The stories in Uncle Remus cross several cultures - the element of the trickster does not depend on any ethnic group for enjoyment, no particular color of skin or animals taking the place of humans.
1. Those who trace tales take them back to the middle ages, and even long before. See
//www.1911encyclopedia.org/Reynard_The_Fox; and the Google digitized book, "Fairy Tales from Before," at http://books.google.com/books?id=jDgdupF3VWcC&pg=PA150&lpg=PA150&dq=uncle+remus+roman+de+renard&source=web&ots=mSRMrJMG0l&sig=u1kFuOOe2ZKAAcGm0p36INiFXsk.
2. For an overview, see "Fables and Trickster Tales Around the World," a lesson plan for cross-cultural learning from the National Endowment of the Humanities - excellent. See the roots there in Aesop's Fables (Greece area), and the Anansi tales from Ghana, that the article identifies as the basis for the Remus tales.
3. See a discussion by author G.K. Chesterton, see //www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/index.html, as to the similarities between Aesop, a Greek slave, much beloved and a teller of fables; and Uncle Remus, an African-heritage slave, by then freed, and still much beloved, and a teller of fables, at "Aesop's Fables: the Difference Between Fables and Fairy-Tales," online at //query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A04E2DE1E3AE633A25754C1A9679D946396D6CF
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With these deep roots, we continue to have a concern with Walt Disney changing cultural essential tales, fairy tales, fables, far more than entertainment requires. He has his own message. He Ralters character. Adds pollutants. The original flavor falls away so that something more box-office can take its place. If it will sell, put it in along with all the music. And the value system of Disney takes over the value system of the culture of the story, to the loss of all of us.
Proposal: Where the Walt Disney film, "Song of the South," 1946, violates the integrity of the traditional stories in ways that alter the meaning, take them out. Put them in an informative trailer at the end if you have to. See the concern with infecting cultural material for purposes of sales, inculcation and profit motives, as happened with the Joel Chandler Harris tales from the Uncle Remus tradition at Joy of Equivocating, Additives to Remus.See FN 1.
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Next research: Those who love fairy tales (me), and examine their cultural sources and their spread, may well say that any tale-teller or transcriber puts a differing imprint and change on the material, to suit their own dramatic purposes. FN 2
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FN 1. Background. Walt Disney, in "Song of the South," adds a cultural overlay in ways that take away from the essence. People seeing his film instead of reading the original would have no idea where the differences are.
The vote here on the areas found so far:
1) return to the original equivocal ending to The Wonderful Tar Baby story; and make us wait for the next episode, after "Why Mr. Possum Loves Peace" before continuing with the Tar-Baby conclusion, about the briar patch in "How Mr. Rabbit was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox."
2) return to the original one-on-one trickster theme in Tar Baby, leaving out the added laughingstock Brer B'ar. Let it remain Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox and keep Brer B'ar to his own stories, and as he is in the book - a respected member of the community who gets targeted by Brer Rabbit like everybody else.
If the outcry is so great at going back to the original, then put that clip in a trailer, with information about 1946, the Jim Crow laws, stereotypes and Vaudeville caricatures, showing people as buffoons, and laughing at them. One problem is that we will continue to imitate Brer B'ar anyway.
emus would not laugh at anyone. He would have us laugh, or be horrified, at the predicament, but laugh at someone? Never. Laughing at people and putting them down is the Walt Disney approach to entertainment, not the Joel Chandler Harris.
If we find that JCH did put those elements in editions we have not yet checked, of course we will let you know. We have checked the 1895 and 1921 editions - no dim-witted (if lovable, as he surely is - and that is the insidious part of the stereotype - he is such a dear) B'ar in Tar Baby.
Aha - Here, however, is a reference to a new addition - a "first Remus volume" in 1881 edition - at //edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=237. Is Brer B'ar as an oaf in there? Our 1921 lists copyrights only for 1880, 1895, 1908, 1921
FN 2. Someone else take up this issue: Whether cultures (or individuals) have a need, as part of perpetuating their own identity, to designate some religious, political, social or gender group(s) that they can target, deprive if possible, and denigrate as different, and unworthy.
And if one group rises above the designation, is there pressure to keep them back down there, or to fast identify another to take its place so that somebody is always significantly down. What a satisfaction for those who are up. Self-reward for behavior. Works every time. Think of immigrants, Gypsies, or Roma, other ethnic groups, or those with mental retardation, or women, or blondes - for example. Nicknames for everyone and every light bulb joke in the place serves a purpose. Fill in the blank.
We don't need Disney, or talking heads, or columnists, to add to it.
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