Censoring the good for all the wrong reasons

[spot]

I watched a Warner Brothers cartoon this evening, "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs". My immediate reaction, as it played, was delight in the vocal performances as well as the amazing quality of the animation. It captured, among other things, Dorothy Dandridge's mother Ruby in fine form, and Leo Watson in what I can only assume was a representative example of his jazz style (Leo was, according to Google, a stream-of-consciousness scat singer and originator of the word "zoot!" which he used to holler whenever the mood struck him, there's little of his work recorded).

The Internet tells me that the cartoon is banned from public projection by Warner Brothers.

May we have a thread on why this is? I found nothing offensive in any aspect of the cartoon, and I personally doubt that the writers or animators were necessarily racist - the artistic content of the film is so obviously positive toward both Jazz and - excuse me if I get the wrong term here - the African-American culture of the forties.

I'd encourage my children to watch it.

[lady cop]

years ago Disney pulled the movie "song of the south". the NAACP objected to stereotyping of an elderly black man, uncle remus. i purchased some copies through a european outlet. it's a wonderful movie. i think that some black people are offended at what they perceive as being mocked. i suspect the cartoon may have used blackface (did it?) or the device of exaggerated facial features. which was also offensive to many, despite its popularity on the vaudeville circuit, ie al jolson the most notable.

[spot]

There's a character sheet from the studio available at http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/swblack.html

What Warner Brother cartoon didn't use exaggerated facial features? The grumpy old man with the red beard and the shotgun who stalks Bugs Bunny has exaggerated facial features, and I assume he's still interminably re-run.

I would guess (from my distance) that more white people assume that some black people are offended at what they perceive as being mocked, than is true.

[spot]

As an afterthought - I read Joel Harris' Uncle Remus stories to my children, before they went to school and after, and I made as good a try at the written accent as I could muster. Fine stories, still.

For anyone who's not been introduced to Brer Rabbit, here's a short extract:

"All de time, bless grashus, honey, Brer Rabbit wer' puttin' on

his spurrers, en w'en dey got close to Miss Meadows's, whar Brer

Rabbit wuz to git off, en Brer Fox made a motion fer ter stan'

still, Brer Rabbit slap de spurrers into Brer Fox flanks, en you

better b'leeve he got over groun'. W'en dey got ter de house,

Miss Meadows en all de gals wuz settin' on de peazzer, en stidder

stoppin' at de gate, Brer Rabbit rid on by, he did, en den come

gallopin' down de road en up ter de hoss-rack, w'ich he hitch

Brer Fox at, en den he santer inter de house, he did, en shake

han's wid de gals, en set dar, smokin' his seegyar same ez a town

man. Bimeby he draw in a long puff, en den let hit out in a

cloud, en squar hisse'f back en holler out, he did:

"'Ladies, ain't I done tell you Brer Fox wuz de ridin'-hoss fer

our fambly? He sorter losin' his gait now, but I speck I kin

fetch 'im all right in a mont' er so,' sezee.

[lady cop]

the thing is, the productions were well before our civil rights movement and the raising of consciouness about such matters. so they were seen as quite insulting. another example from those times is the steppin fetchit character . a subservient and stupid black man. then there was amos and andy. i agree about the exaggerated features, but i was trying to be politic. it was mockery. i am only telling you what the NAACP position was about how blacks were portrayed in the hollywood past.

[spot]

lady cop wrote: i agree about the exaggerated features, but i was trying to be politicLawks, Missy, I din' think as you knowed how!

The criticism of Uncle Remus from the likes of the NAACP seems subtle in some ways. They go beyond the filmed depiction by James Baskett in Song of the South - which was fine acting by any standard - to the appropriation of the stories by the white Joel Harris from their original setting into an entertainment for white children - both within the story frame and in actual fact through the sales of the books. They treat it as theft, in a way - a disabling of the power of the stories for the original audience. I find that hard to agree with.

None of that criticism could be applied to Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs, of course, which took a Disney archetype as its setting (not even the Grimm Brothers) and went gloriously wild with it.

I can't think of a film of the thirties which didn't ham up any appearance of African-American jazz artists, but I'd feel the poorer if their performances hadn't been captured or weren't available.

[spot]

Did anyone manage to watch this? The cartoon, I mean, not the Disney film - that's been on UK TV quite often.

We had a family viewing, this afternoon. The consensus view was that it would upset a white audience rather than a non-white one, if it upset anyone. We all liked the music.

[BTS]

Here is a nice story on the cartoon And you can watch it too.

Blacker Than Coal?



http://www.toontracker.com/coalblack/coalblack.htm








Racist Cartoons?



Curator's Note: This collection features some popular family cartoons of the 20th century which depict racial stereotypes and caricatures. . .Also included on this page are a series of racist adult cartoons, two QuickTime animated movies and two Real Media movies. Video 1 Video 2 Video 3 Video 4



Full List Here



I disagree that they are ALL Racist. Times change but history doesn't.



HISTORY IS HISTORY

[spot]

Thank you, BTS, I hadn't found that, and I didn't know there was a copy available to watch from a website.

It was well worth reading. I take exception with two points in the essay:

the cartoon is undeniably racist and offensive in 1990's America, and no matter how animation has avoided racial stereotypes since the days of Coal Black, this film is an unforgivable sin.This was my first query in the thread - whether it would be found offensive by anyone today. Is it racist? That is, does it demean any race? On the contrary, I think it's empowering. Nobody would pretend that the characters depicted aren't African-American, but so were the people who voiced them, and so was the band, for goodness' sake. Harlem was about dice and three-sided knives as well as about Jazz.

The key lies in context. In order for Coal Black and other such cartoons to be shown today, the context should be educational rather than entertaining.And here's the second point. I (and the children I showed it to) did find it entertaining. How on earth could it not be? It is also very educational.

Is anyone else prepared to watch it from the link above, and discuss their reaction?

[spot]

This is germane -

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/ ... -headlines

Boynton Beach High's 2005 yearbook is being withheld over a photograph of a couple of kids re-creating the poster for the 1970s miniseries Roots, which featured a manacled slave.

' Richards, who came up with the idea for the pose, said he and Finley don't find the picture offensive. He said he and his peers are less conscious of race than older generations. "We don't see a problem with it,'' Richards said. "If there was a black girl doing this in the picture, it wouldn't be an issue.'' '