"I Wanna Be Like You"

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Not sure if this is an AIBU but is that song from the jungle book racist?!
Yes: it's dated and awful
No: don't be daft

I don't know if it says more about my poor search skills, Google's engine or about the Guardian and mainstream media but a quick search yields more film critics whitesplaining to me what I should think about Song of the South than Black film critics giving their views.

@Zilla1 in fairness, that is basically the explanation lots of others have given for why certain films/characters aren't racist.

Also, it's entirely possible for a film to have a leading black character and positive interactions between white/black characters and still be racist.

There are a lot of things I remember watching as a child where the racism went completely over my head, but I imagine if you rewatched it you would find it uncomfortable viewing.

Sometimes, people genuinely don’t know things.

No one says they don’t. The problem is when people are told things by people better placed than them to know but still don’t accept them. If black people tell me they find King Louie or Song of the South offensive then I’d be willing to accept their opinions over those of white people who just want to stick their fingers in their ears and say “it’s just a monkey and an Indian boy” as infinitum.

@Zilla1

I don't know if it says more about my poor search skills, Google's engine or about the Guardian and mainstream media but a quick search yields more film critics whitesplaining to me what I should think about Song of the South than Black film critics giving their views.

Oh ok, it must be fine then.

@Zilla1

I don't know if it says more about my poor search skills, Google's engine or about the Guardian and mainstream media but a quick search yields more film critics whitesplaining to me what I should think about Song of the South than Black film critics giving their views.

White people have a greater platform than black people.

@Zilla1

I don't know if it says more about my poor search skills, Google's engine or about the Guardian and mainstream media but a quick search yields more film critics whitesplaining to me what I should think about Song of the South than Black film critics giving their views.

Black people are under no obligation to educate white people about race, and a thing can still be racist even if no high profile black person has publicly objected to it.

If black people tell me they find King Louie or Song of the South offensive then I’d be willing to accept their opinions

The problem with this is that black people are not a hive mind, and although I'm sure some black people would find the portrayal of King Louie racist, I suspect others would wonder what all the fuss is about. So which black people get the 'vote' on deciding what's racist or not?

Or should we judge each case based on the available evidence, instead of having a blanket policy of "believe black people"? Especially when that policy really means "believe the black people who say the things I agree with and ignore the other ones".

@JesusInTheCabbageVan I've not said it wasn't racist. I was interested in why others thought it were and I disagree with some of the reasons PPs have given and with the Guardian review. I think some PPs haven't understood some of its positive elements which where those PPs are white they might not think were important anyway.

I found practically all the film and TV I watched with my family growing up uncomfortable at the time because the racism at the time was front and centre.

I think the reason I am interested in thinking about Song of the South is that I don't recall ANY films of the time or made even ten years later that had Black lead characters with agency AND had positive interactions between Black and white characters. Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather had amazing Black talent but possibly not the white character dimension unless I've forgotten.

How many films with Black leads with agency and positive interactions between Black and white characters and less racist content than Song of the South made even ten years later than 1946 can you or PPs name? If Song of the South is so bad as to be singled out and be the only? film withdrawn from the Disney catalogue, this shouldn't be hard....

Unless I remember incorrectly, Song of the South had a (to be fair elderly so 'safer') Black adult interacting positively with white children and a white woman which for a film made in 1946 feels arguably astounding. Nine? years later Emmett Till? was killed after an incident 'offended' a white woman. 25 years earlier, the Tulsa slaughter happened because of a similar instigating incident.

@JesusInTheCabbageVan, have just seen your post. I didn't say Black people have an obligation to educate white people, rather I'd like to see some views of Black critics rather than have people whites plain things to me.

I now have white acquaintances who said racist things to me and my family when I was a child now whitesplaining racism to me and they think I don't remember what they were like or they've forgotten it themselves. I suspect some of the white people in the mainstream media who are now whitesplaining racism are the ones who would have been front and centre in the racist mainstream in the past.

@SimonJT but you can adapt this to every single body of work or art, Mrs Hannibal in Annie, middle class white family holiday in Dirty Dancing, sports vs geeks in Grease. Negative stereotypes aren't embedded in race so it's a completely moot point

@DrSbaitso, pretty much my point though with added 'it might be helpful to have some Black critics' views (easily) accessible because although they won't necessarily or always be right, it's possible they might pick up on some elements that white critics (and PPs here) whitesplaining things to Black people don't seem to appreciate'. Such as that it might not be helpful to remove a film with a positive Black lead with agency who interacts positively with white characters unless there is a body of film where this is normal (Could be wrong but haven't seen many suggestions for films from the 1940s or before where this is normal, no surprise given the racism in the mainstream media at that time).

As a ten-year-old child, listening to this in the 1970's, I found it uncomfortably racist. (I had the Jungle Book as an LP, and loved it.) To me, the voice the song is sung in was absolutely a Black American voice.

I was astonished, decades later, to find out it was an Italian American who voiced it. I had always thought it was Louis Armstrong, who apparently was originally wanted, as someone quoted up-thread.

Even the fact that character is called Louis and Louis Armstrong was the only black American to appear in my fathers LP collection helped me make the link that this was a song about a joke black person wanting pathetically to be treated like a real human.

[quote Zilla1]@JesusInTheCabbageVan, have just seen your post. I didn't say Black people have an obligation to educate white people, rather I'd like to see some views of Black critics rather than have people whites plain things to me.[/quote]
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race is a very educational and eye-opening book. She doesn't specifically talk about Song of the South, but her feelings and experiences may lead you to view some things in life differently (it did for me).

[quote Zilla1]@DrSbaitso, pretty much my point though with added 'it might be helpful to have some Black critics' views (easily) accessible because although they won't necessarily or always be right, it's possible they might pick up on some elements that white critics (and PPs here) whitesplaining things to Black people don't seem to appreciate'. Such as that it might not be helpful to remove a film with a positive Black lead with agency who interacts positively with white characters unless there is a body of film where this is normal (Could be wrong but haven't seen many suggestions for films from the 1940s or before where this is normal, no surprise given the racism in the mainstream media at that time).[/quote]
I don't think anyone is talking about removing it, unless I've missed it. We're just talking about why it's racist.

It may have been progressive in some respects, but it's still racist.

Also, you asked why it was racist and people answered. Your repeated use of the term 'whitesplaining' makes you sound like you're dismissing those arguments.

I could be wrong but think it has been removed and is the only Disney film unavailable on streaming and from official DVD sales which sounds fine as 'its racist'. Would that make it the only that makes it the only Disney live action children's film with a Black lead and the only Disney film until the Frog and the Princess with a Black lead character that's banned. If so, I wonder what's the more racist, the film or the ban?

Well, I would say that the film is more racist than the ban, unless you don't believe that the film is racist.

The film - that was easy

Sorry you don't like whitesplaining. PPs answered and I disagreed with some of what they said. None of the PPs nor the Guardian reviews seemed to mention any of the 'progressive' elements though I wouldn't expect white people to think too much about that hence my use of whitesplaining.

I'm not sure my posts around not agreeing with your original incorrect presumption about my views about Song of the South, your reply about Black critics not having an obligation to white people nor your other posts amounts to 'dismissing those arguments'. I agreed about the tar baby, disagreed about some of the other points and raised the points that none of the other posters raised about the 'progressive' elements. Still, I'll try not to use the word whitesplaining in future in case it upsets white people.

FWIW I can understand some of the arguments for bringing Song of the South back, e.g. that by censoring it, we're pretending it never happened and preventing a dialogue about why it's racist.

I really don't think though that 'it did more good than harm' is a good reason for bringing it back.

@JesusInTheCabbageVan

"Well, I would say that the film is more racist than the ban, unless you don't believe that the film is racist"

I've said the film is racist. As you ask the question in what looks like a binary way, at first glance, IMO, the value of what you call the 'progressive' elements outweigh the racist elements so think the ban is more racist than the film. You carry on being happy to erase Black characters and actors and think better of yourself for doing it in the cause of fighting racism.

@RandomLondoner

As a ten-year-old child, listening to this in the 1970's, I found it uncomfortably racist. (I had the Jungle Book as an LP, and loved it.) To me, the voice the song is sung in was absolutely a Black American voice.

I was astonished, decades later, to find out it was an Italian American who voiced it. I had always thought it was Louis Armstrong, who apparently was originally wanted, as someone quoted up-thread.

Even the fact that character is called Louis and Louis Armstrong was the only black American to appear in my fathers LP collection helped me make the link that this was a song about a joke black person wanting pathetically to be treated like a real human.

But black people are not monkeys, or great apes.

@Zilla1, are you speaking from the experience of not being white? Because you're use of 'whitesplaining' at times has often come over as 'I have a more important say on what is and isn't racist', and I can only assume that is coming from a place of personal experience rather than you being a white yourself and trying to undermine other posters opinions with huge assumptions about their own race and where their views on racism stem from.

@Zilla1 didn't say I found it offensive.

I do agree with some aspects of your posts, but you seem to regard any white person expressing a view on racism as 'whitesplaining', which makes you sound like you're just dismissing those arguments.