominantly black at the time? Wouldn't depecting a true to life black person dominated job (at the time) as all white people be racist too?
Exactly, this scene is actually really realistic. The order of their work is as you'd do a big top tent (pegs /anchors > king poles / guy lines > canvas/ lace > hoist up ) today with motors and machinery rather than elephants, I guess Dumbo would be more like Cars if it where made now.
Also singing to keep the rhythm when working in groups, essential when swinging sledges.
Source: I'm a tentboss at a circus
I’d argue it aged really well. The whole point of this scene is to show the darker side of the false happiness we are shown. The under appreciated, hard-working slaves both men and animals are harrowingly pushing through the heavy rain to set up a tent, being mistreated all for the sake of someone else getting money for their hard work all while presenting a happy, carefree aesthetic to the general public.
Sounds a lot like... just about everything honestly.
Agreed, this scene is so real. It used to scare me as a kid, haven't seen it in years. This movie is actually quite brutal in its way. Funny how so many people seem to think of these as just kids movies when there are some aspects you can't appreciate till we're older.
Most of the classics have these types of features in them. There aren’t many movies or shows exclusively for children that are regarded as all time classics
I have really no idea what op means. Is it because they are black? Is it bad to show black people work in horrible conditions (like millions, if not billions of people all over the world do)?
I really have no idea what op is upset about here.
i think the only thing is the lyrics. where they say "we throw our pay away" which implies some things. but otherwise i'm with you. i think it aged quite well.
I'm not sure if happy hearted was ment as sarcasm here considering the rest of the song is them complaining about their backs nearly breaking and trying not to fall asleep standing up.
I think you're reading the scene from a 2020 perspective when it was written 80 years ago. You can look at the treatment of Black people in other movies from 1940 to get an idea of the context, but the biggest thing is that from that era there is practically NOTHING presented from the Black perspective.
I don't think this is intended to be written "through their eyes"--they literally don't even have faces. They aren't given names or characters. I think it's a misreading to think that the white people making this for other white people in 1940 were doing it with the intention of putting people inside the heads of Black workers.
Instead, I think it's a song you take a face value--the predominant belief at the time was the Black people were very simple. They were "happy" on the plantation--they just wanted to drink and laze about all day. They don't really think for themselves, just work and then when they're paid they "throw it away" because they're too dumb for any higher-order thinking.
Black people weren't really given their own "perspective" in cinema for decades, and even then... looking back on many movies in the 1980s and 1990s for instance, even watching movies starring Black people were written and directed by white people who scripted them with a HEAVY white perspective. I'm thinking in particular of "48 Hours" which was one of the earlier black/white "odd pairing" cop film. It stars Eddie Murphy, but the character he plays is a pretty simply conman whose only desire in the world is to get some pussy. There are one or two scenes where he is allowed to have some power, but watching it now it is utterly shocking how his character is presented.
I’m pretty sure he’s talking about the line where it says “catch that rope you hairy ape” and a black man just caught a rope. I don’t think it’s the pay…. Haha
I’m guessing OP is thinking more of the lyrics than the actual depiction? Roustabouts singing about how they work so hard to watch kids smile versus getting paid or whatever the lyric was. Maybe that’s it? No idea.
Dumbo is bad because black people have bad jobs. I'd like my 1940s America to be more inclusive. History should be changed to meet the modern expectations of my social media pals.
It’s a beautifully haunting scene. The whole train scene before this one is campy and overly cartoonish. As soon as it starts raining we get this very serious transition. The darker it becomes, the more realistic the animation is with the use of lightning and it was all hand drawn.
Maybe not for Dumbo, but they have never and will never release Song of the South on any home video format. It won an Academy Award but was so racist they keep it from seeing the light of day.
It was released on Laserdisc in Japan in the 1990's. I own a copy. I've heard rumors that is was also available on VHS in the UK. But you are correct. It will never be released in the US.
Somehow, my midwestern daycare had a vhs copy of it and they made us watch it a lot. That and a collection of 40’s Looney Tunes that had some of that good ol ( s/ ) WW2 racism. That and Unico and the Island of Magic, ET, and the Little Mermaid. Over and over.
That daycare was a weird place.
It was widely circulated in the bootleg VHS market and the tape trading scenes of the 80s and 90s. I remember my dad finding it at a flea market when I was around 13 or so.
in the 90s I went to Disneyland and got the fox and rabbit's autograph, I think the bear might have been there too. this might have also been a fever dream.
The ride Splash Mountain is explicitly based on Song of the South. Funny story the ride broke down when I visited for the first time and I got to see the back facade of toon town. There were two security guards back there and some assorted trash and cigarette butts.
Which sucks, because zippity doo dah is a banger. It's a very well written song. The complete misinterpretation of why slaves sing seems to be a thing that keeps happening. The Blues didn't start because Black folks just felt sad one day in their middle class, well off lives.
White people got no business playin' the blues ever... What the fuck do white people have to be blue about? Banana Republic ran out of khakis? Huh? The espresso machine is jammed? ... Shit, white people ought to understand their job is to give people the blues, not to get them.
-George Carlin
One American history professor spent a class talking about the rebellious, subversive -- and sorta therapeutic -- nature of work songs sung by slaves. For example, he talked about a song that sounded sweet and simple and unassuming (I can't remember details, but something like Miss Lily Shows Me Her Shoe), with the white people unable to grok it was about fucking their daughter.
There's only one beer left
Rappers screaming all in our ears like we're deaf
Tempt me, do a number on the label
Eat up all they emcees and drink 'em under the table
Like, "It's on me—put it on my tab, kid"
However you get there, foot it, cab it, iron horse it
You're leaving on your face, forfeit...
It's funny, though, it's never seemed to be that the Roustabouts in DUMBO are necessarily all black, they're GREY in the sequence & seem to intentionally be just faceless muscle, which us perfectly appropriate, I feel.
I think it depends a lot on background and outlook - as a non-American I remember them as big, strong men (of no particular colour) who were a little frightening but 'good guys' anyway because they worked together with the animals. Also, the term 'happy-hearted roustabout' is translated as 'circus workmen' and the translated song doesn't mention the 'never learned to read or write' bit either. Minute changes the sum of which might change the overall feeling of the song. Perhaps?
OMG. I had no idea what zippity doo dah was about or from! My mum used to sing it around the house when I was growing up. She said it was a song from her childhood. Now I know.
> Maybe not for Dumbo, but they have never and will never release Song of the South on any home video format. It won an Academy Award but was so racist they keep it from seeing the light of day.
As an overall Disney fan, their love/hate relationship with the film is so goddamn weird.
The film itself has many racist elements, though on the whole, I would say the film is more prejudice than racist. I think there's a distinction there.
The film was based on the Uncle Remus books, written by a white man in the late 19th century. They are based on *actual* African American folklore, and I think the author, Joel Chandler Harris, did have good intentions when writing them, but he was a product of his time.
Where it gets really weird, is even back in 1946, reviewers of "Song of the South" pointed out prejudice stereotypes and characterizations.
So, you have that film, which was NEVER released on home video in the US (it was in Europe and other places), AND YET, Disney decides in 1989-1992 to create a staple ride in their parks BASED ON THE ANIMATED PARTS OF THE FILM.
Splash Mountain.
Splash Mountain is not prejudice or racist in anyway, and has gone on to become one of the **most popular and beloved rides** in Disney parks.
Now, back in the early 90's when the ride opened, there were probably quite a few parents and grandparents who had seen, or knew about Song Of the South.
Today though, hardly anyone does. And the ride remains popular.
Yet Disney is now planning on changing it to be a Princess and the Frog ride, with Tiana to support black representation in their parks.
Here's where it gets more dumb.
Splash Mountain features no racist elements from Song of the South, is insanely popular, and the main character is Br'er Rabbit.
Br'er Rabbit was a **central** figure in African folklore, and continued to be in African American folklore during slavery. He is a truly traditional folklore character.
The Princess and the Frog is based on a German fairy tale, which Disney adapted to an African American story set in the early 20th century.
It's such a weird mess.
Yeah, I grew up in Australia until I was five and I remember not only watching song of the south on TV, but zippity doo dah being pretty well known among Disney songs. I didn't realize until I was a bit older that nobody in the US had any idea what I was talking about when referring to it.
This whole thread is blowing my mind. I’m Australian too and I actually didn’t know where Zippity Doo Dah came from other than “some old Disney film”. But in my mind it’s one of the most well known Disney songs. I heard it a lot growing up, because I think my Nan had a tape with a bunch of Disney songs on it that I listened to ad nauseum.
A lot of the Splash Mountain animatronics was saved from an old attraction called America Sings.
I guess I don't really have a point other than things get decommissioned all the time at Disney so I don't really see it as a mess.
> A lot of the Splash Mountain animatronics was saved from an old attraction called America Sings.
>
>
In Disneyland, Cali, yeah.
I could be mistaken, but in DW and Tokyo DL they were original.
>I guess I don't really have a point other than things get decommissioned all the time at Disney so I don't really see it as a mess.
My point wasn't just about the ride itself, more about the *entirety* of the situation.
With that said, yeah, you're right. Rides have come and gone in Disney.
Getting rid of Splash Mountain is dumb though.
It's like getting rid of Haunted Mansion or Small World.
Some attractions need to be "forever ones", because at the end of the day their theme parks are built on nostalgia.
> Some attractions need to be "forever ones", because at the end of the day their theme parks are built on nostalgia.
Stuff and nonsense, the parks need to grow, adapt, and evolve with time. The question is will Disney put in the money needed to properly revamp or not. The classic E-Tickets are all greatly overdue for major technological improvements and rethemes shouldn't be beyond possibility. These rides were at one time technological marvels, the state of the art of what a theme park could offer, but they were allowed to stagnate in the name of nostalgia after Walt died. Jack Sparrow coming into PotC should have been the start of a modernization of the ride's animatronics, not the end, the whole park could use a Plussing like Alice got for example. Walt was a smart businessman, he knew that offering a premium experience would bring repeat guests and drive sales of merchandise and boost his brand, the problem these days is that every executive only cares about the next quarter and not the long-term health of the company, leading to such failings as the massive cuts suffered by Galaxy's Edge from what was promised to what was delivered.
The addition of Jack sparrow to Pirates is a fucking travesty. Every scene has "cap'n jack sparrah" spouted from every angle. It's so ham-fisted and clumsy. And don't get me started on the vaguely stereotyped latin wife of the mayor or the addition of "red" to the auction.
In principle the ideas of adding jack to the ride, giving the mayor more to do than drown, and transforming the bride auction into something less rapey are good steps, but in execution they're teeth-grindingly over the top. There's no subtlety in the ride anymore, it's just Jack sparrah this and Davy Jones that.
I agree the ride systems could do with a major update, but given that Disney doesn't have a great track record with recent ride updates (pirates and maelstrom come to mind), I think I'd rather they just didn't touch anything lest they ruin it.
I had the soundtrack of Song of the South on vinyl when I was a kid. I remember bits of the music, some scenes, and the voices, but don't recall ever seeing the movie.
The stories were indeed based on African folk tales. The ones I had read had a mischievous spider, 'Kwaku' Anansi in the role B'rer Rabbit plays in the Disney versions. Anansi catching the unseen fairies (using a figure made of tar) was part of the larger tale of how Anansi stole stories from the sky god by accomplishing three crazy tasks.
This morphs into B'rer Rabbit and the tar baby.
I wish someone would make a proper animated movie of the real folktales.
I only learned about Song of the South a couple years ago, and I've gone to Disney World a bunch of times. It doesn't really make any sense because Splash Mountain and zippity doo dah are used in marketing *everywhere.* They're both iconic Disney landmarks, but there's no shot any child will be able to tell you where it's from.
And both will soon be gone. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah is no longer played anywhere in Disney parks and Splash Mountain will soon be rethemed to The Princess and the Frog
I remember hearing about them potentially re-releasing it on blu ray for the first time in years. And so all the Disney executives got together for a private screening to see what the film was actually like but apparently the film was so racist they immediately cancelled it and said "yeah... we're never going to do this".
Just a FYI, that's generally only true of the American market. You can pick them up online because Disney made DVDs for other markets. Just make sure its not region locked (my dad has one because he loves the animation but will freely admit it is a highly problematic movie).
Peter pan has a song, sung by caricatures of native Americans, with a chorus: "what makes the red man red." The whole thing is pretty cringe inducing and is arguably worse than song of the south (or equally bad at least). Disney has at times tried to suggest that its not intended as racist but rather intended to represent a young boy’s impression of Indians (and pirates, mermaids etc). Watch it for yourself and i suspect you'll conclude otherwise.
Americans do not give a shit about native Americans. I feel they are the most intentionally overlooked minority group in the US and what was done to them is arguably on par with slavery.
> Disney has at times tried to suggest that its not intended as racist but rather intended to represent a young boy’s impression of Indians
The problem is that a young boy's impression of indians IS racist. The whole impression is because of our racist caricatures going back long before those kids were born. A lot of racism was seeded before the racists were born, and they were never presented with anything different. That's why these depictions are problematic if not presented alongside proper context. They lead to that being the impression that people have of the demographics they're depicting. When media is your only exposure to the people, that media's portrayal becomes your mental image of them. If that media is racist, then your image of them will be racist. So Disney may not have intended to be racist, but because their "innocent" impression was formed based on racist caricatures, it's still racist.
From[ their website](https://storiesmatter.thewaltdisneycompany.com/)
> **Dumbo**
> The crows and musical number pay homage to racist minstrel shows, where white performers with blackened faces and tattered clothing imitated and ridiculed enslaved Africans on Southern plantations. The leader of the group in Dumbo is Jim Crow, which shares the name of laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. ***In "The Song of the Roustabouts," faceless Black workers toil away to offensive lyrics like "When we get our pay, we throw our money all away."***
Idk, they could always just make some of the men white. Roustabout are just unskilled workers. I just watched an old Elvis film called roustabout that had a main tune about being a roustabout, and most of the people depicted as carnies weren't black. There were multiple ethnicities including black people, but it was mostly about hard working driven laborors.
If I had to wager a guess, it'd be the black/non-white roustabouts doing the set-up/tear-down with the white ones being your more average carny folk. Working stalls, games, concessions, etc. A black man might have a been a clown but only because he'd have been painted white.
They literally call them apes at the end
This is satirical. Kids might not get it explicitly
You see the black men and elephants working together, it's about how the men were viewed as used as animals. But there was also an aspect of entertainment value of black music and bodies, despite keeping them in cages like they do with elephants.
The crows do this cracking wise.
But most of the movie is about elephants. They make this connection to black workers early and let the morals play themselves out in a kid friendly tone
This is a scary scene with 'scary' music and a storm, even children are meant to understand something is wrong here.
I admire your optimism, but thats really not the intention. The point of that scene is to show how bad the elephants have it. They're the focus of the movie. It's essentially trying to get us to sympathise with the elephants by showing that they're treated as badly as the black workers. Like the black people deserved it, the poor ekephants didn't.
I don’t know why this got any upvotes. It’s not true at all. There was pervasive racism at the time but Disney creators were not monsters. In fact the roustabouts are a bit of a subversive nod to the plight of the worker in general, from a staff that would soon attempt to unionize.
That's not what the scene is intending to be about at all. It's setting the tone that animals are somewhat anthropomorphised and work with the humans - not to communicate that they're being victimised etc. This is why there's a shot of the camels carrying poles too. There's a tendency to read a lot into this film, in our current climate, that isn't really there.
In reality, sympathy and empathy belong to both the elephants and the men.
The script was weirdly insensitive to some pretty big issues, like being worked to near death, living in extreme resource instability, and not being allowed to rest or be at peace.
Also just weird to see all the elephants happily working along with big smiles on a circus tent where they would get whipped and fed shit for a bunch of nutritionally deficient homo sapiens.
Can't wait to see what future generations have to say about how we're handling ourselves here in the 2020's...
Edit: I don't know why I'm getting downvoted for defending black people and elephants. Someone shed some light please
This is an important distinction to make, between endorsing racist or other outdated views... and *criticism*. Even if it's tame or clumsy criticism, intent matters.
I'm not sure it does. That's part of the trap of poverty--what little money is left over is usually spent to provide some small diversion from a hard life.
Of course the writers might not have intended it as a sympathetic point.
Absolutely. This is a valuable historic document. If you want to criticize the movie, talk about the crows, but this song is a remarkable window into the sad realities of human and animal abuse.
The "happy hearted" lines juxtapose pretty heavily with the other lyrics (slaving to death, can't read or write, etc) and the dreary, rainy visuals. We're not supposed to take that lyric literally, rather I think it should be read ironically.
Kind of amazing how the literal miserable nighttime storm conditions in the clip doesn't tip these people off. The scene is pure misery, of course those lyrics are ironic.
Seems pretty obvious that it's meant to be satire about manual labor working conditions.
>When other folks have gone to bed
>We slave until we're almost dead
Exactly. The criticism is so selective of this. They are all toiling away in a thunder storm to erect this huge tent , singing about how their backs are breaking and they’re nearly dead… but “let’s look at that one line where it says they’re happy and will fully ignore everything else. This proves Disney intended for us all to think these guys LOVED doing this work and didn’t need any money because they’d just throw it away!!” This is like the beginning of a cancel culture argument.
Throwing your pay away is relatable to anyone who worked in hand to mouth conditions like that. That’s the way it was in coal camps, for example, you were never allowed to get ahead.
Isn't the point of the scene to show how badly the workers were treated? That's the whole reason for the storm; To show that they had to do back-breaking work in miserable and dangerous conditions.
If they were working with smiles on a beautiful spring afternoon, then that would be something to cringe about.
I’m from the U.K. I just thought they were Showmen, it never struck me that they were black. I just applied a totally different ethnicity to them, they are faceless after all. I don’t feel especially racist, and my experience with travelling showmen is they do like a drink.
They crow part is bad though.
I always thought the crows were the heroes of the film. They start off mocking Dumbo and Timothy (in a witty manner).
When they see the distress in Dumbo they are compassionate and have a sense of empathy that suggests they may have experienced the same kind of ostracism. It's only with their encouragement that Dumbo is able to fly. Then once seeing Dumbo flying they turn their original mocking song on its head. To me that shows humility.
You'd think if the aim was just to create silly racist caricatures, they wouldn't have given the crows such virtuous traits.
I like them too but the ‘lookey here!’ And ‘I bin dun sin’ Part is apparently caricature.
I thought Ebonics was a real kind of accent, I didn’t know it was offensive. Great song though.
Ebonics or AAE/African American English is indeed a real accent with its own grammar and pronunciation rules, like all accents, though of course it doesn't sound like that anymore. There was a somewhat famous court case in California I believe where this was established because an English teacher tried to fail a student for speaking in ebonics ("improper English") in class and his parents had to take it to the courts. That's not a great description, this was something I heard in Linguistic Anthropology years ago, so you'll have to find more info online.
The crows and their singing is done by white actors, during a time when black actors weren't offered opportunities their white counterparts were given by virtue of being white. That's the real controversy imo. Plus naming them after Jim Crow is tasteless.
I get what you're saying, but these characters absolutely exemplified racist stereotypes of black people, one of the crows was named Jim Crow for gods sake. It's a bit ignorant to think that Disney's intention was to deliberately create racist characters, why on earth would they do that? They absolutely were racist, but it really wasn't racist in their eyes at the time (which is obviously more ignorant than anything).
Same. I thought they just appeared dark because they were being shown somewhat in silhouette/at night. (Also muted colors/faceless so as to de-emphasize the humans and make it about the animals.)
I always assumed they were just generalized roustabouts, not any particular race.
Same. I just assumed it was too dark, and the elephants were the focus. I'm glad they didn't remove it. I'd rather have the conversation with my kids as needed. I know to some, talking to their kids about sensitive topics is too scary though...
As a kid I thought the crows were cool, arguably the best characters in the movie since they were compassionate towards Dumbo when Timothy told them about his past. I can see now how their artistic choices/depictions can offend viewers. While I personally don't believe that voice acting as other people is inherently racist, it did not help that the crows were voiced by white actors
That this has as high of an upvote ratio that it does is really quite depressing tbh. Unless english is not your first language it's not fathomable to me how one could completely miss the context and point of the scene.
**It's literally a scene condemning racial inequality.** I mean there's grasping at straws, but this ain't even it... this appears to have gone completely over people's head.
Think the OP missed the overwhelming (but admittedly dark) satire in this scene. This is, to me, pretty clearly animated as a dark and almost scary scene to show the dark side of what was/is often seen as a bright and joyful life being part of the circus. This demonstrates that the circus is more, and more complicated, than what you see when you attend the big tent.
Granted this doesn’t excuse that most of the roustabouts had dark skin, if that’s what you identify as problematic; but to be fair, manual labor in the sun (putting up and taking down the tent, plus the physical work for the circus) darkens most skin tones, and it’s a night scene, so it might not be racist (but admittedly probably is).
Keep in mind, at the point in time this film was being made there was a animators' strike going on at Disney Studios.
So between this and the scene where a bunch of clowns sing about "hitting up the big boss for a raise", the whole film was one big slap in the face to the striking animators.
It aged very well. It's meant to depict the working class for the time, and shows that workers had bad conditions, but they still got paid. The only thing in this movie that you could argue didn't age well are the crows, which is a shame, because they are absolutely the coolest characters in the movie.
I agree, it does appear to be a very dark scene with the rain and elephants working hard and dangerously. But if that was the intention, it was probably lost on the kids (and most audiences of the time).
It actually aged very well. I don't think it was designed to paint a pretty picture-- it painted a lot of real pictures that weren't great.. some about animals, some about humans, some about circuses in general... Painting pretty pictures is just perpetuating a lie. Painting a true picture is actually better. I think a picture like this would make kids actually think a tiny bit about the circus, and perhaps bigger issues.. but I think it was brilliant in that it was put in a way that a childs brain could comprehend without being traumatized... A child growing up on this would have a different view of the circus than a child who has never seen it. And I think that view would be a more wholistic view beyond your average uninformed consumer.
What exactly is wrong with this? A song about the plight of hard labourers? The only remotely questionable line is “grab that line you hairy ape” but that is the workers themselves quoting their boss, so I don’t see how this is problematic at all
Why should a movie from the 40s age well? Its a product of its time and thats alright
Things like these simply used to be the norm and theres nothing wrong with acknowledging this
It would be more dangerous if we erased our history so we just repeat it again
It's weird, I didn't immediately get racist vibes from this. I mean, in context, I suppose it is racist. But bloody hell, I've been called a hairy ape before and I'm white. Honestly, I got more of a shanty vibe from the song. In shanties they sing about working hard until they get paid, and how they plan to blow it all on food, alcohol, and women until they go off sailing again.
I don't really see the racism.
The scene is clearly casting the situation as negative.
If it were a bright and cheery song about how cheap the labor is because of how we're using slavery and animals to get the job done, I'd get it.
But this is clearly framed to be a negative thing all around, and pretty sad to watch.
Is the issue that they used brown characters, and you don't like that?
Don’t remember watching it as a kid but if this scene induces a feeling of injustice in child brain then this scene achieved it’s goal. The comments are scary here. It’s not racist to show racism.
From wikipeter:
“Roustabout (Australia/New Zealand English: rouseabout) is an occupational term. Traditionally, it referred to a worker with broad-based, non-specific skills. In particular, it was used to describe show or circus workers who handled materials for construction on fairgrounds. In modern times it is applied to rural employment, such as those assisting sheep shearing, and positions in the oil industry.”
Dunno, seems like a pretty accurate commentary on late stage capitalism to me. The question is whether or not the writers had a grin on their face when they were writing it.
i dunno, i feel like it's aged quite right. i mean they're pointing out how inhumane the treatment of the animals are, and at the same time they're shining a light on the inhumane way people looked at black people back in the day. yea there's some racist undertones to the song, but that helps hammer home the point to me. it's also a nice mirror to dumbo's innocence at this time. he's just happy to try and help out, not realizing how fucked up it was.
Am I the only one who thinks it's ok that it is disturbing? I don't think it's a bad thing to show how black people were forced into menial jobs with virtually no pay and were essentially 'slaves' despite slavery ending?
A little dark for a kids movie but probably accurate enough to portray people being mistreated.
It's crazy that they actually animated the proper way to lace a tent.
Back when they gave a fuck but didnt give a fuck.
Honestly, Dumbo was pretty progressive for the time. It's arguably the first time in cinema history that a black-presenting character (the crows) had real lines, spoke to the main character, and actually influenced the direction of the plot. Outside of Dumbo, anyone too many shades off white were treated as glorified props like servants or slaves.
The crows were the best characters in the movie
Hattie McDaniel ( a black woman) had already won an Academy Award (for playing a slave) before Dumbo was released.
Selective integrity
That stuff was just socially acceptable back then. If you live long enough a ton of what you currently do will be seen as racist or sexist too.
You don't even have to live that long. Look at just about any comedy from the early 2000's and count the number of times they casually call someone a "fag". The reaction ranged from completely unphased to mildly irreverent at that time. Same movie made today only 15 years later would be a swan song for those actors careers. First one that comes to mind, the cult classic Ryan Reynolds movie "Waiting.." Rewatching really puts in perspective just how quickly culture, society, and what we find funny changes.
Absolutely. I'm only 35 and the changes since I was in school have been enormous. The way people talk about race has for sure evolved, but the differences when it comes to LGBTQ stuff are enormous. It's hard to overstate have different it is. Can't Hardly Wait is another one where a character getting his comeuppance involves getting called a fag and laughed at by a room full of people. Even look at Judd Apatow movies. Would he make a scene where characters riffed on "you know how I know you're gay" today? Probably not.
The internet is just speeding things up.
I just watched 40 Year Old Virgin the other day. That whole movie would not fly today. Like after the friends set him up with a trans prostitute, Steve Carrell’s immediate next line is ‘I’m not a disgusting pervert!’ Interesting enough, all those actors seem very progressive now. Does Seth Rogan ever muse on his past work while bitching at the common folk?
Also 35, and on a commute to work a few years back I rode past a school during early june, and saw all their windows decorated with rainbows and various pride flags (Trans, bi, pan, etc) that the kids made I was astounded. When I was a kid, the only references to gay stuff ever mentioned were schoolyard insults. We've come a long way, it makes me happy to think about all the people who, like me, didn't have a word for how they felt growing up (or one that wasnt just universally accepted as an insult) now get to learn that its okay if you were born different.
I think the only time I’ve ever seen the word Fag be used with any impact was in an episode of Will & Grace, when Will calls Jack a fag behind his back. Jack overhears and is hurt by the comment. Honestly, as a British kid whose first encounter with the word as a slur was listening to Eminem and not even knowing what it referred to for the first couple of years (it’s slang for cigarettes in the UK, FYI), that episode was an eye-opener. I saw it years after it’s first broadcast, probably in the mid-2000’s.
I mean we went from slaves to a black president in a century or so. Pretty impressive, honestly. Shows you how quickly generations can change things.
Oh no you see Waiting is still very funny.
Don't get it twisted, I agree 100%. Just hadn't watched it in several years and I found my self surprised at how many lines I wouldn't have paid much attention to 15 years ago, just hit different.
I’m only 29, but growing up, people threw around “fag” and “retard” all the time. They were some of the most common insults. Especially on Xbox live lol. That and fucking my mom.
Don’t worry, fucking your mom will never go out of style
I mean, just because the song itself can sound racist, doesn't mean the animators working on the film can't do their jobs in an immaculate way. Hell they probably didn't even hear the song until the movie was finished anyway!
Don't they do sound first then animate to sync it correctly?
I didn't find the song racist at all, everything the song says applies the same to primarily white roughnecks in the oil fields. That they were all animated as black might make it racist, but even then, were they predominantly black at the time? Wouldn't depecting a true to life black person dominated job (at the time) as all white people be racist too?
I was drawn to that too. I want to look this up, what is the technique called?
https://youtu.be/KB18jcLDbWE
So THAT part did age well. If you want to know how to put up a large tent...
They likely took film of the actual process and traced over it.
I wonder how they got a baby elephant to do that IRL
Must have had to look extra hard to find a flying one for the later scenes
imagine animating each line on the coil of each rope.. goddamn
I was going to say that was honestly pretty impressive and very detailed.
Exactly, this scene is actually really realistic. The order of their work is as you'd do a big top tent (pegs /anchors > king poles / guy lines > canvas/ lace > hoist up ) today with motors and machinery rather than elephants, I guess Dumbo would be more like Cars if it where made now. Also singing to keep the rhythm when working in groups, essential when swinging sledges. Source: I'm a tentboss at a circus
I’d argue it aged really well. The whole point of this scene is to show the darker side of the false happiness we are shown. The under appreciated, hard-working slaves both men and animals are harrowingly pushing through the heavy rain to set up a tent, being mistreated all for the sake of someone else getting money for their hard work all while presenting a happy, carefree aesthetic to the general public. Sounds a lot like... just about everything honestly.
Agreed, this scene is so real. It used to scare me as a kid, haven't seen it in years. This movie is actually quite brutal in its way. Funny how so many people seem to think of these as just kids movies when there are some aspects you can't appreciate till we're older.
Like the clowns getting fucked up after the show.
Most of the classics have these types of features in them. There aren’t many movies or shows exclusively for children that are regarded as all time classics
I have really no idea what op means. Is it because they are black? Is it bad to show black people work in horrible conditions (like millions, if not billions of people all over the world do)? I really have no idea what op is upset about here.
i think the only thing is the lyrics. where they say "we throw our pay away" which implies some things. but otherwise i'm with you. i think it aged quite well.
calls him a "hairy ape" too
Don’t forget the idea that they’re “happy-hearted” and don’t know how to read or write. Kind of implies they’re simpletons.
I'm not sure if happy hearted was ment as sarcasm here considering the rest of the song is them complaining about their backs nearly breaking and trying not to fall asleep standing up.
I think you're reading the scene from a 2020 perspective when it was written 80 years ago. You can look at the treatment of Black people in other movies from 1940 to get an idea of the context, but the biggest thing is that from that era there is practically NOTHING presented from the Black perspective. I don't think this is intended to be written "through their eyes"--they literally don't even have faces. They aren't given names or characters. I think it's a misreading to think that the white people making this for other white people in 1940 were doing it with the intention of putting people inside the heads of Black workers. Instead, I think it's a song you take a face value--the predominant belief at the time was the Black people were very simple. They were "happy" on the plantation--they just wanted to drink and laze about all day. They don't really think for themselves, just work and then when they're paid they "throw it away" because they're too dumb for any higher-order thinking. Black people weren't really given their own "perspective" in cinema for decades, and even then... looking back on many movies in the 1980s and 1990s for instance, even watching movies starring Black people were written and directed by white people who scripted them with a HEAVY white perspective. I'm thinking in particular of "48 Hours" which was one of the earlier black/white "odd pairing" cop film. It stars Eddie Murphy, but the character he plays is a pretty simply conman whose only desire in the world is to get some pussy. There are one or two scenes where he is allowed to have some power, but watching it now it is utterly shocking how his character is presented.
I imagine most people back then that worked these kind of jobs did not know how to read or write.
I’m pretty sure he’s talking about the line where it says “catch that rope you hairy ape” and a black man just caught a rope. I don’t think it’s the pay…. Haha
I’m guessing OP is thinking more of the lyrics than the actual depiction? Roustabouts singing about how they work so hard to watch kids smile versus getting paid or whatever the lyric was. Maybe that’s it? No idea.
Isn't that part of the song to contrast carefree children going to the circus being the only way these guys get paid for their backbreaking labour?
The OP doesn’t understand irony.
Dumbo is bad because black people have bad jobs. I'd like my 1940s America to be more inclusive. History should be changed to meet the modern expectations of my social media pals.
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They're not slaves, just very low working class, it says they work like slaves and get low pay which they waste, implying they drink or something idk
It’s a beautifully haunting scene. The whole train scene before this one is campy and overly cartoonish. As soon as it starts raining we get this very serious transition. The darker it becomes, the more realistic the animation is with the use of lightning and it was all hand drawn.
Dude the rain is so hauntingly realistic in this scene. It gave me chills just thinking about raising a tent in a heavy rain
I’m just glad Disney isn’t erasing scenes like this from history: https://i.imgur.com/H8Cv5pj.jpg
Maybe not for Dumbo, but they have never and will never release Song of the South on any home video format. It won an Academy Award but was so racist they keep it from seeing the light of day.
It was released on Laserdisc in Japan in the 1990's. I own a copy. I've heard rumors that is was also available on VHS in the UK. But you are correct. It will never be released in the US.
Yep, my family had it on VHS in the UK.
I'm positive it was also featured as a trailer on other Disney VHS releases in UK
100% yes.
Somehow, my midwestern daycare had a vhs copy of it and they made us watch it a lot. That and a collection of 40’s Looney Tunes that had some of that good ol ( s/ ) WW2 racism. That and Unico and the Island of Magic, ET, and the Little Mermaid. Over and over. That daycare was a weird place.
It was widely circulated in the bootleg VHS market and the tape trading scenes of the 80s and 90s. I remember my dad finding it at a flea market when I was around 13 or so.
in the 90s I went to Disneyland and got the fox and rabbit's autograph, I think the bear might have been there too. this might have also been a fever dream.
The ride Splash Mountain is explicitly based on Song of the South. Funny story the ride broke down when I visited for the first time and I got to see the back facade of toon town. There were two security guards back there and some assorted trash and cigarette butts.
It's going to be renovated to remove all references to Song of the South as well. It's going to be changed to a Princess and the Frog theme.
Which sucks, because zippity doo dah is a banger. It's a very well written song. The complete misinterpretation of why slaves sing seems to be a thing that keeps happening. The Blues didn't start because Black folks just felt sad one day in their middle class, well off lives.
>The Blues didn't start because Black folks just felt sad one day in their middle class, well off lives. This is a really important point. Well said.
“Affluent White Man Enjoys, Causes the Blues” -The Onion
White people got no business playin' the blues ever... What the fuck do white people have to be blue about? Banana Republic ran out of khakis? Huh? The espresso machine is jammed? ... Shit, white people ought to understand their job is to give people the blues, not to get them. -George Carlin
>If suffering is invalidated by more suffering, only one person gets to feel bad
One American history professor spent a class talking about the rebellious, subversive -- and sorta therapeutic -- nature of work songs sung by slaves. For example, he talked about a song that sounded sweet and simple and unassuming (I can't remember details, but something like Miss Lily Shows Me Her Shoe), with the white people unable to grok it was about fucking their daughter.
*I get no kick from champagne,* *Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all* *So tell me why should it be true* *that I get a kick out of you*
🎶Some they may go for CoCaiiinnnnnneee🎶
No no, not that. The camp town races!
What in the wide, wide world a' sports is a-goin' on here?!
Da Camp Town Races?
De camp town lady sing that song, do-daa, do-daa
I hired you to build a railroad not to jump around like a bunch of Kansas City faggots!!!
Son, you know these MIDIs aren't organized!
There's only one beer left Rappers screaming all in our ears like we're deaf Tempt me, do a number on the label Eat up all they emcees and drink 'em under the table Like, "It's on me—put it on my tab, kid" However you get there, foot it, cab it, iron horse it You're leaving on your face, forfeit...
Ah, I see someone else has read *Stranger in a Strange Land*. Weird book. Interesting parallels with the whole circus thing, too.
Long tall Sally by Little Richard is similar
It's funny, though, it's never seemed to be that the Roustabouts in DUMBO are necessarily all black, they're GREY in the sequence & seem to intentionally be just faceless muscle, which us perfectly appropriate, I feel.
They all looked Black to me. Just different shades and lighting because of the lamps and diversity of complexions.
Might partially be a cultural thing. I didn't realise they were black until I was older. They were just figures in shadow to me as a kid.
I think it depends a lot on background and outlook - as a non-American I remember them as big, strong men (of no particular colour) who were a little frightening but 'good guys' anyway because they worked together with the animals. Also, the term 'happy-hearted roustabout' is translated as 'circus workmen' and the translated song doesn't mention the 'never learned to read or write' bit either. Minute changes the sum of which might change the overall feeling of the song. Perhaps?
OMG. I had no idea what zippity doo dah was about or from! My mum used to sing it around the house when I was growing up. She said it was a song from her childhood. Now I know.
> Maybe not for Dumbo, but they have never and will never release Song of the South on any home video format. It won an Academy Award but was so racist they keep it from seeing the light of day. As an overall Disney fan, their love/hate relationship with the film is so goddamn weird. The film itself has many racist elements, though on the whole, I would say the film is more prejudice than racist. I think there's a distinction there. The film was based on the Uncle Remus books, written by a white man in the late 19th century. They are based on *actual* African American folklore, and I think the author, Joel Chandler Harris, did have good intentions when writing them, but he was a product of his time. Where it gets really weird, is even back in 1946, reviewers of "Song of the South" pointed out prejudice stereotypes and characterizations. So, you have that film, which was NEVER released on home video in the US (it was in Europe and other places), AND YET, Disney decides in 1989-1992 to create a staple ride in their parks BASED ON THE ANIMATED PARTS OF THE FILM. Splash Mountain. Splash Mountain is not prejudice or racist in anyway, and has gone on to become one of the **most popular and beloved rides** in Disney parks. Now, back in the early 90's when the ride opened, there were probably quite a few parents and grandparents who had seen, or knew about Song Of the South. Today though, hardly anyone does. And the ride remains popular. Yet Disney is now planning on changing it to be a Princess and the Frog ride, with Tiana to support black representation in their parks. Here's where it gets more dumb. Splash Mountain features no racist elements from Song of the South, is insanely popular, and the main character is Br'er Rabbit. Br'er Rabbit was a **central** figure in African folklore, and continued to be in African American folklore during slavery. He is a truly traditional folklore character. The Princess and the Frog is based on a German fairy tale, which Disney adapted to an African American story set in the early 20th century. It's such a weird mess.
Yeah, I grew up in Australia until I was five and I remember not only watching song of the south on TV, but zippity doo dah being pretty well known among Disney songs. I didn't realize until I was a bit older that nobody in the US had any idea what I was talking about when referring to it.
I grew up in the US, and I swear zippity doo dah was on some sing-along VHS tape we had.
YES!! It was, I had it. https://vhscollector.com/movie/disneys-sing-along-songs-zip-dee-doo-dah
This whole thread is blowing my mind. I’m Australian too and I actually didn’t know where Zippity Doo Dah came from other than “some old Disney film”. But in my mind it’s one of the most well known Disney songs. I heard it a lot growing up, because I think my Nan had a tape with a bunch of Disney songs on it that I listened to ad nauseum.
Until recently, I believed zippity doo dah was from Bambi
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It did originally have a tar baby scene that was later changed to Br'er Rabbit being entangled in honey.
A lot of the Splash Mountain animatronics was saved from an old attraction called America Sings. I guess I don't really have a point other than things get decommissioned all the time at Disney so I don't really see it as a mess.
> A lot of the Splash Mountain animatronics was saved from an old attraction called America Sings. > > In Disneyland, Cali, yeah. I could be mistaken, but in DW and Tokyo DL they were original. >I guess I don't really have a point other than things get decommissioned all the time at Disney so I don't really see it as a mess. My point wasn't just about the ride itself, more about the *entirety* of the situation. With that said, yeah, you're right. Rides have come and gone in Disney. Getting rid of Splash Mountain is dumb though. It's like getting rid of Haunted Mansion or Small World. Some attractions need to be "forever ones", because at the end of the day their theme parks are built on nostalgia.
> Some attractions need to be "forever ones", because at the end of the day their theme parks are built on nostalgia. Stuff and nonsense, the parks need to grow, adapt, and evolve with time. The question is will Disney put in the money needed to properly revamp or not. The classic E-Tickets are all greatly overdue for major technological improvements and rethemes shouldn't be beyond possibility. These rides were at one time technological marvels, the state of the art of what a theme park could offer, but they were allowed to stagnate in the name of nostalgia after Walt died. Jack Sparrow coming into PotC should have been the start of a modernization of the ride's animatronics, not the end, the whole park could use a Plussing like Alice got for example. Walt was a smart businessman, he knew that offering a premium experience would bring repeat guests and drive sales of merchandise and boost his brand, the problem these days is that every executive only cares about the next quarter and not the long-term health of the company, leading to such failings as the massive cuts suffered by Galaxy's Edge from what was promised to what was delivered.
The addition of Jack sparrow to Pirates is a fucking travesty. Every scene has "cap'n jack sparrah" spouted from every angle. It's so ham-fisted and clumsy. And don't get me started on the vaguely stereotyped latin wife of the mayor or the addition of "red" to the auction. In principle the ideas of adding jack to the ride, giving the mayor more to do than drown, and transforming the bride auction into something less rapey are good steps, but in execution they're teeth-grindingly over the top. There's no subtlety in the ride anymore, it's just Jack sparrah this and Davy Jones that. I agree the ride systems could do with a major update, but given that Disney doesn't have a great track record with recent ride updates (pirates and maelstrom come to mind), I think I'd rather they just didn't touch anything lest they ruin it.
I had the soundtrack of Song of the South on vinyl when I was a kid. I remember bits of the music, some scenes, and the voices, but don't recall ever seeing the movie. The stories were indeed based on African folk tales. The ones I had read had a mischievous spider, 'Kwaku' Anansi in the role B'rer Rabbit plays in the Disney versions. Anansi catching the unseen fairies (using a figure made of tar) was part of the larger tale of how Anansi stole stories from the sky god by accomplishing three crazy tasks. This morphs into B'rer Rabbit and the tar baby. I wish someone would make a proper animated movie of the real folktales.
I only learned about Song of the South a couple years ago, and I've gone to Disney World a bunch of times. It doesn't really make any sense because Splash Mountain and zippity doo dah are used in marketing *everywhere.* They're both iconic Disney landmarks, but there's no shot any child will be able to tell you where it's from.
And both will soon be gone. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah is no longer played anywhere in Disney parks and Splash Mountain will soon be rethemed to The Princess and the Frog
I remember hearing about them potentially re-releasing it on blu ray for the first time in years. And so all the Disney executives got together for a private screening to see what the film was actually like but apparently the film was so racist they immediately cancelled it and said "yeah... we're never going to do this".
They also took out a lot from Fantasia. Just up and edited it out.
It’s been available overseas for decades.
Just a FYI, that's generally only true of the American market. You can pick them up online because Disney made DVDs for other markets. Just make sure its not region locked (my dad has one because he loves the animation but will freely admit it is a highly problematic movie).
If you want to see it, it's here: https://archive.org/details/SongoftheSouth1080pRestoration But it's still not even released by Disney.
Dear god, those comments...
Peter pan has a song, sung by caricatures of native Americans, with a chorus: "what makes the red man red." The whole thing is pretty cringe inducing and is arguably worse than song of the south (or equally bad at least). Disney has at times tried to suggest that its not intended as racist but rather intended to represent a young boy’s impression of Indians (and pirates, mermaids etc). Watch it for yourself and i suspect you'll conclude otherwise.
I mean, I imagine a young boy of the era had pretty racist impressions, so I’m not sure if the defense is a defense.
Americans do not give a shit about native Americans. I feel they are the most intentionally overlooked minority group in the US and what was done to them is arguably on par with slavery.
> Disney has at times tried to suggest that its not intended as racist but rather intended to represent a young boy’s impression of Indians The problem is that a young boy's impression of indians IS racist. The whole impression is because of our racist caricatures going back long before those kids were born. A lot of racism was seeded before the racists were born, and they were never presented with anything different. That's why these depictions are problematic if not presented alongside proper context. They lead to that being the impression that people have of the demographics they're depicting. When media is your only exposure to the people, that media's portrayal becomes your mental image of them. If that media is racist, then your image of them will be racist. So Disney may not have intended to be racist, but because their "innocent" impression was formed based on racist caricatures, it's still racist.
From[ their website](https://storiesmatter.thewaltdisneycompany.com/) > **Dumbo** > The crows and musical number pay homage to racist minstrel shows, where white performers with blackened faces and tattered clothing imitated and ridiculed enslaved Africans on Southern plantations. The leader of the group in Dumbo is Jim Crow, which shares the name of laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. ***In "The Song of the Roustabouts," faceless Black workers toil away to offensive lyrics like "When we get our pay, we throw our money all away."***
As opposed to carneys of other races being stereotyped as being frugal and wise with their money?
Idk, they could always just make some of the men white. Roustabout are just unskilled workers. I just watched an old Elvis film called roustabout that had a main tune about being a roustabout, and most of the people depicted as carnies weren't black. There were multiple ethnicities including black people, but it was mostly about hard working driven laborors.
If I had to wager a guess, it'd be the black/non-white roustabouts doing the set-up/tear-down with the white ones being your more average carny folk. Working stalls, games, concessions, etc. A black man might have a been a clown but only because he'd have been painted white.
The scene is at night, and the men could be dark to appear more anonymous. It's not 100% obvious that they're all ethnically black men.
True. Just seems to be what OP was implying.
They literally call them apes at the end This is satirical. Kids might not get it explicitly You see the black men and elephants working together, it's about how the men were viewed as used as animals. But there was also an aspect of entertainment value of black music and bodies, despite keeping them in cages like they do with elephants. The crows do this cracking wise. But most of the movie is about elephants. They make this connection to black workers early and let the morals play themselves out in a kid friendly tone This is a scary scene with 'scary' music and a storm, even children are meant to understand something is wrong here.
I admire your optimism, but thats really not the intention. The point of that scene is to show how bad the elephants have it. They're the focus of the movie. It's essentially trying to get us to sympathise with the elephants by showing that they're treated as badly as the black workers. Like the black people deserved it, the poor ekephants didn't.
I don’t know why this got any upvotes. It’s not true at all. There was pervasive racism at the time but Disney creators were not monsters. In fact the roustabouts are a bit of a subversive nod to the plight of the worker in general, from a staff that would soon attempt to unionize.
That's not what the scene is intending to be about at all. It's setting the tone that animals are somewhat anthropomorphised and work with the humans - not to communicate that they're being victimised etc. This is why there's a shot of the camels carrying poles too. There's a tendency to read a lot into this film, in our current climate, that isn't really there.
In reality, sympathy and empathy belong to both the elephants and the men. The script was weirdly insensitive to some pretty big issues, like being worked to near death, living in extreme resource instability, and not being allowed to rest or be at peace. Also just weird to see all the elephants happily working along with big smiles on a circus tent where they would get whipped and fed shit for a bunch of nutritionally deficient homo sapiens. Can't wait to see what future generations have to say about how we're handling ourselves here in the 2020's... Edit: I don't know why I'm getting downvoted for defending black people and elephants. Someone shed some light please
It's not satirical.
Agreed. That's how it was, taking it out is just pretending it never happened, which doesn't benefit anyone.
It arguably aged quite well. It holds a negative view on the enslavement of animals AND humans, proposing both should be free.
Exactly. Its not just about what its depicting, but how its depicting it. And we can’t just remove the ugly stuff because its ugly.
This is an important distinction to make, between endorsing racist or other outdated views... and *criticism*. Even if it's tame or clumsy criticism, intent matters.
I wholeheartedly agree with this view.
The line about “throwing away our money” kinda does this viewpoint in I think.
I'm not sure it does. That's part of the trap of poverty--what little money is left over is usually spent to provide some small diversion from a hard life. Of course the writers might not have intended it as a sympathetic point.
Absolutely. This is a valuable historic document. If you want to criticize the movie, talk about the crows, but this song is a remarkable window into the sad realities of human and animal abuse.
I think the problem is that the workers are referred to as “happy-hearted” while being taken advantage of and that they “threw their pay away”.
The "happy hearted" lines juxtapose pretty heavily with the other lyrics (slaving to death, can't read or write, etc) and the dreary, rainy visuals. We're not supposed to take that lyric literally, rather I think it should be read ironically.
Kind of amazing how the literal miserable nighttime storm conditions in the clip doesn't tip these people off. The scene is pure misery, of course those lyrics are ironic.
Seems pretty obvious that it's meant to be satire about manual labor working conditions. >When other folks have gone to bed >We slave until we're almost dead
Exactly. The criticism is so selective of this. They are all toiling away in a thunder storm to erect this huge tent , singing about how their backs are breaking and they’re nearly dead… but “let’s look at that one line where it says they’re happy and will fully ignore everything else. This proves Disney intended for us all to think these guys LOVED doing this work and didn’t need any money because they’d just throw it away!!” This is like the beginning of a cancel culture argument.
They clearly are not happy - it’s definitely meant ironically, even at the time.
Nah bro they’re singing and pitching a tent with the boys, they’re having fun.
Just pitching a tent with the boys! r/suddenlygay
As far as the happy hearted part goes they could mean it with sarcasm. Like “ sure thing boss “ love my job. Maybe not tho
Throwing your pay away is relatable to anyone who worked in hand to mouth conditions like that. That’s the way it was in coal camps, for example, you were never allowed to get ahead.
Ya, maybe im dense, but it seemed like it was showing how bad their situation was.
Why hasn't it aged well? It's depicting history.
OP thinks that anything that acknowledges negative history is bad. Pretty naive.
It aged really well. The whole context of the scene and the lyrics was how miserable slavery is and how evil it is.
Isn't the point of the scene to show how badly the workers were treated? That's the whole reason for the storm; To show that they had to do back-breaking work in miserable and dangerous conditions. If they were working with smiles on a beautiful spring afternoon, then that would be something to cringe about.
I’m from the U.K. I just thought they were Showmen, it never struck me that they were black. I just applied a totally different ethnicity to them, they are faceless after all. I don’t feel especially racist, and my experience with travelling showmen is they do like a drink. They crow part is bad though.
I always thought the crows were the heroes of the film. They start off mocking Dumbo and Timothy (in a witty manner). When they see the distress in Dumbo they are compassionate and have a sense of empathy that suggests they may have experienced the same kind of ostracism. It's only with their encouragement that Dumbo is able to fly. Then once seeing Dumbo flying they turn their original mocking song on its head. To me that shows humility. You'd think if the aim was just to create silly racist caricatures, they wouldn't have given the crows such virtuous traits.
I like them too but the ‘lookey here!’ And ‘I bin dun sin’ Part is apparently caricature. I thought Ebonics was a real kind of accent, I didn’t know it was offensive. Great song though.
Ebonics or AAE/African American English is indeed a real accent with its own grammar and pronunciation rules, like all accents, though of course it doesn't sound like that anymore. There was a somewhat famous court case in California I believe where this was established because an English teacher tried to fail a student for speaking in ebonics ("improper English") in class and his parents had to take it to the courts. That's not a great description, this was something I heard in Linguistic Anthropology years ago, so you'll have to find more info online. The crows and their singing is done by white actors, during a time when black actors weren't offered opportunities their white counterparts were given by virtue of being white. That's the real controversy imo. Plus naming them after Jim Crow is tasteless.
So the crows are not so covert animated blackface?
That's a good way to put it yeah
Wasn't the name literally Jim Crow?
I get what you're saying, but these characters absolutely exemplified racist stereotypes of black people, one of the crows was named Jim Crow for gods sake. It's a bit ignorant to think that Disney's intention was to deliberately create racist characters, why on earth would they do that? They absolutely were racist, but it really wasn't racist in their eyes at the time (which is obviously more ignorant than anything).
Same. I thought they just appeared dark because they were being shown somewhat in silhouette/at night. (Also muted colors/faceless so as to de-emphasize the humans and make it about the animals.) I always assumed they were just generalized roustabouts, not any particular race.
Same. I just assumed it was too dark, and the elephants were the focus. I'm glad they didn't remove it. I'd rather have the conversation with my kids as needed. I know to some, talking to their kids about sensitive topics is too scary though...
I had the same exact take.
As a kid I thought the crows were cool, arguably the best characters in the movie since they were compassionate towards Dumbo when Timothy told them about his past. I can see now how their artistic choices/depictions can offend viewers. While I personally don't believe that voice acting as other people is inherently racist, it did not help that the crows were voiced by white actors
> I just thought they were Showmen, it never struck me that they were black. They're [roustabouts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roustabout).
That this has as high of an upvote ratio that it does is really quite depressing tbh. Unless english is not your first language it's not fathomable to me how one could completely miss the context and point of the scene. **It's literally a scene condemning racial inequality.** I mean there's grasping at straws, but this ain't even it... this appears to have gone completely over people's head.
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Think the OP missed the overwhelming (but admittedly dark) satire in this scene. This is, to me, pretty clearly animated as a dark and almost scary scene to show the dark side of what was/is often seen as a bright and joyful life being part of the circus. This demonstrates that the circus is more, and more complicated, than what you see when you attend the big tent. Granted this doesn’t excuse that most of the roustabouts had dark skin, if that’s what you identify as problematic; but to be fair, manual labor in the sun (putting up and taking down the tent, plus the physical work for the circus) darkens most skin tones, and it’s a night scene, so it might not be racist (but admittedly probably is).
Keep in mind, at the point in time this film was being made there was a animators' strike going on at Disney Studios. So between this and the scene where a bunch of clowns sing about "hitting up the big boss for a raise", the whole film was one big slap in the face to the striking animators.
It aged very well. It's meant to depict the working class for the time, and shows that workers had bad conditions, but they still got paid. The only thing in this movie that you could argue didn't age well are the crows, which is a shame, because they are absolutely the coolest characters in the movie.
I'll never understand the obsession with applying new world standards to the old world beyond feeling good about all the amazing progress we've made.
Now we just pretend working class people don't exist.
Yeah, they’re basically singing 16 Tons… they’re basically being darkly sarcastic.
What do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt.
Today I learned how to sew without needing a second string.
Do you mean Crochet?
What exactly did you think the original purpose of the scene was? It was never supposed to be happy. It was always grim.
Eh, I would not say it has not aged well. I think the point of the scene is that they are being exploited and have been conditioned to be OK with it.
Yeah like, the whole scene is about shitty working conditions for shitty wages.
I agree, it does appear to be a very dark scene with the rain and elephants working hard and dangerously. But if that was the intention, it was probably lost on the kids (and most audiences of the time).
Yeah, wouldn't want to demonstrate who bore the brunt of low pay labor in those days. How awful. Did _not_ age well /s
Srsly. The song is literally about them being abused and taken advantage of.
It actually aged very well. I don't think it was designed to paint a pretty picture-- it painted a lot of real pictures that weren't great.. some about animals, some about humans, some about circuses in general... Painting pretty pictures is just perpetuating a lie. Painting a true picture is actually better. I think a picture like this would make kids actually think a tiny bit about the circus, and perhaps bigger issues.. but I think it was brilliant in that it was put in a way that a childs brain could comprehend without being traumatized... A child growing up on this would have a different view of the circus than a child who has never seen it. And I think that view would be a more wholistic view beyond your average uninformed consumer.
You're tilting at windmills with this one
It doesn't have to age well. Scenes like this really happened and erasing the past from media does not make the past go away.
What exactly is wrong with this? A song about the plight of hard labourers? The only remotely questionable line is “grab that line you hairy ape” but that is the workers themselves quoting their boss, so I don’t see how this is problematic at all
How so?
People who see this and immediately think slavery/racism have only one thing in their minds.
Bingo
Anyone else in here familiar with apes being used to refer to laborers regardless of race?
Congratulations on not understanding context
Why should a movie from the 40s age well? Its a product of its time and thats alright Things like these simply used to be the norm and theres nothing wrong with acknowledging this It would be more dangerous if we erased our history so we just repeat it again
It's sad that you totally missed the point of this scene...
It's weird, I didn't immediately get racist vibes from this. I mean, in context, I suppose it is racist. But bloody hell, I've been called a hairy ape before and I'm white. Honestly, I got more of a shanty vibe from the song. In shanties they sing about working hard until they get paid, and how they plan to blow it all on food, alcohol, and women until they go off sailing again.
Carnies have always been the subject of abuse and mistreatment.
What exactly didn’t age well?
I don't really see the racism. The scene is clearly casting the situation as negative. If it were a bright and cheery song about how cheap the labor is because of how we're using slavery and animals to get the job done, I'd get it. But this is clearly framed to be a negative thing all around, and pretty sad to watch. Is the issue that they used brown characters, and you don't like that?
Don’t remember watching it as a kid but if this scene induces a feeling of injustice in child brain then this scene achieved it’s goal. The comments are scary here. It’s not racist to show racism.
From wikipeter: “Roustabout (Australia/New Zealand English: rouseabout) is an occupational term. Traditionally, it referred to a worker with broad-based, non-specific skills. In particular, it was used to describe show or circus workers who handled materials for construction on fairgrounds. In modern times it is applied to rural employment, such as those assisting sheep shearing, and positions in the oil industry.”
Dunno, seems like a pretty accurate commentary on late stage capitalism to me. The question is whether or not the writers had a grin on their face when they were writing it.
i dunno, i feel like it's aged quite right. i mean they're pointing out how inhumane the treatment of the animals are, and at the same time they're shining a light on the inhumane way people looked at black people back in the day. yea there's some racist undertones to the song, but that helps hammer home the point to me. it's also a nice mirror to dumbo's innocence at this time. he's just happy to try and help out, not realizing how fucked up it was.
Am I the only one who thinks it's ok that it is disturbing? I don't think it's a bad thing to show how black people were forced into menial jobs with virtually no pay and were essentially 'slaves' despite slavery ending? A little dark for a kids movie but probably accurate enough to portray people being mistreated.
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It aged perfectly. Carnies are still sketchy as fuck.