A movie is a movie and a book is a book and nowhere is this more apparent than in Disney's adaptation of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Anyone who is looking for Mark Twain's story to hit the big screen as Mark Twain envisioned it is likely to be disappointed by this film. If, however, one recognizes the vastly different context of Twain's writing and Disney's production, the movie can be enjoyable.
Twain wrote circa 1884. His world was not concerned with the politically correct. Though it may have been self-aware, it was certainly not self-obsessed. The idea of consciously shaping America's "social conscience" through literature in the specific or media in the general, wasn't. Twain didn't blush at Huck's use of the word "nigger". It simply was Huck's language. Today, our social conscience deems that word among the most loathsome and its utterance is forbidden. Twain also didn't blush when he borrowed the popular, black minstrelsy image of "coloreds" to create--and then differentiate--Jim. Today, we recognize Twain's source material, the blackface minstrelsy, as an abhorrent perpetuation of negative stereotype. I point this out only to provide context and how much this nation has changed (outwardly, at least).
Enter Disney and its 1993 production. More than anything, the film seeks to reform Twain's story to fit contemporary social conscience. That is, you will not hear the "n" word because it is antithetical to the purpose of the film. Where Twain's Jim once participated as an uneducated, unsophisticated dupe in minstrelesque exchanges with Huck, Disney's Jim "best's" Huck's interlocution through sustained argument. In Disney's film we do not see Jim grow because we cannot be allowed to.... If we do, if we see Jim as possessing at any time any less dignity than that of a contemporary African-American, then Disney fails. For Disney, Jim is not a man but an incarnation of American Guilt and Apology. Jim is moralpatiencevirtueinnocenceperfection, sent to earth from above to instruct.
In short, Disney's version is as revisionist as it comes, for better or for worse.
Twain wrote circa 1884. His world was not concerned with the politically correct. Though it may have been self-aware, it was certainly not self-obsessed. The idea of consciously shaping America's "social conscience" through literature in the specific or media in the general, wasn't. Twain didn't blush at Huck's use of the word "nigger". It simply was Huck's language. Today, our social conscience deems that word among the most loathsome and its utterance is forbidden. Twain also didn't blush when he borrowed the popular, black minstrelsy image of "coloreds" to create--and then differentiate--Jim. Today, we recognize Twain's source material, the blackface minstrelsy, as an abhorrent perpetuation of negative stereotype. I point this out only to provide context and how much this nation has changed (outwardly, at least).
Enter Disney and its 1993 production. More than anything, the film seeks to reform Twain's story to fit contemporary social conscience. That is, you will not hear the "n" word because it is antithetical to the purpose of the film. Where Twain's Jim once participated as an uneducated, unsophisticated dupe in minstrelesque exchanges with Huck, Disney's Jim "best's" Huck's interlocution through sustained argument. In Disney's film we do not see Jim grow because we cannot be allowed to.... If we do, if we see Jim as possessing at any time any less dignity than that of a contemporary African-American, then Disney fails. For Disney, Jim is not a man but an incarnation of American Guilt and Apology. Jim is moralpatiencevirtueinnocenceperfection, sent to earth from above to instruct.
In short, Disney's version is as revisionist as it comes, for better or for worse.