Thank god I am old enough to have seen it the last time it came around to theatres. It was also on Wonderful World of Disney a couple times before it was banished, too (not to mention reshowings of the cartoon clips).
Know what? I think what "they" really don't like is for kids learning about the Briar Patch Gambit. Because I sure fail to see anything "racist" about a movie that features a white and a black boy solving their issues together with the help of a wise, storytelling ol' black man. Yeah, the tarbaby is one thing, but the lesson after that is the most memorable in the whole movie.
(Oh, and the rabbit was upset over the tar baby being "racist" to HIM by refusing to say "good morning" back to him. And yeah, I keep forgetting about it because I always saw it for what it was - a doll made of tar meant as a rabbit trap.)
Anyway, what happens is that Brother Rabbit is walking along and greets said doll, which fails to respond back. The rabbit mistakes the doll for a real human and gets offended. When he tries to punch the tar baby out, he of course gets stuck, arms and legs alike, so the fox can catch him. He saves his own life by begging NOT to be thrown in the briar patch ... which is exactly where he wants to go (since rabbits are "born and bred in a briar patch".) The fox throws him in, intending to be cruel ...
The fox didn't twig on to how hard the rabbit was begging and going on about that nasty old briar patch. He should have done what the bear suggested, and just knocked his head clean off.
And also, just because it looks like a person/human, doesn't mean it is.
The problem is likely that it doesn't show white land owners arbitrarily beating their black sharecroppers and instead depicts a harmonious segregationist society.
Thank god I am old enough to have seen it the last time it came around to theatres. It was also on Wonderful World of Disney a couple times before it was banished, too (not to mention reshowings of the cartoon clips).
Know what? I think what "they" really don't like is for kids learning about the Briar Patch Gambit. Because I sure fail to see anything "racist" about a movie that features a white and a black boy solving their issues together with the help of a wise, storytelling ol' black man. Yeah, the tarbaby is one thing, but the lesson after that is the most memorable in the whole movie.
(Oh, and the rabbit was upset over the tar baby being "racist" to HIM by refusing to say "good morning" back to him. And yeah, I keep forgetting about it because I always saw it for what it was - a doll made of tar meant as a rabbit trap.)
Anyway, what happens is that Brother Rabbit is walking along and greets said doll, which fails to respond back. The rabbit mistakes the doll for a real human and gets offended. When he tries to punch the tar baby out, he of course gets stuck, arms and legs alike, so the fox can catch him. He saves his own life by begging NOT to be thrown in the briar patch ... which is exactly where he wants to go (since rabbits are "born and bred in a briar patch".) The fox throws him in, intending to be cruel ...
The fox didn't twig on to how hard the rabbit was begging and going on about that nasty old briar patch. He should have done what the bear suggested, and just knocked his head clean off.
And also, just because it looks like a person/human, doesn't mean it is.
The problem is likely that it doesn't show white land owners arbitrarily beating their black sharecroppers and instead depicts a harmonious segregationist society.