The invention of the animated movie is now over one hundred years old. During this century of its existence, the world has changed at a rate previously unseen, and the invention of the motion picture was, due to its uniqueness, an excellent tool for portraying those changes. Not only the documentaries or the movie chronicles have reflected the social and political changes that occurred in the twentieth century. The art imitates life, and in the movies portraying the everyday life often we may see more true images of the reality than in the documentaries. Caricature can be an excellent tool for fighting the stereotypes and for confirming them, so it’s no wonder the use of animation in propaganda was widespread.

One particularly interesting aspect of reality that has radically changed in the past century is the problem of racial persecution. The portrayal of people of races other than Caucasian used to be (and, regrettably, still is) as very stereotypical and negative in the mainstream American cinema as well as in the animation. The cartooning, which was often mainstream, and affecting the susceptible minds of children, was often used as a tool in the keeping the black people down.

While it could be argued that the movies were the product of the times, the overall situation of African-Americans (as the most prevalent of the racial minorities in the US) was shaped by unfair and biased Jim Crow laws, and though the concept of racial segregation was often portrayed as a promise of stability, it instead provided inferior accommodation and services for “Negroes”.

The African-Americans did have their own cinemas, and even before WWI there existed a significant number of ‘race movies’, produced by black studios like Lincoln Motion Picture Company. Before the fad of the “blaxploitation” in the late sixties and seventies, the black movies were mostly addressed to the African-American audience, and often were a form of defense against the biased and unfair movies portraying blacks in the offensive way. However, animation required specialized equipment, and therefore black children before their own movies watched Felix the Cat. While a lot of animated productions were addressed to children, they were created by the white artists and writers which were products of their times. They were prone to stereotypes and actual violent act between races.

Blackface, an old tradition deriving from old minstrel shows was one of the most pronounced ways to perpetuate the stereotype of a uneducated, lazy, good-for-nothing Negro. The comedies confirmed that stereotype. Such caricature of the black was also introduced in the animation, like Mickey’s Mellerdrammer by Disney, or Coal Black, and the sebben Dwarfs by Warner Brothers. Though they were intended to be kind-hearted, nevertheless by today’s standards they are terribly offensive. A couple years later, this tendency was exhibited in a Disney animated feature film, namely The Song of the South (1946).

Song of the South had its artistic merits, as well as in the character design and in the musical score, however it also featured an idyllistic master-slave relationship. Unca Remus, while a positive figure, is portrayed as a happy, constantly smiling old man. On the other hand, his rendition of the “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” song was enough to gain the Academy Award. The song received an Oscar, but James Baskett, the actor could not attend the film premiere because it was segregated. He did receive a honorary Academy Award (as the first African-American) in 1948.

One of the problems with African-American culture is its definition. It can be argued that if we assume that it encompasses works by black authors for black audience, we automatically exclude many works that might actually contain important message. The mainstream works that are addressed to the wide audience (and as animation is both a visual and narrative art it certainly qualifies) also can be excluded. Nevertheless it today seems obvious that African-Americans should be allowed to have their voice in every field of arts.

Floyd Norman was sometimes called “The Lone Negro”. The time was the sixties and the place was Disney animated studios. Norman was the only African-American hired by the studios. He was working as an animator on the film Sleeping Beauty and was then promoted to the story department. Under Walt Disney’s personal supervision, Norman worked on the story sequence for a scene entitled “The Waltz,” in the animated film The Jungle Book, as well as designed some scenes in Toy Story, Monsters Inc.  or Mulan after his return to Disney. He cooperated with many other studios, and is an author of many animation segments in Sesame Street. Norman had been born in California and thus lived in relative racial equality. He was, however, one of those soldiers who, having returned to US from a war (Korean conflict, anyway) and saw how the South was treating those who risked their life for the American core values. Later on in the sixties, Norman and his friend and co-artist Leo Sullivan founded Vignette Films, Inc. that produced animated films concerning the black history and the Power movement. Today, they run African-American website for kids: www.afrokids.com.

Norman reminisces: “I’ve always loved Toontown in the Roger Rabbit cartoons,” Norman writes. “Toontown was the special area of Tinseltown where cartoon characters were segregated because they were — Toons. I’ve always thought this a brilliant metaphor for racial inequities in the real world.”

The situation changed in the late sixties and seventies. The blaxploitation movies of the seventies were action movies, popular with the younger audience, that expressed the feelings of Black Pride, though it also appealed to Caucasians. A lot of those movies gained cult following, and in general they closed the gap between black and white cinemas, but they also helped in creation of the black gangster stereotype. In the comic books, there appeared black superheroes and supervillains. Some of these were either violent take on the popular movies (like Luke Cage), some were the expression of attempted political correctness (usually their names begun with Black – Black Bolt, Black Panther, Black Avenger. Black Widow, oddly enough was a white Russian woman). The TV cartoons were both mass produced and targeted as mass audience – racial questions, sadly, did not mention much.

The TV animated characters often failed to portray African-Americans or later, included only one token characters. The first black character on the TV series was Franklin, of the Peanuts gang. Valerie, from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Josie and the Pussycats was the first female African-American cast as a regular in an animated series. The token characters continue to this day… and sometimes they are parodied. South Park has a character actually named Token Black, while Drawn Together introduced sassy and over-the-top Foxxy Love. While tokenism might appease some consciences, some of these characters turn out to be nothing more than “black guys in that toon”.

Some toons, however, involved an all-black cast. The iconic example is probably Hey hey hey it’s Fat Albert, with the eponymous character voiced by Bill Cosby. It premiered in 1972, and featured a group of Harlem kids coping with difficult situations. Other toon was Jackson Five, a series about the Jackson family. They are still fondly remembered by the white and black viewers alike. Some of the TV animators were African-American, like Frank Braxton, director of the now cult shows like Rocky and Bullwinkle, George of the Jungle, or Mr Magoo.

However, as I have marked before – then race mattered less. In fact, today most of the animation is being outsourced to Korea, Singapore or other countries with cheap workforce, but in the sixties and seventies, without computers, every artist was necessary. Traditionally, African Americans tend to choose performing arts, and even today there are very few black animators or cartoonists (and there is only one female black syndicated cartoonist – Barbara Brandon).

Dan Haskett, who had designed Belle (Beauty and the Beast) and Ariel (The Little Mermaid), and is considered a living legend among designers says: “There is still only a handful of us. Not that long ago, a young animator working on “Batman” wanted to have a gathering of Black animators, called around and reserved a table at a soul food restaurant near the Warner Bros. Studio. Soon the table was filled up. People just kept coming in and coming in. We filled up the place! But you know…. if someone had dropped a bomb on that soul food restaurant, it would have killed the entire population of Black animators. It’s still an exotic thing.”

Haskett has claimed that he opposes the borderline racist presentation of some character, like Sebastian the crab in “The Little Mermaid”: “Wouldn’t it be funny to make Sebastian the crab be a Jamaican? And basically what that meant is give him a big, fat lower lip and popping eyes—and that’s what they had in the film.”. This portrayal of cartoon animals is nothing new, though. The crows in Dumbo were a portrayal of the black community, and what’s more – they were openly mocking the likeable elephant protagonist. Haskett claims that the Black community ought to make their own animated features. Disney’s Tarzan is set in Africa, yet it doesn’t feature any black human characters. On the other hand, Rafiki (the baboon shaman) in the Lion King is the only character speaking with the African accent (and if you think about it… why is he an ape?).

African-American culture, of course, is not dependent upon any skin color. It’s hard to describe cartoon animals as black or white, but some mannerisms, especially stereotypical ones can give away how did the authors wanted to portray some ethnic and/or social groups. To point the racism or other form of discrimination in cartoons might seem funny, but please notice that it’s during childhood that the stereotypes are formed, and they are staying with us basically forever. That’s why the Song of the South, though unrealistic, is fondly remembered by some African-Americans. It portrayed oral stories, something essential to the Black culture and community.

The 1980s and 90s were the time of relative improvement in the racial equality, and it was sometimes visible in the animation. A significant number of the groups of superheroes or other toy-sellers included in their ethnic makeup a black member. Captain Planet, a well-known environmentalist superhero series featured Kwame, an African. Most G.I. Joe incarnations featured Roadblock, (a bastard son of Mr. T. and Hulk Hogan), and similar tokenism was widespread.

Similar tokenism was widespread. Despite the fact that the Americans claim their society to be racially diversified, there is very little probability that a group of friends would be consisting of a Chinese, a Lithuanian-Jewish, German/Norwegian to substitute for the white, a Mexican, a handicapped Irish-American, a black, and an Apache boy from an Indian reservation in Arizona, and obviously the cat and the dog. That could talk (puppet series The Puzzle Place).

Of course a mixed group of friends is not impossible, but it rarely takes the form of the model UN council. As I have mentioned before, seldom are such characters something more than jive-spouting claims of ethnic tolerance.

The nineties are hard to separate from the aughties (00s), as there was no significant breakthrough. One, in character terms, might be just behind the corner. After sixty years from Song of the South, a Disney movie is going to have an African-American protagonist. With the upcoming The Princess and the Frog, featuring first African-American „Disney princess” Tiana, and set in 1920s New Orleans, the studio is going to return to 2D traditional animation.

More and more TV series introduce an all-black cast, living in a black neighborhood. They are sometimes including a token white, but in a way they are at least more realistic about it. The Proud Family and Bill Cosby’s Fatherhood show us cartoonish sitcom family, and Static Shock – a black teenaged superhero. The Boondocks, on other hand, are very aggressive, sometimes comically so. It’s a social satire on race relations, with its main protagonist Huey Freeman, being a ten-year-old leftist Afrocentrist. His brother, Riley wants to be ‘gangsta’, and a lot of the other characters also represent some points of view in the African-American culture. Aaron McGruder, the author of the original comic strip says that it’s autobiographical. Also people curse a lot there.

The African-Americans were not the only ones that were insulted by, often derogatory, portrayal of their ethnic group. Many WWII propaganda animation works portray the Japanese as ’servile midgets’, deforming and caricaturing the traits of entire Asian race. There are very few believable characters belonging to a racial minority that are worth remembering. Today one of the best characterized Asians in animation, Futurama’s Amy Wong is a spoiled, airhead intern, and a likeable character on her own. Hispanics and Jews are likewise less represented, but other minorities (Arabs, Pakistanis, Hindu people) have to still be presented as something more than terrorists or storeowners. Luckily, the physical characterization is at least mostly thing of the past.

The racial stereotypes continue to this day, and the art of animation reflects it. Despite the progress made from the beginnings of the 20th century, in art as in politics, we still have a long way to go.

Bibliography:

Hayward, Susan. Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts. Routledge, London, 1997.

Sklar, Robert. Movie Made America: Documents in the Cultural History of Film in America. New York: Vintage, 1976.

„James Baskett” Wikipedia 02 Jan. 2008. Wikimedia foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Baskett

On Floyd Norman – Jim Hill media 20 Feb. 2008: Interview , . Biography:

Interview with Dan Haskett: Seeing Black

On Boondocks: http://aalbc.com/authors/aaron.htm, and also Wikipedia