You’ve likely seen the laughing rabbit with the bindle stick. Maybe you’ve even hummed "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" while stuck in traffic without realizing where it actually came from. It's a weird cultural paradox. Brer Rabbit is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. While the character remains a staple of folklore, the 1946 film Song of the South Brer Rabbit is a different story entirely—one that Disney has spent decades trying to shove into a very deep, very dark vault.
It’s complicated. Honestly, it’s more than complicated; it’s a mess of postwar Hollywood idealism clashing with a history that many people would rather forget. But you can't really understand American animation or the history of theme parks without looking at how a trickster from African folklore became the face of one of the most controversial movies ever made.
The Real Roots of the Rabbit
Before Walt Disney ever touched the property, Brer Rabbit wasn't a cartoon. He was a survivor. The stories originated from the oral traditions of enslaved West Africans who were brought to the American South. In these tales, the rabbit is a "trickster" figure. He’s small. He’s physically weak. He’s surrounded by predators like Brer Fox and Brer Bear who want to eat him.
He wins because he’s smarter.
Academic researchers like Florence Baer, who wrote Sources and Analogues of the Uncle Remus Tales, have traced these stories back to the "Hare" trickster figures in Africa, such as Eshu or Anansi. When these stories were told in the slave quarters of Georgia and South Carolina, the subtext wasn't exactly subtle. The rabbit represented the enslaved person, and the larger, dumber predators represented the masters. To win, you had to use your wits. You had to use the "Briar Patch."
Then came Joel Chandler Harris. He was a journalist in Atlanta who began recording these stories in the 1870s, creating the character of Uncle Remus to narrate them. This is where the water gets muddy. While Harris is credited with preserving the folklore, he framed it in a way that made the plantation lifestyle look idyllic and peaceful—a "Lost Cause" narrative that suggested everyone was happy during a time of horrific systemic violence.
How Song of the South Brer Rabbit Changed Everything
When Disney decided to adapt the Harris books in the mid-1940s, they weren't looking for a sociological study. They wanted a hit. They needed something to bolster their live-action department while keeping the high-quality animation the studio was known for.
The result was a technical masterpiece.
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If you watch the animated segments of Song of the South Brer Rabbit today, the fluid motion is still incredible. Lead animator Marc Davis (one of the legendary "Nine Old Men") brought a level of personality to the rabbit that influenced everything from Bugs Bunny to Roger Rabbit. The way Brer Rabbit moves—cocky, frantic, and slightly chaotic—is a masterclass in character design.
- The "Laughing Place" sequence shows a rabbit who isn't just escaping; he's a bit of a jerk. He enjoys the prank.
- The Tar-Baby sequence remains the most famous (and most criticized) part of the film, involving a trap made of turpentine and tar.
- The "Briar Patch" finale is the ultimate "reverse psychology" move that cemented the character's legacy.
James Baskett, who played Uncle Remus, also voiced the fox, but it was the rabbit who became the icon. Disney saw a goldmine. They saw a character that could sell lunchboxes and theme park tickets. What they didn't anticipate was how the framing of the live-action segments—set in a vague, "happy" Reconstruction era—would make the film virtually unwatchable for future generations.
The Splash Mountain Connection
For a huge chunk of the population, their only interaction with Song of the South Brer Rabbit didn't happen in a theater. It happened at 40 miles per hour on a log flume.
Splash Mountain opened at Disneyland in 1989. It was a "solution" to a problem: the park had a dead area called Bear Country and a bunch of expensive animatronics from a show called America Sings that they needed to reuse. Imagineer Tony Baxter pitched the idea of a Brer Rabbit-themed flume ride.
It worked. It worked too well.
For thirty years, millions of kids grew up loving Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Bear without having a clue they were from a movie the studio considered "distasteful." The ride scrubbed the controversial Uncle Remus character entirely, focusing only on the animated "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" world.
But you can't separate the art from the source forever. In 2020, amid a global conversation about racial justice and representation, Disney announced they would re-theme Splash Mountain into Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, based on The Princess and the Frog.
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The rabbit was getting evicted.
Why You Can't Find the Movie Anywhere
Disney+ has almost everything. It has the weird experimental shorts from the 1930s. It has the propaganda films from World War II. It even has movies that weren't very good. But it does not have Song of the South.
Former Disney CEO Bob Iger was very blunt about this. During a 2020 shareholders meeting, he stated that the film is "not appropriate in today’s world" and would not be coming to the streaming service, even with a disclaimer. This is a rare move for a company that generally hates leaving money on the table.
There are bootlegs, sure. You can find old PAL format VHS tapes from the UK or Japan where the movie was released much later than in the US. But officially? The Song of the South Brer Rabbit is a ghost.
Some film historians argue this is a mistake. They say that burying the film hides the history of African American performers like James Baskett, who was the first Black man to win an Oscar (an Honorary Award). Others argue that the film’s "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" sunshine-and-whistling approach to a period of intense racial suffering is a wound that shouldn't be reopened for the sake of "completism."
The Trickster’s Legacy Beyond Disney
It’s easy to think Disney owns Brer Rabbit. They don't. The character belongs to the public domain and, more importantly, to the culture that birthed him.
If you look at modern trickster figures in media, you see his DNA everywhere.
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- Bugs Bunny: Chuck Jones and the Warner Bros. crew openly admitted that the Brer Rabbit "smartest guy in the room" trope was a huge influence.
- Urban Legends: The concept of using an opponent's momentum against them—the core of the Briar Patch story—is a staple of storytelling.
- Literary References: Authors like Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison have explored the "rabbit" archetype as a symbol of Black resilience and the complexity of "wearing the mask."
The Song of the South version of the character is essentially a sanitized, Technicolor snapshot of a much older and more dangerous story. The original folklore wasn't "cute." It was about survival in a world that wanted to destroy you. Disney took that survival story and turned it into a musical.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Controversy
Often, you'll hear people say the movie was "banned." It wasn't. The government didn't step in. Disney simply made a business decision. They realized that the brand damage of being associated with "plantation nostalgia" outweighed the revenue from DVD sales.
Another misconception is that the NAACP hated it only recently. Actually, the NAACP protested the film's premiere in 1946. Walter White, then the executive secretary of the NAACP, sent a telegram to the press stating that the film "helps to perpetuate a dangerously glorified picture of slavery." This isn't a "cancel culture" thing from 2024; it’s a critique that has existed since the day the film was released.
The Future of the Rabbit
So, what happens to Brer Rabbit now?
He isn't going away. You can still find the Joel Chandler Harris stories in libraries. You can find scholars like Dr. Patricia Turner discussing the imagery of these characters in her book Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies. The character is returning to his roots—folklore.
Disney is moving on. Tiana is the new face of the flume. But the Song of the South Brer Rabbit remains a fascinating, uncomfortable piece of animation history. It represents a moment where incredible artistry was used to package a very problematic view of the American past.
How to Explore This History Further
If you actually want to understand the depth of this topic without just watching low-quality clips on YouTube, there are better ways to do it.
- Read the Original Folklore: Skip the Disney-fied books and look for collections of African American trickster tales that predate the 1940s. Look for "The Tales of Uncle Remus" as edited by Julius Lester. He retells them in a way that strips away the subservient "Old South" veneer and restores the rabbit's edge.
- Watch 'The Art of the Disney Golden Age': Look for documentaries or books focusing on the animation of Marc Davis. Even if you dislike the film’s context, the technical skill of the character's movement is worth studying for any fan of the medium.
- Visit the Joel Chandler Harris House: If you're ever in Atlanta, "The Wren’s Nest" is a museum dedicated to the preservation of these stories. They often have professional storytellers who perform the tales in the oral tradition, which is how they were always meant to be experienced.
- Listen to 'You Must Remember This': Specifically, the "Six Degrees of Song of the South" season. Host Karina Longworth does a 12-episode deep dive into the making of the film, the politics of the era, and why it ended up in the vault. It is probably the most researched piece of media on this specific subject.
The story of the rabbit in the briar patch is about being trapped and finding a way out. In a way, the character has finally escaped the film that made him famous. He's no longer just a Disney mascot; he's back to being what he started as: a symbol of the guy who survives by being the smartest person in the room.
The film might stay in the vault, but the rabbit? He’s always been too fast to catch.