Last year at this time, sources within the vast Disney organization were saying that a DVD release of Song of the South was imminent. Fears of bad reaction to the film's racial depictions were being put aside. They figured that if they wrapped its presentation in endorsements and intros from prominent black personalities, the corporation could market the movie without creating a lot of upset. It looked like a definite "go" for this year, which is the 60th anniversary of the feature.
This has changed. Last month at the annual shareholders' meeting in Anaheim, Disney CEO Robert Iger was asked about it. He said he'd recently screened the movie for the first time in decades and that…
Owing to the sensitivity that exists in our culture, balancing it with the desire to maybe increase our earnings a bit but never putting that in front of what we thought were our ethics and our integrity, we've made the decision not to re-release it. [This is] not a decision that is made forever. I imagine this is going to continue to come up but for now, we simply don't have plans to bring it back because of the sensitivities that I mentioned.
(The entire audio of that shareholders meeting can be heard online on this webpage. You might find a lot of it interesting but if you just want to hear the Song of the South exchange, zip ahead to 1:42:40. By the way — here's a full disclosure — I am a Disney stockholder. I own two shares.)
What it all translates to, of course, is: "I'm still afraid of protests so I'm putting it off." I would imagine that there's also the feeling — and this part, I suspect they're right about — that releasing the film today wouldn't be all that lucrative. I think it's a great movie and it should be available but would it have a major impact on Disney earnings? Doubtful. It wouldn't surprise me if a marketing survey of some sort was done to determine that. And since they're not likely to try and build on the property — no Song of the South II sequel, no new major merchandising of Brer Rabbit, et al, the monetary upside looks not to be worth the possible hassle. They also may simply be waiting to see the response to Universal's new animated DVD feature, The Adventures of Brer Rabbit.
I dunno if I'd call it cowardice or caution. There might even be a small nugget of "let's do the socially responsible thing even if it does cost us money" in there. Whatever it is, I think they're erring on the side of too much of it. If they put the thing out, a few folks would seize on the opportunity to get on Entertainment Tonight and Fox News by expressing outrage, a few pickets would spend a few days outside theme parks…and then the whole matter would die down forever. If it were up to me, I'd go ahead and get it over with, and not worry about it harming The Walt Disney Company in any way. Then again, I only own the two shares.