Nov 2019 – Animation, Race and Progress

1990s+

Race in Modern Adult Animation: South Park’s Hyper-Irony

Posted on 4th Nov 20194th Nov 2019 by Nadia Crawford

Adult animations, following Ralph Bakshi’s example, continued to include sex, violence, and racist imagery from the 90s onwards. While, for the most part, racism has been toned down in animation, several prominent shows continue with it for satiric purposes, such as South Park. South Park is a commentary on modern life which deliberately uses grotesque imagery to get across messages about race, gender, and religion. It’s ‘hyper-irony’ undercuts social issues and bigoted attitudes by portraying it all as ridiculous, outrageous and fruitless. Using such sharp ethnic derisions can make audience members question their own beliefs, especially if one of the characters espouses those beliefs through South Park’s absurd ways. Thus, it’s a mistake to take South Park at face value.

For example, Eric Cartman’s constant ridicule of Jews to the point of endorsing genocide is not funny because Jews are bad, but because anti-Semitism is ridiculous and showing those attitudes through the twisted ideological rudeness of a nine-year-old boy helps exemplify how ridiculous those attitudes are. Another example is the black character that reappears throughout the show – one of the only black characters – whose name is, aptly, “Token”. In universe as well, racist and sexist comments do not go uncriticised by the rest of the cast. For example, Kyle Broflovski, Cartman’s Jewish friend, never lets Cartman’s anti-Semitic comments go by without a retaliation of his own. The show remains consistently topical as well, putting out weekly episodes that continue to satirise the vices of modernity, such as drone technology, Kickstarter, transphobia and Islamophobia.

South Park ultimately demonstrates how animation has gone from using race as a punchline, to using stereotypes satirically to comment upon why they are bad. Now, animation presents race in predominantly positive ways, with minorities finally being depicted as fully-capable humans. My hope for the future is that this trend will continue, and perhaps help loosen the ideology of ‘colour-blindness’ by making people more aware of the continued influences of racism and sexism in the modern world.

1990s+

The Move from Television to Internet: Post-race Ideologies in Animation

Posted on 4th Nov 20194th Nov 2019 by Nadia Crawford

Society, in the past thirty years, has altogether moved towards an ideology of colour-blindness. Both in animation and American society, it is the dominant racial ideology in the US and justifies continued white advantage by stating simply that race no longer ‘matters’ as now we have a black middle class which [does not] mean that minorities are no longer oppressed. Any attempt to point out that race does indeed matter is seen as an attempt to dismantle ‘how far we’ve come’. Any economic or social problem had by an ethnic minority is now simply surmised as being ‘their fault’, not America’s. However, this completely ignores the fact that the non-white middle class is still disadvantaged, and there continue to be persistent social and economic problems for minorities.

I believe that this post-racial lens is very much present in the fact that much animation since while it includes more racial and ethnic diversity, it rarely focuses on race as a topic. While of course there are certain shows and episodes of shows that do, it’s not common. Positively, race in the 2000s is no longer something to be addressed purely in front of adult audiences – it was appropriate for all ages and is now addressed in significantly less harmful ways . However diversity is still often shown through ‘token’ minority characters or in multi-ethnic casts with white protagonists, which still fail to fully address cultural diversity and show minorities as leaders.

The 2000s cartoon *Codename: Kids Next Door* depicts a typical multi-ethnic cast with a token black, and token Asian character

The internet, however, is anything but post-racial. In fact, it became the new home for racism as it became increasingly unacceptable to espouse racist ideologies in the real world. The internet allows people to maintain duplicitous personalities: in public, they would maintain political correctness, whereas on the internet they would reveal themselves as racists, protected by the internet’s anonymity and lack of consequences. It is for this reason that the internet has been characterised as a ‘safe haven’ for all ideas and opinions. The online environment consolidates racist communities and pits them against other, racially liberal groups, creating an online culture war.

The internet is also a place for sharing and hosting animation, and animation software. Now, anyone can get their hands on some animation software, make something, and share it – including racist animation. For example, in early 2019 a children’s animation was taken down from YouTube due to its message that dark skin is ugly. Animation hosted on the internet allows for communities to form around both old and new animation, including the racist kind such as Song of the South, who fiercely defend it.

*Dina and the Prince* – a white angel is ‘cursed’ black

Subscription services have begun to emerge as animation platforms in the past decade, providing some cartoons with a chance that network television would not have given them which may have an impact on racial representation in the future. As the internet is still new, I am eager to see just how racial representation changes under its continued influence.

1970s-1980s

Racial Commentary in Adult Animated Films: Coonskin

Posted on 4th Nov 2019 by Nadia Crawford

Ralph Bakshi’s films were very different from most other animated cartoons of this era and set off a trend that is still prominent today in adult animation: blatant and often offensive depictions of racism, sex, drugs and alcoholism and, most importantly, irony and satire. Bakshi plays upon ethnic visual and behavioural stereotypes well-established in America, using them to subvert expectations and highlight the rampant racism in the 1970s and 80s. Bakshi offers a real commentary on what was happening at the time through this intensely racist imagery. While many people were and still are offended by Bakshi’s stereotypes, the type of satire and social commentary he establishes is largely created by just how different and stereotyped all the characters look.

*Coonskin*‘s Miss America – A metaphorical character reflecting the attitudes of America

Coonskin (1975) was Bakshi’s most controversial film. The story is a modern re-telling of the Brer Rabbit tales of Joel Chandler Harris, satirically exploring the black flight to the Harlem. Its characters, Bear, Fox and Rabbit ultimately take over Harlem by destroying the figures oppressing black power in the city: a duplicitous black preacher who fails to deliver his promise of revolution, a white supremacist policeman and an Italian mafioso. At its core, Coonskin is about oppression and revolution in the ghetto and is, once one looks past its grotesque imagery, a film about black power, hope and resilience, with its characters reflecting the way America sees its Harlemites. By portraying his characters like he did, Bakshi exposes the racist tendencies of animation itself, which had been using these same stereotypes unironically and uncritically for decades. As Bakshi explains himself:

I do take all the stereotyped black images…but I try to show why blacks have taken these roles. The reason is that they can’t get decent jobs…Coonskin is a tough, angry film, but it’s not racist.
Ralph Bakshi, 1975

Coonskin aroused so much protest from CORE, NAACP and prominent individuals that Paramount Pictures withdrew it from circulation. Many of its major critics, however, had not even seen the film and were basing their analyses purely on the visual stereotypes. However, not every reviewer was so critical of the film’s racial premise. As one noted:

This film is not against groups – it’s against snarling, short-sighted, scrabbling, egocentric, murderous American city life, particularly as it beats up on blacks .

Several prominent black figures have also praised the film, such as Eddie Smith, a member the NAACP, who thought:

…the movie was very good. It is not a putdown of blacks. It is very positive.

In addition, the voice actor for Rabbit in the film said:

…the film is totally honest, and it is definitely pro-black. Yes, the film shows black pimps and whores. But we’ve got to accept reality and stop living with fairy tales.

My personal closing thoughts on the matter is that Coonskin is a brilliant piece of grotesque satire about race relations in the 70s and should always be viewed in that context. While it is valid to view the film as racist, it is worthwhile trying to see the film through a different lens.

1970s-1980s

The Last Days of the Dark Ages: The Rebirth of Representation

Posted on 4th Nov 2019 by Nadia Crawford

As the 60s ended and the 70s began, representation began to shift. Animation was reintroduced to adult audiences through the works of people like Ralph Bakshi, and cartoons steadily began to address race again, this time in more sensitive and positive ways, for the first time marking a serious reconsideration of racial and ethnic stereotypes and a provision of positive alternatives.

However, conservatism was the environment of the time, and racism thus continued in animation. There was a resurgence of racism in the 1980s as conservative sentiment increased under the Reagan government, putting rights minorities had previously fought for under threat as structural inequality worsened. As once again white people increasingly gained more social and economic prosperity than racial minorities, the ethnic underclass increased, widening the divide between them and intensifying racism on both sides. Ethnic minorities thenceforth lost their will to continue the protests and activism of the 1960s as both white and minority groups began to forget that the civil rights movement had even happened. People focused on the progression of individual members of ethnic minorities, the reduced use of slurs in media and public discourse, and the reduction in systematic segregation and took it to mean that racial equality had already been met and thus no more needed to be done.

These trends played into depictions of race in cartoons throughout the 1970s and 1980s. By this point, animation was firmly ingrained on television and had a set audience of predominantly children. Reports from this time indicate that black and low-income children spend more time watching television than other groups of children since it filled the vacuum created by weaker family ties. However, it was found that black characters only consisted of 7% of characters on screen, and 2% for other minorities, with neither groups ever portrayed in white-collar jobs. While black characters were portrayed with largely positive attributes, other ethnic minorities were almost always portrayed negatively. While there were more shows featuring predominantly black casts, typically inspired by real life famous African-American groups, such as the Harlem Globetrotters, Fat Albert, and the Jackson 5ive, this still was a very small number of total cartoons.

Nevertheless, this is a very important era for animation since this was a real turning point for representation, as some minorities began to be portrayed in a much more positive and sympathetic light. By focusing on younger audiences, cartoons with a more diverse or all-black cast allowed black children, for the first time, to see themselves in positive cartoon characters of their ethnicity.

1950s-1960s

The Sexism and Racism of Disney’s Peter Pan

Posted on 4th Nov 20194th Nov 2019 by Nadia Crawford

I watched Peter Pan (1953) recently in order to write this article and, being honest, I have found that it is my least favourite Disney movie due to its sexist and racist tones, particularly concerning the film’s portrayal of Native Americans. Referred to repeatedly as “Redskins” who are “cunning but not intelligent” they are portrayed as a homogenous, violent tribe living on a fantasy island where mermaids and ‘cannibals’ also exist. What this immediately suggests is that natives and blacks exist in a world separate from the white ‘status quo’ where Wendy and her brothers had come from. The natives of Peter Pan all speak with ‘ugh’s or in broken, stereotypical speech.

The Native Americans are portrayed as a homogeneous group, with few visual and behavioural differences among them

Tiger Lily’s representation is most troubling since it is both racist and sexist in nature. She is used purely as a pawn for the plot – an exotic ‘damsel in distress’ stereotype. Tiger Lily is portrayed with exotic fetishism, deliberately made to look more attractive than the rest of her tribe as to make her more appealing to the audience and to the character. For example, Peter is enticed by her during a scene in the Native American village where she dances for him and nuzzles his face, causing him to blush. She is a silenced ethnic minority, the script not giving her a single word to speak.

Peter Pan, the lost boys and Wendy and her siblings also appropriate the Native Americans by wearing their clothing and imitating their dancing and singing. This scene is where the infamous “What Made the Red Man Red” song is played to answer the questions asked by Wendy’s brothers such as “when did he [the Natives] first say ugh?” This song suggests that being ‘red’ is not a natural state – it is a constant blush. All these lyrics simply justify white-produced stereotypes of Native Americans, boiling down their culture to two imaginary events, suggesting that their culture itself is childish, primitive and arbitrary.

…When did he first say, “Ugh!”
When did he first say, “Ugh!”
In the Injun book it say
When first brave married squaw
He gave out with heap big ugh
When he saw his Mother-in-Law
What made the red man red?
What made the red man red?
Let’s go back a million years
To the very first Injun prince
He kissed a maid and start to blush
And we’ve all been blushin’ since
You’ve got it right from the headman
The real story of the red man
No matter what’s been written or said
Now you know why the red man’s red!
What Makes the Red Man Red – Peter Pan, 1953

This type of Native American characterisation went over well with audiences of the 1950s and faced little to no criticism. Even as the Native American Civil Rights Movement began in the 1960s, representations like this kept appearing all over animation. At the very least, as the period went on, the narrative of Indians as villains diminished and cartoons took a more sympathetic tone by stating that they were a people who had been wronged. Nevertheless, visually and behaviourally they remained the same.

1950s-1960s

The Dark Ages: The Family Friendly Scene of Television

Posted on 4th Nov 20194th Nov 2019 by Nadia Crawford

The dark age of animation began in the 1950s, drawing from Cold War anxieties in its content and characters. The Cold War brought psychological unrest and paranoia to the American people, and an overwhelming fear of communism and anything ‘too far left’. Animation that did recognise race were often decried as communist by the HUAC. For example, UPA’s Brotherhood of Man (1947) was about American suburbanites of various races, projecting the message that: “We have to see to it that there’s equal opportunity for everyone from the beginning…Then we can all go forward together.” Even though this cartoon still showed cultural difference and addressed race through a white perspective, UPA’s distributor, Columbia Pictures, forced UPA to abandon their interest in these progressive documentaries since they were ‘subversive’.

UPA’s *Brotherhood of Man* shows many races living and working together

There is irony in this kind of criticism, since, during this same period, the familiar slew of African American stereotypes such as the sambo and the mammy drew heavy criticism for: “perpetuating the myth of Negro shiftlessness, fear, and childishness.” While racist ethnic representation did not drop off completely, it became increasingly rarer because of this and the desire to not present any representations too politically left. Therefore, by 1955 not a single image of an African American – blackface or otherwise – appeared for the entire year.

The growth of television – the “cartoon graveyard” – also played a role in diminishing animated representation. Due to United States vs. Paramount, which made distributors pay separately for cartoons, many studios shut down or were forced to survive through television. Television’s primary audience was wealthy white families in the suburbs, which led to a decline in racial representation due to the re-segregation of whites and minorities. Therefore, cartoons of this time focused on the status quo and reinforcing social norms for white families and children since challenging any of it would be ‘too provocative’. As such, making it on television meant working within lower budgets, and appealing to this sensitive white suburban family. Many studios simply repackaged older cartoons as anthology series since these cartoons were already popular. UPA and Hanna-Barbera introduced limited animation which made cartoons cheap for the medium, and prevented depictions of race by not using racial signifiers, and using primary colours for their characters.

However, this dearth in representation did not last long, as once the dark ages ended representation began to change and improve in some ways. The dark ages reflected that racial representation did not improve on a steady trajectory – it went back and forth.

1930s-1940s

War-torn America and Visions of Blacks and Native Americans ‘In Their Place’

Posted on 4th Nov 2019 by Nadia Crawford

Black and Native American representation in cartoons during war time played into a nostalgic desire for a time of peace and simplicity, making them incredibly popular with audiences and taken for the most part without criticism. Since these cartoons were a nostalgic view of history, not a realistic one, they reflected little to no historical accuracy even when they addressed historical settings and stories like Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Pocahontas. By glorifying American history, cartoons could instil a sense of national pride in its viewers and inspire them to take greater action in the war effort.

Black representation, at least for African Americans, grew more sophisticated throughout this era, since sound now gave black characters a (stereotypical) voice, and they began to appear in new locations such as rural towns or ghettos. Native Americans, however, were still portrayed as existing solely on the reservation or in tribes. Black and Native characters had to be portrayed as happy in these ‘natural’ settings since whites had to compete with them for jobs in the Depression. Black and native characters were thus portrayed with intensely racist visual stereotyping, and always were servile to whites or existed on the perimeters as savages. The white ‘heroic’ characters in these cartoons were always represented as forces of law and order by maintaining the status quo by suppressing these forces of ‘evil and chaos’.

There is a great wealth of examples of this type of racialized content, so here I can only mention a few prominent examples. In both Pop-pie a la Mode (1945), and Johnny Smith and Poker-Huntas (1938), the natives of the country the white protagonists find themselves in are depicted as primitive savages. In the former, black natives try to cook and eat a shipwrecked Popeye and in the latter Native Americans attack the colonialists coming from the Mayflower. While both differ slightly, such as the latter jokingly portraying the Native tribe like a city, they are all ultimately defeated by the white protagonists. These narratives are the same for all depictions of Africans and Native Americans – they are nothing but savages to be put down in the quest for white civilisation.

Black cannibal stereotype in *Pop-pie a la Mode*

Ultimately, these depictions remained a mainstay throughout the war as a source of comfort for white America, reinforcing racial trends that began in the 1900s and modifying them into a form that would continue to permeate representations in later eras of animation.

1930s-1940s

Animation Goes to War: The Weaponisation of Representation

Posted on 4th Nov 2019 by Nadia Crawford

In this section of my blog I will be focusing on animation produced during the war. Animation was strongly influenced by the Depression and the outbreak of World War II, which prompted a renewed focus on national history and nostalgia due to rapid economic and societal change raising national anxiety. This in turn led people to yearn for ‘simpler’ and more prosperous times, where ethnic minorities were in their place. Studios made use of these desires in their cartoons to raise national feeling through shared history and struggle. Hence, racial stereotypes were present in a great number of cartoons in this time.

The central goal of many wartime cartoons was to emphasise the importance of civilian patriotism and sacrifice, or inform the public about the war and inspire racial hatred of the Japanese. Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck grew to be the most popular cartoon characters of this era due to their cocky and feisty personalities which were deemed traits vital for American victory in the war. Both of these characters, especially Bugs Bunny, carry vestigial minstrel traits from the previous era in their trickster behaviour and, in Bugs’ case, gloved hands. What made them different was that they were much more aggressive and violent than their older counterparts, with them both killing soldiers in their cartoons.

Bugs Bunny paints Japanese flags on palm trees indicating how many Japanese soldiers he had killed throughout the episode in *Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips*

Unfortunately, the war was what really catalysed Japanese racist representation in cartoons. American cartoons favoured depictions of the Japanese as violent beasts, complete with buck teeth and glasses which implied that, due to the shape of their eyes, they could not see as clearly as Americans. Japanese and Germans were portrayed as a threat to American values since they were people who would not hesitate to destroy the American Dream. By dehumanising the Japanese people in this propaganda, cultural and racial hatred was instilled within audiences, leading them to support the war effort by buying war bonds, paying taxes, or joining the war itself, driven by a desire to ‘destroy the Japs’. Thus, the war in the Pacific is considered by some scholars as a race war.

Typical stereotypical Japanese depiction – glasses and buck teeth. From *Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips*

Ultimately, war animation used its minstrel characters to inspire racial animosity against Germany and Japan as to gain the American public’s aid in supplying funding and raw materials to the war. Animation was utilised as a violent, racial weapon and was an important source of morale for soldiers, solidifying trends in representation that were to persist for decades more.

1900s-1920s

Pat Sullivan, Otto Messmer and Felix the Cat

Posted on 3rd Nov 20194th Nov 2019 by Nadia Crawford

Felix the Cat is one of the most recognised cartoon characters of all time. Felix has often been referred to as the ‘Charley Chaplin’ of cartoon characters: a figure alone in a hostile world, who relies on his own cunning to survive. Unlike most other characters of his time, Felix had a real personality which was expressed predominantly through his actions and movements. Felix was a blackface minstrel both in his design and behaviour: he was a mischievous trickster and his blackness of fur, association with Jazz, and his status as an outsider tied him to black culture. Felix was therefore shaped by, embodied, and perpetuated racial anxieties of the time. Of course, like other blackface minstrels, Felix was still tasked with ‘outwitting the other’ which involved turning against other black-coded characters and creating a hierarchy of blackness based upon how ‘civilised’ a given character was.

There are a couple of Felix the Cat cartoons that depict Felix treating a black character more like an equal: Saves the Day (1922) and Tries for Treasure (1923). These shorts contain the same caricature of a young black boy who stars alongside Felix and becomes his side kick in the latter short. In Felix Saves the Day, the boy is portrayed as a member of the ‘Tar Heels’ – a baseball team. While heavily stereotyped, the Tar Heels are still described quite positively, as “a tough team to be reckoned with”. However, the boy is developed in Tries for Treasure into a Sambo character, embodying subservience through his adherence to Felix’s wishes.

Having a cat portrayed as racially superior to a black boy really demonstrates how black people were considered in greater society at the time: as something inferior to be kept at the margins of white culture. This is a trend that would continue for decades since racist ideologies had been intertwined into the very fabric of animation itself.

1900s-1920s

The Birth of Animation in Blackface Minstrelsy and Ethnic Humour

Posted on 3rd Nov 20194th Nov 2019 by Nadia Crawford

Entertainer Josephine Baker performs in blackface in imitation of minstrel performer Johnny Hudgins.

Race has been an important element of animation since its very origins and has remained a core part of it. I want to begin my series of brief blog posts with an establishment of animation’s roots in Blackface Minstrelsy through three images. The leftmost image is of a white man performing blackface minstrelsy: a performance involving a person ‘blacking up’ and performing black stereotypes. Take note of the painted-black skin, white lips, wide eyes, ragged clothes and white gloves. These same features are replicated in the characters in the centre and right: Felix the Cat and Bosko. Their emulation of minstrelsy became the model for all other cartoon characters of this period, with vestigial elements appearing in much later cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny.

The typical animated minstrel character was boisterous and rebellious – traits also rooted in blackface minstrelsy performances. Minstrels frequently interacted with more egregious black stereotypes, such as the: savage African, happy slave, natural musician, the chicken or watermelon eater, the idiot, and the superstitious. What made minstrels different was their slave-like relationship to their creator, and their removal from these strict stereotypes, in turn signalling a more progressive form of blackness while still remaining problematic. The minstrel was a disobedient trickster, acting out against their master and frequently punished for it, linking their implicit blackness to slavery. Other black characters were figures of villainy to be defeated by the minstrel to keep them away from white civilisation, using blackness to combat other black identities.

While some may see this minstrelsy as harmless, in reality:

Even if these cartoons did not directly incite bigotry, they certainly did encourage disrespect for people of African descent and therefore tended to reinforce the justification of the continued colonisation of Africa by Europeans.
N. Sammond, Birth of an Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation (Duke University Press, 2015), 6. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=JVBmCgAAQBAJ.

Therefore, acknowledging this origin is vital to establishing a history of race in cartoons since it gives context to why characters looked and acted the way they did.