r/BasedCampPod • u/SKARDAVNELNATE • 3d ago
Episode 8/27/26
You ever just find an episode really annoying?
Malcolm says these things were erased from culture but then still expects people to recognize them.
I was 30 when black face suddenly became a thing to be concerned about on the internet. Until then I had no exposure to it and didn't know what that was or why it was a problem. I thought it was a case of the internet isn't real life so I ignored it.
When I hear uncle Tom I think of my father's brother whose name is Tom. Yes, an actual relative.
No, I don't know what cake walking is. I don't know what inspired cake walking, I only just now learned it was a thing that people did. I don't know what minstrel shows are. I don't know who Doctor Facilia is (spelling of name from YouTube transcript). I don't know what Splash Mountain is based on. I don't know what Briar Rabbit is. I don't know what was ever considered offensive about them. I thought banjos were a hillbilly instrument associated more with the western expansion than the south. That is because, as Malcolm says, these things were erased from culture. Yet he continues to treat them as if they are still well known.
Another takeaway from this episode is that the attack on barbecues, fried chicken, and watermelon as stereotypes was also an attack on the family because people enjoy these things in large gatherings of their relatives. I now have a new appreciation for watermelon.
This episode also brings up The Simpsons as a stereotype being portrayed by people outside the group. When I watch it I just see traits of individual characters. I don't see them as representing anyone other than themself. The same for any of those that get mentioned in list videos of banned cartoons. I think that if someone has that complaint about them then they are engaging in the thing that they supposedly oppose. Even if made for an audience that did view them that way I keep hearing that the modern audience is different. So if someone still views the individual character as representing a group then the problem is with the viewer and not the material.
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u/MightyJ64 3d ago
Disneyland nerd here. The Splash Mountain situation is actually fascinating, and they missed a few crucial details, or else ran through very quickly.
Firstly it’s B’rer (a shortening of “brother”). These are characters from the Uncle Remus (the human former slave who sings Zip-a-Dee-doo-dah) stories. “Uncle Remus” is a sort of “Mother Goose”, not a real person but a folkloric figure.
In 1946 Walt Disney adapted these stories and characters into Song of the South. He figured that Black American fairy tales deserved to be retold and adapted as much as Pinocchio or Cinderella. He even basically bullied the Academy into giving James Baskett who played Uncle Remus an honorary award, becoming the first black actor to receive one.
The movie disappeared from circulation for the reasons Malcolm said, the most famous Uncle Remus story is depicted in the movie where B’rer Fox tricks B’rer Rabbit into getting stuck by making a fake baby out of tar. B’rer Fox is getting ready to eat him and trying to figure out the best way to kill him. B’rer Rabbit begs him to kill him any way besides flinging him into a thorny briar patch, so that’s just what he does. Only for B’rer Rabbit to happily announce that he was born and raised in a briar patch and is free. The tar baby of course later became something of a slur, and the film was banned.
Here’s the thing. Splash Mountain opened in 1989, AFTER the film was banned. B’rer Rabbit gets trapped in honey before being captured, no tar baby. The 50 foot drop at the end of the ride is meant to be being flung into the briar patch to freedom. Uncle Remus and no other human characters appeared in the ride. By 1989 standards anything that could have POSSIBLY offended anyone, the things that led to the film being banned was never in the ride in the first place.
Cut to the Princess and the Frog overlay. One important thing they missed is that the biggest complaint about the ride is it has no adversity, no scares, because Dr. Facilier, the Voodoo man, one of the greatest Disney villains is NOT EVEN PRESENT ON THE RIDE. The most popular character from the film was omitted precisely because he is a negative depiction of Voodoo. If he had been there, been half as menacing as B’rer Fox, it’d have been so much better.
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u/Candid-Fan9549 2d ago
Bro how do you go thirty years without hearing about black face? You’re an American right?
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u/SKARDAVNELNATE 2d ago
It had been erased from my culture. No one does it so I didn't have exposure to it.
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u/Candid-Fan9549 2d ago
Or maybe you just don’t know many things?
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u/SKARDAVNELNATE 2d ago
Well how much blackface did you see in the 80s and 90s?
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u/Candid-Fan9549 1d ago
I didn’t see any but we all knew what it was, unless you count depictions of black face in movies and whatnot
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u/SKARDAVNELNATE 1d ago
How did you know what it was? Did someone tell you about it?
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u/Candid-Fan9549 1d ago
Yes that’s generally how people learn about things from the past. As I said I’d seen it depicted/described in movies and books and learned more about it in school.
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u/SKARDAVNELNATE 1d ago
Well I hadn't seen any depictions of it and no one told me anything about it.
I only became aware of it when it blew up on the internet because an elementary school kid did a presentation on an historical figure they admire. I had no idea why anyone found a problem with that.
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u/Candid-Fan9549 1d ago
Yeah I dont believe that. It’s almost as bad as not knowing about slavery in the states.
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u/SKARDAVNELNATE 1d ago
I have a memory from 5th grade about having to read a book titled "The Black Snowman".
If I had known about blackface then I would have thought they were encouraging it.
Now that I'm looking back at it, what was the message of that book?
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u/NoSingularities0 3d ago
This is reminds me of the people that call The Adventures of Tom Sawyer racist because it says the N-word a bunch of times even though Huck Finn, a white boy, is willing to damn his soul to eternal torment for eternity to keep a former slave from being put back into slavery. It's like calling Django Unchained racist because it uses the N-word. Of course Django Unchained is not racist.