10. Song Of The South (1946)
This 1946 melding of Disney animation and controversial live action is one of the very few films that Disney has never re-released from its vaults. The film deals heavily in racial stereotypes, with it being entirely set on a Georgia plantation and its main characters being former slaves and house servants. The film tells the story of a young boy (Bobby Driscoll) who encounters a black cook, Uncle Remus (James Baskett) on the plantation. Uncle Remus weaves stories to the boy and his friends about his past travels, which blend live action and animation and has Uncle Remus interacting with an animated rabbit, fox and bear in his stories. The depiction in this film of the African-American characters were not unlike that of any other Hollywood film of the time. Even Hattie McDaniel, famous for her Oscar winning portrayal of Mammy in Gone With The Wind plays another house servant in this film. The controversy surrounding Song of the South that still looms over its head today was the stereotypes that the animated characters (known as Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, Br'er Bear) generated. These animated characters in a children's film are downright disgraceful interpretations of black stereotypes, with one segment having the Br'er Rabbit interacting with a black face character named Tar Baby. Song of the South has been kept away from younger Disney audiences for decades now as impressionable children may get mixed messages from the obliquely harmless intentions of the narrow minded film-makers. The film should be screened if given the opportunity to more mature audiences, however, to ensure that something like this does not pass for children's entertainment in the future.