One of our local storytellers has a fondness for
Uncle Remus stories. Sometimes he will tell one at a Village Celidh. I was
reminded of a storyteller some years ago who did a similar thing. I remember
how utterly cringe-worthy it was. He was essentially a middle-class white man
and his attempts to affect a briar patch accent were a bit crude and
ineffective. What made the task difficult was that no matter how hard he tried,
he could not affect the perspective of Brer Rabbit, let alone Uncle Remus.
Brer Rabbit is the definitive underdog and the
stories about him are all about how the little guy somehow manages to come out
on top. To hear a Glasgwegian storyteller tell the tales of Brer Rabbit is to
hear a whole new slant on it. Glaswegians have a nearly inherent sense of who Brer
Rabbit is. They will side with him every time. It’s as if even though he came
up from the slavery of the Deep South, he has a bit of Glasgow in him.
Leave it to Walt Disney then to skewer a good thing
in the film Song of the South. I noticed a videotape copy at a car boot
sale so I bought it for 20p and took it home and watched it. It was to say the
least, revisionist history; fairly wrong on every count. The actor who played
Uncle Remus, James Baskett, was not in attendance when the film made its grand
debut in Atlanta. He was not allowed to attend because of his skin colour. “My oh my, what a wonderful day …”
Sometimes though, Walt Disney got it right. In the
film “Wall-E,” Disney’s artistic descendants portray humans of the future as gliding
around on floating chaise lounges because they are too corpulent to walk. Their
meals all come, “In a Cup!”
My favourite Disney film was the one he did on
modern church life, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” It’s the one about a
young woman who enters ministry and her first church is a real mess. She works
hard to clean it up, to win over the parishioners and to avoid getting poisoned
by her jealous predecessor who tries to thwart her ministry.
I’ve met those characters in just about every
church I’ve served –
Doc – he, and doc is usually an older male, is
often literally a “doc” of some kind. He’s the retired professional in the
place. People often say, “Let’s see what Doc thinks about this.” Doc is the
permission giver. If he likes it, it’s bound to happen. If he doesn’t like it,
it might as well be the proverbial snowball in hell. You can picture him at the
meeting looking over the top of his glasses.
Happy - not
much gets her down. She is sometimes the counterbalance to Doc. She’s not
always the matriarch of the congregation, but she doesn’t need to be. She tends
to have more depth than that. She’ll always listen to you when you need a
shoulder to cry on.
Bashful – skirting the edges. Showing up for weeks
on end and then you don’t see him for a long time. Was it something you said?
Or didn’t say? Then he’ll be back, but you can never quite pin him down. Which is
the way he prefers it.
Sneezy - It
seems like something is always going haywire with her. Last year it was that
bad spell of something or other and now she’s down with some new thing. And there
was the time it went all belly up when she was on holiday in Cancun. Or was it
the cruise where everybody got sick? She’ll tell you more than you ever want to
know about kidney stones. But it all gives her something to overcome. That’s
her mission in life.
Sleepy – just don’t depend on him to run the clean
up committee. If he signed up to teach the 5th grade Sunday School
class, remember who was supposed to get the hot dogs for the picnic last
Spring, and didn’t.
Grumpy - as
much as she wants to remind you that you define for her the epitome of failure,
just remember, it’s not about you. She is like the tip of a very unhappy ice
berg and you don’t want to be her Titanic. No one is unsinkable and you do well
to give her a wide berth. If you tangle with her, it will be about you.
Dopey – it doesn’t matter how well written it is,
how many times you announce it, communicate it or get it across in a sermon.
You can just hear him say, “Nobody told me that.” He likes to ask questions,
but not the good kind. More like, “When did we decide that?” He’ll natter on to
twenty different people from his wilfully ignorant perspective, and because folks
are usually too polite to challenge him openly, he’ll show up at the meeting
and say, “I’m not the only one who feels this way.”
The good part, the hopeful bit that Mr. Disney
brought to the film was that, even so, they adored Snow White. She lived
happily ever after.
(I’m off for
a few weeks to catch up with family and friends in the Pacific Northwest. My
next blog will be October 8th. )
Hi Ho – John Mann
