- Joined
- Feb 8, 1999
- Messages
- 18,311
- Real Name
- Robert Harris
Deducing the truth...
After giving the Shirley Temple situation a great deal of thought, I offer the following possibility which seems even more viable after viewing Spike Lee's Bamboozled.
I have not examined the original negatives of these Fox "children's" film, but the possibility does exist that the colorization scheme is based upon the only viable studio means of releasing what may have been potentially racist-seeming films to a modern audience. Taking a similar stance to Disney on their Song of the South...
These three titles may have been filmed with sweet little Miss Temple firmly in blackface, backed up by the likes of Steppinfectchit and Buddy Ebson.
If this is the case, then colorizing and covering their tracks with promises of the films being "brilliantly restored," and within those said "restorations" placing Miss Temple firmly in what we can only call "almond-face" or "beige-light orange face" may be their only mechanism to making this children's classics from another age more palitable to a modern audience which has been finally sensitized to horrors of bigotry and Bamboozlement which occurred even within studio films between Mr. Griffith's time and the early 1940s.
Therefore, forever hiding the fact that the studio had their little imp parading about in blackface, these new "modernized," "restorations" of our classic film heritage can now stand in for the truth of Fox's moral structure in the early 1930s.
Let us print this as truth and then go to the hangings of those who would deem to colorize black and white live action feature films. Alternatively, and with a bit of a more pacifistic nature, we could simply run colorizers out of town on a rail and allow them to ply their trade elsewhere. If running out of town on a rail is also too violent, one could simply take away their computers. Cut their fingers off? No. Too violent again.
There is, of course, the possibility that this has been misreported and that the DVD released of these beloved classics starring Fox's timeless child talent will be in black and white and not the same versions being offered to the great unwashed masses on VHS.
One can only hope that Fox will do the right thing and understand their marketplace.
RAH
[Edited last by Robert Harris on October 22, 2001 at 09:49 PM]
After giving the Shirley Temple situation a great deal of thought, I offer the following possibility which seems even more viable after viewing Spike Lee's Bamboozled.
I have not examined the original negatives of these Fox "children's" film, but the possibility does exist that the colorization scheme is based upon the only viable studio means of releasing what may have been potentially racist-seeming films to a modern audience. Taking a similar stance to Disney on their Song of the South...
These three titles may have been filmed with sweet little Miss Temple firmly in blackface, backed up by the likes of Steppinfectchit and Buddy Ebson.
If this is the case, then colorizing and covering their tracks with promises of the films being "brilliantly restored," and within those said "restorations" placing Miss Temple firmly in what we can only call "almond-face" or "beige-light orange face" may be their only mechanism to making this children's classics from another age more palitable to a modern audience which has been finally sensitized to horrors of bigotry and Bamboozlement which occurred even within studio films between Mr. Griffith's time and the early 1940s.
Therefore, forever hiding the fact that the studio had their little imp parading about in blackface, these new "modernized," "restorations" of our classic film heritage can now stand in for the truth of Fox's moral structure in the early 1930s.
Let us print this as truth and then go to the hangings of those who would deem to colorize black and white live action feature films. Alternatively, and with a bit of a more pacifistic nature, we could simply run colorizers out of town on a rail and allow them to ply their trade elsewhere. If running out of town on a rail is also too violent, one could simply take away their computers. Cut their fingers off? No. Too violent again.
There is, of course, the possibility that this has been misreported and that the DVD released of these beloved classics starring Fox's timeless child talent will be in black and white and not the same versions being offered to the great unwashed masses on VHS.
One can only hope that Fox will do the right thing and understand their marketplace.
RAH
[Edited last by Robert Harris on October 22, 2001 at 09:49 PM]