Were Early Cartoons Racist?

Great Debates
1

re : http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=69932

I’m attempting to move this over here from the Pit because I think there is a discusssion somehwere here.

Racial stereotypes in quite a few of Disney’s cartoons and now recently (as stated in the above thread) from Warner Brothers cartoons have begun to be excised as being offensive. One of Disney’s favorite gags was to have someone get covered in blackface by some means or another (falling soot, etc.) and then exclaim “Mammy!” There were no overt racial characters in Disney’s films as there were in Warners, with the exception of Mammy Two-Shoes, an Aunt Jemima type who showed up in a few Silly Symphonies and was echoed in the character of Mammy Two-Slippers in later Tom and Jerry shorts.

I’m a bit more sensitive to this question after having watched Spike Lee’s film “Bamboozled” yesterday and seeing how ingrained the stereotypes might have become. I use the word might because I’m not completely convinced that we see them as stereotypes as much nowadays, and can separate the historical failure of racial sensitivity from our own current feelings. Lee himself has been accused of using stereotypes (most blatantly in “Do the Right Thing”) in order to get a point across.)

So, given this, question 1 : how far does a racial stereotype need to go before it becomes an offensive stereotype? Question 2 : Are we as a society mature enough that we can see these cartoons as the historical documents that they are and separate the racial slurs from our own feelings? Are these edits really necessary nowadays?

[Edited by Eutychus55 on 05-06-2001 at 03:26 AM]

2

I think we have gotten a little too polically correct for our own good. Everyone gets so offended so easily, just relax.
Bugs is part of our popular cultural history, good or bad. Can’t we just see it as a little snipit of our past and take it in context? And why not use these cartoons to show our kids how far we have come with race relations?
As for the question when does a sterotype become an offensive sterotype, I think when the stereotype is negative it automatically becomes offensive.

3

That’s really the question I had. Are we mature enough as a society to do that?

Which also begs the question, is there such a thing as a positive stereotype?

4

The “if you are a woman you can cook” streotype seems positive on the surface.

5

I just saw a Screwy Squirrel cartoon on Cartoon Network last week that had a stupid indian in it. I wondered in today’s society what people would make of this.

After reading what Warner Brothers was doing with Bugs and not showing 12 cartoons on the basis that they were considered racist seemed a bit dumb. Better to show the prejudices of the past then to hide them and act as if they never existed.

These were the beliefs of another time, and I think we need to remember where we came from, how far we have come, and how far we still need to go.

Are they next going to stop showing all the Bugs Bunny cartoons where he cross dresses because they feel that it will offend transvestites?

6

Amen Hastur.

7

By today’s standards, early cartoon were racist. I can remember watching them.

According to a biography of irving Berlin, he began writing songs in the early the part of the 20th century that were all about ethnic stereotypes. I cringed reding xome of the lyrics. Apparently that was a popular genre at the time.

Of course, this is a funciton of changing times. No doubt some of today’s artistic stuff will violate the mores of the future.

8

I think that we must consider those to whom such material was aimed.

Adults can, usually, see such stuff and are well capable of understanding the historical aspect but I somehow think that children in the 5 to 12 year age range are more vulnerable to being unduly influenced.

You can talk of parental guidance but let’s face it, many if not most, children have tv sets in their own rooms and watch tv largely unsupervised.

I grew up in a time when racism was far more prevalent and although I am part asian other children were very quick to glue the cartoon stereotype to the nearest thing that fitted, so in turn I became, Sambo, Golly, Momma, Liza(despite being male) and anything else that was around. Needless to say I grew up fighting.

One could say that the outlook of my contemporaries was tinged by the pervasive and often unconscious racism of society, such as comedians, local news reports, even parents complaining about the number of black artists on the very few pop music shows at the time.

It shows to me though how easily children can be influenced in unexpected ways as I’m sure that most parents even then would have been disturbed had they seen their darlings acting in such a fashion.

9

I can take it in context. I could even see discussing it with my children. Without the discussion, how would a child know that the cartoons weren’t made last week? And I think there are some adults who would intentionally ignore the context as well, or agree with the any racist sentiments and pass that message on to their children. Basically it depends on where and when these cartoons are being shown whether it is appropriate or not.

Except it implies that you shouldn’t expect men to be able to cook, which is a negative stereotype. If it didn’t imply that, it would carry the same meaning as “if you are human you can cook” or “if you are a woman, you have toes”. It is the implication of the quality being unique to one group that makes it a stereotype, which implies that non-group members do not share that quality.

And I’d bet you could find some women who think the “if you are a woman you can cook” stereotype is negative, too.

10

From what I’ve seen, Warner was the…nastiest…of the lot. From what you’ve described, Disney (and MGM, with Tom and Jerry) made blackface jokes, had Al Jolsen references and had Mammy characters. Warner got…mean spirited. Really mean spirited. Lazy, shiftless, superstitous blacks that were interested in sneaking out of work, gambling, eatin’ watermelon. In some of the few cartoons that blacks were featured in (11 in total), they invariably had slack jaws, big lips, they shuffled when they walked, slurred their words and were DUMB. Not Elmer Fudd-type dumb, but retarded-type dumb. Mammy Two-footwear types were also stereotypes, but nowhere near in the class of truly offensive stuff that’s in the Censored 11 Warner Brothers cartoons which are orders of magnitude more vile. (See link for some pictures) I’ve seen “Sunday Go To Meetin’ Time”, “All This and Rabbit Stew”, “Angel Puss” and a few others and frankly, they seem like Klan propaganda (although Klan propaganda wouldn’t have allowed the black characters their one redeeming feature: being Christian.)

I don’t agree with Warner’s position that the famous Censored 11 (or Cartoon Network’s additional 11) should be buried and forgotten. If I ran Warner or the Cartoon Network, I would get someone like Spike Lee, who apparently understands the history to provide a context and show the cartoons at a time when adults could watch, but kids would be less likely to. Some of the Censored 11 are masterpieces, despite the racisim (“Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs” is easily as good as “What’s Opera Doc” and while I’ve never seen it, “Clean Pastures” is supposed to be a fascinating and funny look at early jazz musicians and I’d love to see it) and should be shown. But not in a regular daily cartoon lineup. And probably not to young kids who won’t understand the context.

Regarding edits: I don’t see the point of editing out Al Jolsen(sp) blackface references. Most kids won’t get it, anyway. But there’re a number of Tom and Jerrys where, after an explosion the character turns into a “pickaninny” character (hair standing out in braided spikes, tied with ribbons) that’s more problematic for me. Frankly, I’d say: simply pull these few cartoons from the regular kids lineup and show 'em only “after hours” with a proper historical context.

Fenris

11

were they racist? Seem to have been - but in the context of the times they were made - where racism was generally accepted.

Should they be destroyed? No, I think that they demonstrate both how far we’ve gotten and how far we have yet to go.

should they be treated the same as all the other ones? No, again, for I think clearly they aren’t quite the same, since only a few had overt racist material in it. I recall some of the ‘war years’ ones, not all of them were racist (tho’ I did find them decidedly less funny than my personal fav’s - the Rabbit Seasoning type with Bugs, Daffy & Elmer, and the Abomidable Snowman one)

As Fenris suggests, these have a place in our history. I remember cringing when I saw Peter Pan again as an adult. And they can be lead to productive discussions. OTOH, I don’t feel they belong in the routine Sat am line up.

12

I agree that much of the material probably shouldn’t be shown to children, but I wish there were some way or place where we old farts could see the cartoons we grew up with. Problem is, Warner/Disney/Hanna-Barbera/whoever have a very valid concern that, even if they make the old 'toons available only on home video, there’ll be a public outcry that could damage their earnings in other areas. Until they’re put in a museum somewhere, I think we’re all screwed.

Disney was just as bad as Warner, they’ve just done a better cover-up job…The Song of the South likely will never be seen again, but at one time, it DID exist. Also, Fantasia, despite the “fully restored” label on the DVD, went through some big-league cuts, as this site discusses:

13

The interesting thing to me has been the way in which some art has been able to transcend its obvious racism. (I know there have been some loopy complaints about Huckleberry Finn, but those loud complaints are the exception.) I was surprised, for example, to find Eddie Murphy remaking Dr. Dolittle, moreso when I discovered that he was heading the project, not simply accepting a role from his agent to be the “black” Dr. Dolittle. I was then very surprised to see in an interview he gave that he wanted to do the movie because he had enjoyed the books as a kid.

The books, for those of you who have not had the opportunity to read them, are a genuine delight, but they have some racist passages that made me uncomfortable as a pre-teen almost 40 years ago. In particular, the doctor provides an African prince with cold cream to make him white, knowing that the cold cream will wear/wash off after the doctor has made his exit.

The prince figures in at least two of the books in the series and, if Murphy enjoyed the books, he had to have encountered those passages. Despite that, he was able to get past that aspect of Lofting’s works and still found the stories captivating enough to want to bring the basic stories to the screen.

14

Context really is everything. We have a 5 hour long tape of old cartoons. Among them are a few that feature Lil Audrey and her “mammy”. My children, who were six or seven at the time, just assumed that mammy was Lil Audrey’s actual mother.

I’d hate to see these cartoons distroyed and why shouldn’t our children watch them? Should we keep this part of history a big dark secret from them? These attitudes did exist and I don’t like the idea of Warner Bros. being able to just get rid of those cartoons and pretending it didn’t happen.

15

I’m surprised they don’t ban Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam cartoons, with all that gunplay they contain.
I think they should not show the most viley racist cartoons, the ones that show “black” charcters with exaggerated features, and portray them as dimwits. Maybe they could be preserved for history’s sake, but not shown to children.
But I hope they don’t eliminate the ones that are just politically incorrect. For instance, I don’t think I’ve seen a “Speedy Gonzales” cartoon on the Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, etc. Yet I swear I’ve see them dubbed into Spanish all the time (I live in a place thats 80% Hispanic). It’s not so much the “aggrieved group” that take offense but the politically correct guardians of taste that do.
Come to think of it, I haven’t seen the Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, or Abbot and Costello on TV in a long time too. Are those shows insensitive as well? Or just too old. When I was a kid I preferred those shows to the garbage that was made at the time for children (cartoons to promote action figures).

16

IMO, no. Sure, there are some folks who will see such cartoons as an embarassing part of our past. But there are still enough folks in society who are willing to see such things and accept it as truth.

On the other hand, supressing/destroying/censoring those old cartoons isn’t any better.

Maybe what we need is a long, boring disclaimer before those old toons are shown? Something like “The cartoon you are about to see is shown in its unaltered form. It contains crude and erroneous depictions of women and minorities, because the people who made these cartoons didn’t know any better.”

17

Has anyone else read a book titled “Cartoon Confidential”? Don’t know the name of the author. I once saw it on the bargain rack at Barnes & Noble and have regretted not buying it. It mentions the black centaur girls(which I also referenced in the other thread) plus the incident with Elmer’s dog and the flea. It also talked about Betty Boop and some incidents of what would now be referred to as sexual harassment(something about her boss’s hands on her breasts!) I think I will try and find it on an out-of-print source, because it sounds like a great sourcebook for this debate.

18

exactly my point.

that’s why I said it “seemed positive on the surface”
I think we are on the same side of this one.

19

That’s one of the better ideas I’ve heard. Too bad the ninnies at the Cartoon Network don’t share the same sentiment.

<thread hijack>

Is it okay to laugh at these cartoons? I feel pangs of guilt when I shoot coffee through my nose at Droopy’s “Hey blackie…any more babes in there?” line (Droopy fans know which 'toon I mean).

<end thread hijack>

20

Yes, early cartoons were racist, and sexist, and anti-gay – these were the prevailing attitudes when they were made, and they are thus fosilized in the cartoons. This is the nature of anything recorded. It’s been this way for a long time. So when you read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court you can see that it is clearly anti-Catholic. It’s not rabidly, propagandistically anti-Catholic, but it’s clear that Twain was philosophically opposed to the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church. Yet ACYIKAC is not banned – I’ve never even seen it in one of those “banned books” displays, despite the presence of Hucklerry Finn. (I suspect this anti-Catholicism explain why there has never yet been an accurate dramatization of ACYIKAC, thought).

Sax Rohmer’s “Fu Manchu” books are downright racist, with their portrayal of asian criminal masterminds bent on subduing the West. Rohmer’s asian mastermind was copied by the pulps (Robert E. Howard’s “Skull Face”, Flash Gordon’s “Ming the Merciless”, and countless others), and appeared in scads of movies.

The above are still with us. Unless you intend to rewrite the past, 1984-style, you can’t eliminate past errors and prejudices.

The current interest comes from the elimination of some Bugs Bunny Cartoons. I’d like to know which ones, and why. All I’ve heard is that one of them had an skimo joke in it. The worst of the Bugs Bunny cartoons were pulled long ago – "All Thi and Rabbit Stew, with its embarassing black caricature, “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips” with its anti-Japanese digs. I don’t mind seeing these cartoons not in distribution – they’re embarassing today, their time has gone, and they are mainly wached by children, who might imbibe prejudices better left alone by watching them. I should point out that they aren’t banned – saw them at film festivals.

As for Disney, they are a private house and can “sit on” heir past mistakes f they wish.

I have the book Cartoon Confidential. One of its chief virtues is that it reproduces a shot of the “pickaninny” centaurette from Fantasia. Like the racial stereotypes in the Warner Brothers cartoons, this one is embarassing. It was “cut” by re-framing the shot long before the video release – it was gone by the time I first saw Fantasia in the early seventies. And I just want to say, for the record, that I don’t find the remaining “zebra” centaurs offensive – they’re no more servile than the other centaurs.(All of them are working for Bacchus in one way or another.) They are dignified and exotic – that “zebra” striping is a neat touch.