/Filmcast E-Mails

More Talk About Racist Cartoons

Hi guys, I wanted to weigh in on the issue of releasing the banned Warner Brothers cartoons. The ones that were racially insensative or racist, depending on your POV.  And first off, you should know that I’m a 36 year old white middle class guy originally from South Carolina.   
I think it goes nearly without saying that most of US…(artists, studiers of art consumers of art discussers of art)…will fall on the side of making these films available to view for study for discussion. We all know one of the great things about any art is its telling as much or more about the time in which it was made as the actual content. In this case however, I’d like to ask the questions what is harmed and what and what is gained?  
 
What harm can it do to release these films? I have seen a couple of these films, as well as the Disney film Song of the South and they range from being I would say being of “poor taste” in the best of cases to being “flatly racist” and very offensive.  I think a lot of harm would come from a release like this, and Im not sure what is gained is of any real value. If a Home Video release is made, it will be a huge internet news story. Huge. Really. Why? Because it generates Clicks and thats what matters. The attention gained from it will be absurdly disproportionate to the attention it warrents. There have been stories in the past on these films, take a glance through the talkbacks and comment sections on these online articles and be horrified by what qualifies as “discussion of art”  The release of these films and the internet ferver that follows would absolutely devolve into a bitter, nasty, trashy, hatefest. For what gain? Who buys this disc? Racists, first off. But who else? Film teachers, film collectors, some of us who just love to talk about film. I value it, its a good thing to own, to watch, to contemplate, but I don’t think I’d actually buy it.  My point is, the firestorm isn’t worth the little bit of gain.
 
On the other hand. What harm has been caused by the ban from WB/Disney? Nothing. There’s no harm been caused thus far. The inability to see these films hasn’t prohibited anyone from understanding art, or from becoming a filmmaker or animator. It hasn’t prohibited art students from discussing racism in older works. And to head off what I see as the big argument, no one is destroying these films. They exist and are preserved, people scream about censorship, about book-burning, about destroying things that are unsavory. But thats not happening. Calm down. It doesn’t have to be released it to the world or else its an attempt to irradicate and sterilize our bad history.
 
The point is that Yes, it would be nice if students had access to these films and that real discussion and thoughtful examination could be had. If there were some kind of “on the sly” way to get them out there as if they’d been out forever then fine. But Im not sure there is. Releasing them into a salivating, ready-to-pounce, internet culture is a horrible idea. I would like to think that something as significant as this would not be just thrown to the “George Lucas raped my childhood” crowd on the film side and the “The Civil War was 150 years ago, stop whining” crowd on the political side.
 
One last point. We love to trash Disney and to some degree WB as a big corporation, but who can blame them in this case. There is no way to win here. Are they going to put these films out on disc? What will they cost? Are they going to make money off of this? They’d get killed for that. Do they donate the proceeds to some kind of charity? Do they give them out for free? Its a disaster no matter what they do. I actually believe the best the best and smartest thing they could do would be to pass the buck. I would take the films, do an sweet restoration to them and flat out donate them to the Smithsonian or some other entity that will preserve them and get them the hell out of my vault.
 
Right now, we simply do not live in a culture that is prepared to receive these movies in a reasonable way. 
 
-Tom Andrews
Filmsandwich Podcast