The "Dumbo" Edit

The News: According to The Hollywood Reporter a few days ago, the new Disney+ service will not be offering the controversial "Song of the South."  Worse, however, is that while the 1940 animated "Dumbo" will be available, the crows and their song number will be cut.

First thought: This is a travesty.  "Dumbo" is a classic of animation and one of my favorite films.  Boo. Hiss.

Second thought: Clearly the crows are a touchy topic and there are some legitimate worries about continuing to keep a film with this kind of content in circulation.  Just because I have no issue with the crows doesn't mean its not right to be sensitive to the concerns of others. The Tim Burton live action remake left them out. This is a socially responsible decision, even if it's an artistically compromised one.

Third: It sets a horrid precedent though. Does this mean we're losing the ""What Made the Red Man Red?" number from "Peter Pan"?  The Siamese cats from "Lady and the Tramp"? Heck, "Dumbo" itself has the arguably more problematic "Roustabout Song" and Dumbo's drunken escapades leading into "Pink Elephants."  The feature is barely an hour to begin with. How much will be left if all the mildly objectionable content is eventually tossed?

Fourth: This edited version of the film is specifically for the new Disney+ service.  So this is essentially like"Dumbo" being edited for television, not a full excision of the material from Disney history like Sunflower being removed from "Fantasia."  I expect you should still be able to buy the full version on official home media.

Fifth: This is also a business decision.  Disney+ is being billed as family friendly, which none of the other streaming services has really pulled off yet.  Sure, Netflix and Amazon and the rest have kids' programming, but a whole service dedicated to family entertainment is fairly novel.  The curation will allow parents to set their kids free on the service the way they can't on something like Youtube. That's going to be a selling point.  

Sixth: This introduction of more stringent content standards on a major streaming service feels like another step in online streaming's gradual replacement of broadcast and cable television.  Other services are sure to follow suit, as streaming services keep looking more and more like cable channels. Apple's streaming service, if it ever gets off the ground, is also looking to be family oriented.  

Seventh: However, the dynamic is going to be different from television, where the carefully curated, mainstream-oriented broadcast networks have largely been the default option.  With the all-inclusive Netflix having so much market share, it's the default in the streaming world. I expect that family friendly options like Disney+ will be treated as more specialized since it's aimed at a narrower segment of the audience.  I don't think this bodes well for Disney+ being a real Netflix challenger.

Eighth: This also tempers my expectations a bit for Disney+ content.  While we'll be getting a lot of content from the hallowed Disney vault, it's not likely to be nearly as much as I was hoping for, and it's going to be limited to family friendly material.  Disney means kid-safe. That means we're not likely to see all those Touchstone and Hollywood Pictures movies, or similar content from the Fox library. Ralph Bakshi will be spared the indignity of seeing his films put under the Disney banner in any context.  But where will this content end up online, if at all? Hulu?

Ninth: I expect that we'll come across more examples of content restrictions on Disney+ when it launches in November - broadcast friendly versions of movies, missing episodes of certain series that have problematic content, and so on.  This was standard operating procedure for Disney cable channels like the Disney Channel and Toon Disney for ages. Just because Disney is trying to compete with Netflix doesn't mean it's going to behave like Netflix.

Tenth: Since I own "Dumbo" in multiple formats, I'll be showing my kids the original version anyway.  And I'll be holding on to my collection of physical media a little tighter.

Eleventh: I'll also still be subscribing to Disney+ in November just to get a look what they're doing with it.  Whether I'll keep it around is another matter.

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