Alone among the great Disney features, "Song of the South" has never been released on videotape or DVD in the United States and hasn't been screened in a stateside theater since 1986.
Despite Academy Awards, groundbreaking technology, a black leading man and a script that often turns racial stereotypes on their head, the 1946 movie has been damned as an embarrassing throwback, a whitewash, the racist skeleton in Disney's film vault.
Brode said he can appreciate the company's worries about the film's reputed racism - "which is not to say I believe it is racist, because I don't."
It could be, he said, that as foreign copies of the movie trickle into the United States, people will come to see this "very great film" for its intentions, rather than its flaws.
But if that happens, it's years away. For now, Brode said, he's frustrated by what he considers far more troubling images of blacks in film.
"I can't believe 'Gone With the Wind' is shown on television today," he said. "I can't watch it.
"That people would think 'Song of the South' is racist and would have no problem with 'Gone With the Wind' is just bizarre."
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