Life, Animated by Ron Suskind Page B

Activists picketed movie theaters with signs saying it was “an Insult to Negro people.” No doubt it was to some. It also won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.”
    Oh, America.
    Owen loves the song. It plays continuously inside Splash Mountain at Walt Disney World, his first high-intensity ride with a long rollercoaster-style drop at the end. Fear and joy fused together, and everything was “satisfactual.” He’s now starting to use the computer, and finds a clip of Uncle Remus singing the song. It’s among the first attempts at live action blended with animation—with the bluebirds flying around the smiling Remus. That combo—a live-action actor with animated characters swirling around his head—is pretty much Owen’s life, his particular context .
    Our seeing things through the lens of context is the great breakthrough of this time: seeing that, yes, he is disastrously context blind about the noisy, shifting, dodge-and-fake world of fast-fire human interaction, and understanding—as he becomes more active—what it really means to live a decontextualized life. Among the many things you are oblivious to are advertisements during commercial breaks, in magazines, on billboards, in shopping mall toy stores, and what they are all saying you just can’t live without . The constant buzzing bombardment—resulting in incessant “Please, please buy this for me,” or, for that matter, a consumer culture based on ever-escalating wants becoming needs—simply bounce off of him.
    But, in his chosen area, he’s context-deep. All he wants comes from that deep well. And the video of Song of the South tops this year’s wish list for Hanukkah and Christmas.
    Soon, “Santa” is locked in eBay hell.
    The movie has, of course, not worn well. Recognizing this, the company never released it on video in the United States.
    But, in this early chapter of connectivity called the World Wide Web, it can be found. It’s had limited release in some other countries, like Japan and the U.K., which is where we find a copy to bid on. We really didn’t want to know who’s on the other side of the transaction. All we know is that someone in England made a hundred dollars and we, soon, are looking at a box with Uncle Remus and those bluebirds smiling at us.
    It’s unplayable. The United Kingdom, we discover, uses a different video format from the United States. It needs to be converted. I’m doing some work as a guest correspondent on ABC’s Nightline , with Ted Koppel, and know video editors at the network. Even they couldn’t manage it, but they know of a video production house that can. And only four hundred dollars!
    So, as the new year approaches, we settle into the basement to begin to watch a five-hundred-dollar video. The kindly Uncle Remus is basically set up—with possibly horrific consequences in the Reconstructionist South—by some vindictive white kids. At that point, I’m regularly appearing on panels and doing speeches as a white guy who “gets race.” But that’s aboveground. Inside the house, we’re living inside a collection of Disney movies. In this case, one selected by an eight-year-old who is oblivious—often blissfully—to history, culture, social codes, and accepted customs outside his wonderful—and safe—world of Disney films. Even as a sixth grader, Walt knows more than enough to be mortified. Basically, he watches the movie shaking his head and saying, “Oh, my God.” When the movie ends, we try to explain to Owen why some people don’t like this movie. It’s hard to know where to start. “Remember when Jafar, as the Genie, put Aladdin in chains…” After a few minutes, he says, “Can we sing now?”
    So we join hands—Cornelia, Walt, and I, shrugging in resignation—for a rousing chorus of “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.”
    His fixation on the film is a tough turn for our massive-redirect strategy, but we get some lucky breaks: his teacher, Jennifer, had been his