Kyler Wilbon

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Final Essay

Children’s television, more specifically, children's cartoons in the early 1900s had a rather

interesting portrayal of other races, gender, and ethnicities besides the “white male.” With that

said, while fitting the time period and status quo of the 1900s, the portrayal of black individuals

in famous cartoons such as “Looney Tunes,” “Mickey Mouse”, and even “Tom and Jerry” is

downright disgusting when being looked at with today's point of view. The constant use of racial

stereotypes, blackface, and hyperbolized characteristics is quite appalling to say the least;

however, this was the social norm back then and everyone found it suitable for children of all

ages.

Starting off with Loony Tunes, I found an episode titled, All This and Rabbit Stew, where

the premise was a Black Man was trying to capture Bugs Bunny similarly to the character Elmer

Fudd. However, the main difference between the two was that Elmer looked like a normal human

while the Black Man’s character design was heavily inspired by blackface with the abnormally

large off colored lips and super dark complexion. With that said, while the humor doesn't exactly

translate perfectly over to the 21st century, the moment that personally left me the most

perplexed was the final resolution. Bugs, in efforts to weasel out of being turned into stew, pulls

out a pair of dice and begins to shoot dice with the man. While being extremely stereotypical,

this and the manner in which the man spoke gave off the impression that black people as a whole

are foolish and easily manipulated to the point of it being comical to young children. It has been

stated that (Local communities from Africa to America and Australia and everywhere in between

catch their first glimpses of distant lifestyles through images on print and on television screens

(Kelly Askew, 2002), meaning that children’s first glimpse of a culture outside of their own was
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often tainted at a young age through cartoons of this manner, giving them a false preconception

of black individuals for years to come. Looney Tunes was not the only cartoon portraying these

messages back then; there were plenty of other blatantly racist examples such as cartoons titled

Uncle Tom’s Cabana, Coonskin, and Little Pickaninnies but, another one I wish to focus on is the

original Mickey Mouse.

There is a Mickey Mouse story titled Mickey Mouse and the Boy Thursday, which depicts

an African male in a highly stereotypical way with the style of hair he had, the types of jewelry

he wears, and the weapons such as arrows, spears, and rocks that he carries. This is made to

symbolize the perception of san culture during that time period, which is quite ignorant to say the

least, and paints another misconception about black people in the eyes of children. In another

article titled Land, Water, and Truth": San Identity and Global Indigenism it was said that (My

concern here is with the expectations their classification as "indigenous" places on them and, in

particular, with the preconceptions about San culture that are imposed along with the recognition

of their indigeneity (Sylvain, 2002). This I feel is exactly what's happening within this episode of

Mickey Mouse; the san culture or indigenous place they are in is being told to children through a

false lens, again giving children of that time a skewed idea of how both African and African

American people live. To take it a step further, the addition of the African man holding the spears

and arrows shows severe negligence in global technology at the time. It is well documented that

Africa had its own military and army force that would play key roles in the wars going on during

the early and mid 1900s. So by portraying the African’s using tools such as sticks, spears and

things of that nature and being seemingly ignorant to the outside world, it gives the impression

that they are beneath the average American. Like they as humans, they are better than other
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humans, which again is just racism at its core. Taking everything into account, there is one more

older cartoon I looked at however, it was one I’ve somewhat grown up watching, so revisiting it

with a different mindset was a little surreal. Tom and Jerry, while not as blatant, still had some

racist imagery and suggestions that I feel need to be brought up.

While Tom and Jerry was a nostalgic show for me, the problematic imagery cannot be

overlooked. With this show, blackface was a running gag in nearly every episode, usually caused

by either an explosion or being submerged in coal. Not only that, but the joke would often be

taken a step forward and would add unkempt hair, slurred speech and rugged clothing to

inadvertently turn the moment into a mockery of black individuals. To further my point, in an

article written in the New York Times, it was said that (The white men who donned tattered

clothing and blackened themselves with burned cork introduced working-class patrons who had

never so much as met an African-American to the dimwitted stereotype whose bulging eyes,

rubbery lips and mangled speech would become ubiquitous in newspapers, radio, television,

movies and advertising (Brent,2019). This was a common theme made to oppress the black man,

and Tom and Jerry making the conscious effort to continuously use that as a running gag proves

the point that these cartoons had some intention of putting down and oppressing black

individuals because that was socially acceptable and commonly practiced at that time.

To recap, looking at older cartoons through the lens of the 21st century, we can see

numerous instances of blatant racism, prejudice, and immoral ways of thinking. Popular cartoons

such as Loony Tunes, Mickey Mouse, and Tom and Jerry opened the gates for future racial and

social problems by influencing children at a young age that this way of thinking was acceptable.
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In an article written by Cathrine A. Lutz and Jane L. Collins, it was stated that, (Movies,

television news, and other postwar cultural artifacts have frequently trafficked in revolting ethic

differences (Cathrine and Jane 1993). This further shows that racist imagery and portrayal in this

manner continued all the way into the latter half of the 1900s and eventually expanded into print,

movies, and radio. With most of these cartoons being made around the 1920s-1930s, this goes to

the show that the children who grew up watching these programs with these types of racial

stereotypes not only added to the problem of racial inequality in America, but created their own

subsection of it in their future careers of media, prolonging the everlasting struggle.

References

Articles

- Staples, B. (2019, March 31). How blackface feeds white supremacy. The New York
Times. Retrieved November 24, 2021, from
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/31/opinion/blackface-white-supremacy.html.
- Sylvain, R. (2002). 'land, water, and truth': San identity and global ... - JSTOR. JStor.
Retrieved November 24, 2021, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/3567097.

Books

- Lutz, C. A., & Collins, J. L. (1998). Reading National Geographic. Univ. of Chicago
Press.

Chapters

- Askew, K. (2011). In The anthropology of media: A reader. Blackwell.

- Lutz, C., & Collins, J. (1998). Chapter 4 A World Brightly Different: Photographic
Conventions 1950-1986 . In Reading National Geographic. essay, Univ. of Chicago
Press.

Videos

- Youtube. (2021). Black face in tom and jerry. Retrieved November 23, 2021, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYf1mL_fyIE.
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- YouTube. (2020). YouTube. Retrieved November 24, 2021, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbUwneis34E.

Website

- Racist cartoons. Racist Cartoons - Anti-black Imagery - Jim Crow Museum - Ferris State
University. (n.d.). Retrieved November 24, 2021, from
https://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/cartoons/.