Re: the Disney decision about not releasing SONG OF THE SOUTH. Cowardice, not sensitivity...and don't think for a moment that Iger is being noble when he suggests Disney is sacrificing profits for the greater good. What he is afraid of is that if they release the DVD of SONG protests and the like will impact their profits negatively.
It's time to stop giving into the hyper-sensitivity of people trying to make issues out-of-non-issues. It's not enough they rabidly seek offense in even the most casual remarks (remember the poor guy who used the word, "niggardly" and suddenly a whole bunch of people who obviously didn't understand the word were shouting for his "racist" blood), they now think that things that happened years ago were done to personally thwart and offend them.
We're currently facing a similar over-reaction at the University of Kentucky, where a coalition of students are demanding that a mural painted in a school building why back in 1934 either be destroyed or covered up, because it depicts scenes of black people working in the fields and playing instruments while a white couple in 1800's garb dances. The mural depicts the history of the state. These people would rather censor and re-write history than admit that black people picked crops and played musical instruments, god forbid, for the entertainment of white people. Mind you, there is no pov from the mural, it merely depicts a certain time in Kentucky's history and the connotation of those events is left to the viewer. The viewer can either see them through an historical prism or be offended by them (and isn't a lot of art offensive to a lot of people?), but eradicating a work of art cannot eradicate the facts of history. Would someone explain to me how this is any different than the Nazi's destroying Art or burning books that depicted things they didn't want the masses exposed to?
People can chose to experience Art, if they wish. They don't have to go see it. Depicting our history in our art is not necessarily an endorsement or a condemnation of it (it can be). Imposing the morals and attitudes on a piece of art done at another time when another attitude and set of moral strictures were in play is absurd. One has to viewed it in the historical context of its time.
Both the mural and Song of the South are both cases where the art has, in a way, also become history...because it reflects the mindset and attitudes of a people at a certain point in time when it was done.
If Disney wants to put a disclaimer on SONG OF THE SOUTH that says they don't endorse some of the views in the movie and that some people may be offended by some of the things in the movie, fine. But put it out and let people decide for themselves.
It is this sort of politically correct smugness of knowing "what is best for us" that makes the Left just as repressive and frightening as the arrogant Far Right and the condemning Religious Demagogues...They all want to tell us what and how we must think and how we must act. They all think they are somehow smarter than us, better than us, holier than us, and that they must protect us from ourselves.
