Disney CEO says the company will never stream Song of the South

Disney has been building up its library of content on Disney+ lately, including by dropping Frozen II on the streaming service a few months early so people can enjoy it while hunkering down in their homes as the Coronavirus spreads throughout the world. But one movie you won’t find on Disney+ is Song of the South, the 1946 animated/live-action hybrid movie about a young boy who visits his grandparents plantation soon after the Civil War. And if new Disney CEO Bob Chapek has anything to say about it, the movie will never be available.

This, of course, is no surprise. Song of the South has been under fire for decades for its racist portrayal of African Americans and its romanticization of planation life, but it’s good to hear it reiterated from the people at the top. “I’ve felt as long as I was CEO that Song of the South—even with a disclaimer—was just not appropriate in today’s world,” Chapek said during Disney’s annual shareholder’s meeting, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s actually true with some of the other things we’ve made as well.” There, he’s probably referring to content warnings about racist stereotypes added to the beginning of Peter Pan and Dumbo when they dropped on Disney+.

I’m all for this. Disney has been making movies for nearly 100 years, and times have changed a lot during that span. Companies should try and be responsive to advancements in how we think about history and society.

Along those same lines, Chapek also talked about the company’s attempts to include the LGBTQIA community under its umbrella, responding to a woman who actually said, “Please, let’s not have Gay Pride in the Disneyland parks.”

First of all, yikes, that is an alarmingly bone-headed thing to say. Second, Chapek came back with some corporate speak about inclusivity:

"At Disney we strongly believe that we should reflect in our creative content the diversity that we find in our fan base and with our audience. And I believe that will continue with an increased commitment as we move forward…We believe we want to tell stories that our audience wants to hear and that reflects their lives."

Now, at the end of the day Disney is a huge corporation, and I don’t kid myself that it’s going to make a real push for acceptance of marginalized groups if it thought that would threaten its profits, but Chapek did pass the “Politely shut down a person horrified by the thought of a rainbow pin within the Disneyland park limits” test, which is something.

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