Racism in Animation 4 - Disney's The Martins and the Coys (1946)

"When the current powers that be final decided to release Make Mine Music, for some reason they found this segment to politically inocorrect to be included in it's release. Here is the Martin's and the Coys in all it's Political Incorrectness."



The Martins and the Coys was a Disney short that was directed by legend Jack Kinney and produced by Walt Disney himself. It in 1946 during the war time when it was better business for Disney to put his full-length films on hold in order to release individual shorts together as a full-length movie and then individually as shorts (to get twice the distribution money out of them).

It was released as the full movie, Make Mine Music.



The following description is from IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038729/

"THE MARTINS AND THE COYS carry on their senseless, bloody feud until only one member of each family is left alive.

"Originally a segment of MAKE MINE MUSIC (1946), this Disney short is perhaps deservedly obscure today, as it is a serious lack of good taste & common sense to continue the stereotyping of Appalachian 'mountain men' as lazy, drunken, thieving & murderous. The historical basis for the plot is the infamous Hatfield-McCoy Feud which livened up portions of the West Virginia - Kentucky border in the late 1800's. The King's Men provide the singing narration with the requisite amount of twang."

"Disney released this feature on video for the first time ever in the spring of 2000. One time, I was looking at reviews on "Make Mine Music" and the people who bought the video or DVD were upset because one segment had been deleted. It was this one. I'm glad I never bought a copy of MMM. Disney did it again.

"They censored a classic work of art like this just to please some pathetic do-gooders. It's a classic ballad about two feuding hillbilly families who kill each other off and their descendants Grace Martin and Henry Coy fall in love and marry. At the end, however, the feud is carried on. As much as I hate to defend the Disney Company, I will say that Disney does not want to censor their works and would probably like to show them in their complete forms. They only do it because they're tired of getting complaints from do-gooders. Censorship is not the answer. Giving MMM a PG-rating would be better. "

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This is another case of Disney censorship. The reason for the censorship was a combination of the violence and also how they stereotyped these people.

- TAE