The Controversial Disney Movie Robert Redford Despised
Before Robert Redford became one of Hollywood's most respected actors and directors, he had a moviegoing experience that stuck with him for all the wrong reasons.
As a kid, Redford sat down to watch Disney's Song of the South—and walked away completely disillusioned.
"The worst letdown was Disney's Song of the South, because it was phoney, because you could see the wires," he later said. "I couldn't abide this."
It wasn't just a casual complaint. That disappointment helped shape Redford's entire approach to filmmaking. From that point on, he leaned hard into realism, even when working inside bigger genres. Spy thrillers, Westerns, political dramas—he embraced heightened stories, but always kept them grounded. He rarely touched fantasy, never chased blockbuster spectacle, and mostly steered clear of Hollywood's more artificial trappings.
Even when he eventually showed up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it was in a sharply dressed role as a government villain—not exactly a cape-and-lasers cameo.
Redford explained that even as a kid, authenticity mattered to him. "When I was very small, my dad would project 8mm films of Tom Mix on a sheet in the living room. I bought into all of it." But as he got older, his tolerance for Hollywood fakery faded fast. "It bothered me that Gene Autry couldn't walk right and John Wayne couldn't ride right."
Song of the South, a mix of live-action and animation released by Disney in 1946, was the final straw. Despite winning an Oscar for Best Original Song and doing big business at the box office, the film has become one of the most controversial in Disney's history—widely criticized for its romanticized depiction of the post-Civil War South. Disney has never released it on home video or streaming in the U.S., and it's largely been buried in the company's vault.
For Redford, it wasn't just the tone or the content—it was the sheer lack of believability. If a film was going to offer fantasy, he said, then it had better fully commit:
"If you're giving me fantasy, give me Scaramouche, Captain Blood—the kind of full-on stuff Rafael Sabatini created. Not the half-baked version."