The Myth of Remus and Tempy

The only scene of life away from the master's watchful eye in Song of the South begins with Aunt Tempy (Hattie McDaniel) cooking in the kitchen and singing a bluesy ballad entitled "Sooner or Later" (featuring lyrics such as "You're gonna knock on my door / You done it before / Matter of factly I don't know exactly when. . . ."). Remus (James Baskett) appears in the window carrying an armful of firewood and opens his eyes wide when he sees Tempy cooking.
He enters as Tempy finishes her song and sits down at the table while she playfully chastises him for just sitting around telling stories and not wanting to work ("Stick his nose in this here kitchen and we'll have Brer Rabbit stew"). After Remus compliments her cooking, she gives him a plate and they both laugh as he eats. Their moment is interrupted by Ginny's two brothers wanting to talk to Miss Sally about the puppy that Ginny gave Johnny. Song of the South in RealVideo

Remus tries to chase the brothers off but they refuse to leave until they speak with Johnny's mother. Since he's powerless to do anything else, Remus simply removes his hat when Miss Sally arrives. They tell her that Johnny took the puppy down to Uncle Remus so she wouldn't know that he still had their dog. Rather than just telling on Johnny, Ginny's brothers wind up telling on Remus, thereby making it clear that he is just another child in need of a scolding. The brothers ask if Miss Sally's going to whip Johnny because Johnny had told them that he didn't care if his mother knew as long as Ginny's mother didn't know about it. When the boys told their mother about the situation, she whipped them.

As they leave, Remus laughs and explains to Miss Sally that Johnny used the reverse psychology he had told him about in the Brer Rabbit, Tar Baby story. Miss Sally asks him not to tell Johnny any more stories:

Sally: Uncle Remus, I'm trying my best to bring up Johnny to be obedient and truthful but you and your stories are making it very difficult. I think maybe it would be better if he didn't hear any more for a while.
Remus: Oh, Miss Sally, stories ain't done no. . . .
Sally: They only confuse him. Now I know you mean well, Uncle Remus, but Johnny's too young.
Remus: [surprised] Miss Sally. . . .
Sally: I'll have to ask you not to tell him anymore.
Remus: [dejected] Yes, Miss Sally.
[Remus walks off of the porch with his hat in his hand and his head down.]

This scene demonstrates life away from the white viewer but Tempy and Remus still joke and laugh as if Sally or Johnny were standing in their midst. There is no time when these characters aren't playful or childlike. They are the familiar stereotypes of the "faithful servants" but without the added dimension of telling their white caretaker when they are displeased with a decision those in their care have made. Gone With the Wind's Mammy, while still a mythic figure herself, would never stand there and let two thuggish white children talk to Remus or the other house servant like they do. There was a certain sense of respect or authority instilled in that character. Here, there is nothing more than the myth of childish black folks. The myth is enforced with Miss Sally's scolding of Uncle Remus. He walks off the steps literally with his tales behind him.

As for Remus' tales, they are even more important to understanding the story behind the story than any interaction between Sally, Tempy, and Remus himself. Remus explains in the scene that Johnny used the reverse psychology he had learned from the Tar Baby story he had heard. This is interesting considering the nature of the original Uncle Remus tales.

In 1948, Bernard Wolfe wrote a journal article entitled, "Uncle Remus and the Malevolent Rabbit" in which he noted the recent interest in Joel Chandler Harris' tales (including Disney's film adaptation) but reading the original stories as revenge fantasies. He explains this by tallying up the numbers:

All told, there are twenty-eight victories of the Weak over the Strong: ultimately all the Strong die violent deaths at the hands of the Weak and there are, at most, two very insignificant victories of the Strong over the Weak. . . . Admittedly, folk symbols are seldom systematic, clean-cut, or specific; they are cultural shadows thrown by the unconscious, and the unconscious is not governed by the sharp-edged neatness of the filing cabinet. But still, on the basis of the tally-sheet alone, is it too far-fetched to take Brer Rabbit as a symbol--about as sharp as the Southern sanction would allow--of the Negro slave's festering hatred of the white man?. . . .Brer Rabbit, in short, has all the jaunty topdog airs and attitudes which a slave can only dream of having. And, like the slave, he has a supremely cynical view of the social world, since he sees it from below.⁽¹⁾

Wolfe later interprets the struggle between Joel Chandler Harris' desire to write a novel with his vocation as a journalist that leads him to misread these tales simply as sweet stories:

Like all the South, he was caught in a subjective tug-of-war: his intelligence groped for the venomous American slave crouching behind the Rabbit but his beleaguered racial emotions, in self-defense, had to insist on the "Africanism" of Brer Rabbit --and of the Negro. Then Miss Sally and Mars John could relish his "quaint antics" without recognizing themselves as targets." (p. 36)

If one accepts the view that these Brer Rabbit tales were initially slave revenge fantasies, then interpretation of the Disney film at first appears problematic since there are no real slaves to speak of. But when one looks at the way in which the animated Rabbit tales serve the frame story about Johnny and Uncle Remus, it becomes clear why this frame tale (as told by Uncle Remus himself considering the framing of the frame tale at the beginning of the film) is so crucial.

The revenge fantasy still exists in the Disney animated sequences but since there are no slaves, the revenge must be redirected. Throughout the film, every story Uncle Remus tells corresponds to a situation Johnny himself is facing. When Johnny plans to run away to Atlanta to find his father, Remus tells him about the time Brer Rabbit planned to leave the Briar Patch for good, when Johnny is having trouble with Ginny's brothers, he hears the story of the Tar Baby and learns how to use reverse psychology on his adversaries, and when he and Ginny are having a bad day, Remus tells them about the day Brer Rabbit was about to be cooked by Brer Fox and Brer Bear. In every case, the original slave revenge fantasy becomes Johnny's revenge fantasy. This is important not only for the value of the story but as a way to demonstrate the way in which Remus has become a surrogate father for Johnny while his biological father is away.

After Johnny tries to run away, Remus explains to Johnny's grandmother that "what that boy needs is a paw." It's clear from early on that Johnny doesn't have the necessary tools to deal with the situations he face and he needs a father figure to provide him with an understanding of how to deal in the real world. By telling him these stories, Remus is not simply entertaining the child but he is educating him and since Johnny is an affluent white male, he can act on these stories instead of simply keeping them as revenge fantasies. This also allows Johnny to appropriate these tales when his father returns and the threat of Remus becoming Johnny's surrogate father is avoided. For a while, though, Johnny recognizes the value of the tales but he is not capable of appropriating them himself.

An interesting side note to the logic behind these tales appears at the end of Wolfe's essay when he writes:

Increasingly, Negroes themselves reject the mediating smile of Remus, the indirection of the Rabbit. The present-day animated cartoon hero, Bugs Bunny, is, like Brer Rabbit, the meek suddenly grown cunning--but without Brer Rabbit's facade of politeness. "To pull a Bugs Bunny," meaning to spectacularly outwit someone, is an expression not infrequently heard in Harlem. (p. 41)

This is interesting for both the way it seems that African-Americans have apparently outgrown the trickster figure of Brer Rabbit and the way they embraced Warner Brothers' irreverant Bugs Bunny as a viable substitute. Although Disney never addresses the issue, it seems safe to speculate that one of the reasons Disney adapted the Remus tales was to introduce an animated trickster rabbit that could compete with its rival's creation who had been onscreen since 1938. While this is clearly speculation, it adds another dimension to the logic behind Disney's flawed project.