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About Me & This Website
It all started when I saw Song of the South in theaters at the age of 6 in 1986. I loved it! But after that, the movie gradually faded away, and so did my memory of it. For nine years all I could vaguely remember was Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, Brer Bear, and the bull scene. Then, at the age of 15, I was at an antiques show in Bakersfield, California (I also collect Hemingray glass insulators), when I noticed those familiar Disney characters peering up at me from under a record dealer's table. The vibrant yellow cover awakened my fond childhood memories. I asked the dealer how much he wanted for the poor old thing—one record was scratched, one broken, and one missing. He sold it to me for $1. The rest is history I guess... my collecting nature took over! I started finding more books and records in antique shops, and before I knew it, I had a small collection of memorabilia that I wanted to share with the world.
In 1998, I began working on a web site to display my collection—a mere 15 items at the time. In 1999, when my first web site finally went public, I began receiving dozens of emails from people asking me about the movie, looking for answers. It was then that I began asking myself the same questions. Where was this movie? Why wasn't it available? My eyes were opened to the general lack of information available on Song of the South. Even though the Internet was still pretty new at the time, this "cybersilence" was unusual, especially for a Walt Disney film.
Seeing an opportunity to fill that gap, I began to work on a solution: provide the public with the most information possible on Song of the South. As I researched the movie and collected more and more memorabilia, my goal evolved into a passion. Today, I've amassed over 500 memorabilia items with no end in sight! Since 2000, the Internet has grown by leaps and bounds, and information on Song of the South can now be found everywhere. I still believe that this web site is the largest single repository for information on this film, and I'll work to keep it that way.
Over the years, I've learned and heard from hundreds of people sharing their own opinions about this film. In turn, I feel that I've matured and mellowed out and have tried to tone down my bias on this web site. My intent is not to blindly praise this film, but rather present the information to the public and let them decide for themselves. That said, I still genuinely believe that Walt Disney had no ill intent creating this movie, and I strongly believe it should be released—please read my defense for more information. I'm saddened by Disney leadership attempting to suppress Walt Disney's visions by censoring the studio's history, flawed or not.
I've been interviewed many times over the years, including CNN, the Associated Press, several newspapers, students, and individuals looking to make documentaries. I'm always happy to answer your questions and share more information on the film... whatever keeps people talking about this movie. Please always feel free to reach out and contact me!
Sincerely,
Christian Willis
It's hard to believe SongoftheSouth.net has been around for 20 years (that's half my life). From its humble beginnings as a place to feature my meager memorabilia collection to a full-fledged informational web site on all things Song of the South, it's seen its fair share of technology changes (and site redesigns to take advantage of this new technology).
If you're the type of person who would be interested in seeing what this site used to look like "back in the day", you can check it out here. I've compiled a timeline of all my Song of the South site designs from 1998 to present, and you can view the original pages. Fair warning: these old designs use a lot of deprecated code and weren't mobile friendly!