Reviews

It is real cool the way this simple and seemingly silly movie has a big story to tell about bigotry and slavery and not just the obvious retrenches to the declaration of independence and "black pills" and "red pills". I wonder how many people who saw Zenobia in 1939 got the hidden messages subtle and obvious. Everyone reviewing Zenobia here in IMDb may have missed or did not mention an underling theme in the symbol represented by Zenobia the "elephant" that is big and always present like an elephant. Did anyone guess that maybe Zenobia represented a symbol of ….(you put your own word here about bigotry)? This is a great movie for using humorous subtleness to expose race, bigotry and prejudice at a time (1939) when people did not want to hear about race problems. It seems no coincidence that the most prejudice state Mississippi was chosen for the location and not Georgia or any other southern state.

One sees the film with the view to the more subtle inferences to race with a Big Elephant named Zenobia. You may have a whole new perspective on the film and what appears to be "poorly written", "little real humour (humor)", "racist performance of Stepin Fetchit", etc. is really a great presentation. Considering the times (1939), and the subtle symbol of "Zenobia", then this movie is a down right genius of production! I think Stepin Fetchit knew what the movie meant and was a lot smarter than people think.