The Littlest Rebel (1935)

Awesome tap dancing but really racist. Shirley Temple in blackface? All the little slave girls stammering with affection wanting so badly to give the white master's daughter a birthday present? This movie completely propagates the myth of the benevolent slave-holder. Also the James Henry character is portrayed with such a low IQ its surprising that he can breathe, every scene he is in seems to be prompting the audience to chuckle along at the "ignorant negro". Also, Shirley Temple is weirdly sexualized in this movie. There are scenes where at least three different adult males are nestling so closely face to face with the little girl that it is CREEPY. This movie was recently shown on TCM (Turner Classic Movies),which also just showed "Birth of a Nation" which I think they should change their name to RCM: Racist Cracker Movies, because they show films like these on their network (ergo implying that they are "classic", whatever that means) without preluding them with any critical discussion on the representation of racial dynamics in the films.

I am not a super-duper humongous fan of Shiley Temple, but boy, was she a good child actress. My favorite S.T. movie is "Heidi.", but I think this one is a close second.It takes place during the Civil War. Shiley Temple plays Viginia Cary, a young girl who lives in the south with her parents. Her father is called to the Confederate Army, and tries to sneak back to visit his family. He's arrested, and a Yankee arranges an escape. But it doesn't work, and they are both arrested and sentenced to death. But Virginia and Uncle Billy, a friend of Virginia's, goes to visit President Lincoln and begs him to intervene.This is a classic movie about war, and one that actually has a good ending.My score: 7/10.

Where to start...?Made in 1935, this bizarre story of the Civil War is told upside down. It's difficult to imagine what the studio was thinking when it made this film. I wonder what the movie-going public thought at the time. I can't imagine people north of the Mason-Dixon line would have appreciated it very much. Perhaps the studio was pandering to a Southern audience who was still smarting from the reality that their way of life was forever altered by the Civil War--and this film recreates (or perpetuates) a fantasy of the South's lovely, gentile way of life, in which everyone knew his place, and it all worked just fine. In any case, in this movie, confederates and white Southerners are depicted as noble, intelligent, kind, good, and very much entitled to owning slaves. They are presented as quick-witted, distinguished, and morally superior to the Northerners. Not one of them has a Southern accent. Northerners/Yankees, on the other hand, are made out to be dumb, vulgar, cruel, and inhumane--inexplicably oppressing the kindly Confederates. As viewers we're astonished when one of the bedeviled Northern Aggressors (some Southerners *still* in 2005 refer to the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression) cuts Shirley's father a break and helps him out.The slave characters are drawn 2 ways. The first is being so numb-skulled, mush-mouthed, and knuckle-dragging as to appear mentally retarded--and it's clear that this grotesque caricature is supposed to be screamingly funny. It's not. It's stomach-churn-caliber material.The second way slaves are depicted is just brimming with love for their massahs, beside themselves with delight in their obedience to them--and even worse, trying to subvert the bad Yankees, since the slaves don't want to be freed.Shirely Temple's black face disguise, her masquerading as a "pickinniny" (a small black slave child) is one of the more repugnant things I've ever seen in a movie.Almost as bad is her character's regard for the slaves as idiot children--scolding them when she sees them stepping out of line (shaking her adorable little finger at them) and alternately treating them like her cute little pets.A very uncomfortable film to watch. And aside from the dreadful racist historical context--oddly enough--Shirley Temple is quite glorious and the musical numbers are lively and fun.

The thing which is racist about the film is not that it sets out to show anything evil about the black people - Shirley seems to be quite fond of her slaves, unless of course they do something wrong - but in the subtle way it suggests there was nothing wrong with the situation the Deep South was in before the civil war.The black people are not only less intelligent than the whites (notice the girl so dumb she can't even remember a single line her mother told her to memorise to impress the young white child star - or perhaps she's just so nervous in the presence of the superior species that she can't remember), but they're completely happy being enslaved.They absolutely love being told what to do by the six year old landowner's daughter, and the neighbourhood slaves just wait around for young Shirley to lavish some attention on them.The thing I most regret about the film was that they forced the blacks to dance and entertain their white hosts like a bunch of chained elephants or circus freaks.Its always a bad sign when the civil war is portrayed as a distruption to the desired state of affairs, as it is here and in Gone with the Wind.1/5Only youngsters, who don't yet understand that the only difference between white folks and black folks is skin pigment, which only evolved from a group of people living in an ultra-sunny climate for years, will be able to enjoy this film. But perhaps its better for society if you don't show it to them - the young are so impressionable, after all.UPDATE: Can I point out that I've noticed people don't like this review, and I'm not surprised; its intentions were so innocent, it feels a shame to accuse it of causing offense, but unfortunately, I'd still suggest this one not be shown to impressionable kids for the reasons I have outlined above.