Post by The Squash Delivery Boytar (...) brush
Mi sa che questo modo di dire negli Stati Uniti non sia usato, a costo di
gravi fraintendimenti
I disagree. Phrases such as "tar and feather" and "tar with the same brush"
are not subject to misinterpretation or misunderstanding here in the US.
You may be thinking of the "tar baby", a doll covered with tar which was
used to try to entrap "Br'er Rabbit" in Joel Chandler Harris's "Uncle Remus"
stories.
The "tar baby" is of African origin, but some people today consider it a
derogatory reference to black people.
Harris was a white man who grew up in the American South. He was fascinated
by the accents of the former slaves he knew as a child, and by the stories
they told. These stories became the source of his "Uncle Remus" stories.
The Disney-produced film "Song of the South" is based on the Uncle Remus
stories, and the film was quite popular in the US in the 1940s and 1950s.
James Baskett, the black man who played the part of Uncle Remus in the film,
won a special Oscar "for his able and heart-warming characterization of
Uncle Remus, friend and story teller to the children of the world, in Walt
Disney's Song of the South".
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038969/awards
Although the film has been shown in limited re-releases several times in the
US, it has reached only a small audience. Disney has never made it available
on VHS or DVD in the US. It is unfortunate that such a great film has not
been seen by American children for more than fifty years.
Joe from Massachusetts