It's a movie, made by white people, based on a book written by a white person, which was a re-writing of African American tales he collected on plantations. While at the very core there is a hint of Black culture, I would say that it's viewed through a very, very white lens, to the point that it's more of a statement of white America's views of Black culture than it is a piece of Black culture.

> If they cared about racism they'd do a remake that keeps the beautiful art and reframes the context a bit.

The controversy is almost core to the current interpretation of the movie. It's the fact that the characters (slaves or not slaves, but free men, if you follow the book which establishes the setting as antebellum) seem happy, or at least unperturbed, by their relationship with their master and their status in society. If you reflect the truth, that they were unhappy and being held down, that seems more like a new movie than it does a remake.

Br'er Rabbit, like Rabinovich in soviet jokes, is often worthy of emulation.

Was it Br'er Rabbit or a cousin (or maybe even El-ahrairah himself?) who convinced the Greedy Lion to attack his own reflection in the well?