The Colored Cartoon: Black Presentation in American Animated Short Films, 1907-1954

by Christopher P. Lehman

From the introduction of animated film in the early 1900s to the 1950s, ethnic humor was a staple of American-made cartoons. Yet as Christopher Lehman shows in this revealing study, the depiction of African Americans in particular became so inextricably linked to the cartoon medium as to influence its evolution through those five decades. He argues that what is in many ways most distinctive about American animation reflects white animators' visual interpretations of African American cultural expression. The first American animators drew on popular black representations, many of which were caricatures rooted in the culture of southern slavery. During the 1920s, the advent of the sound-synchronized cartoon inspired animators to blend antebellum-era black stereotypes with the modern black cultural expressions of jazz musicians and Hollywood actors. When the film industry set out to desexualize movies through the imposition of the Hays Code in the early 1930s, it regulated the portrayal of African Americans largely by segregating black characters from others, especially white females. At the same time, animators found new ways to exploit the popularity of African American culture by creating animal characters like Bugs Bunny who exhibited characteristics associated with African Americans without being identifiably black. By the 1950s, protests from civil rights activists and the growing popularity of white cartoon characters led animators away from much of the black representation on which they had built the medium. Even so, animated films today continue to portray African American characters and culture, and not necessarily in a favorable light. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including interviews with former animators, archived scripts for cartoons, and the films themselves, Lehman illustrates the intimate and unmistakable connection between African Americans and animation. ( Choice )

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Art, Film, Education, Anthropology, American History

152 pages, Hardcover

First published February 28, 2007

About the author

Christopher P. Lehman is a professor of Ethnic Studies at St. Cloud State University. In the summer of 2011, he was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University's W. E. B. Du Bois Center for African and African American Research.

Reviews

[Gijs Grob · Rating 2 out of 5]

In 'The Colored Cartoon' Lehman analyzes the depiction of black people in classic animated cartoons. His study is interesting and insightful, if a little shallow, mainly because of the paucity of source material, as only a few cartoons feature black-face gags or black characters. Unfortunately his book has numerous flaws.

First, Lehman forgets to describe the tradition of black representation the animated cartoons fall in, assuming that most readers will know Uncle Tom, the minstrel heritage and its associated music. Moreover he overplays the role of black representation in the animated cartoon, especially when placing Bugs Bunny in a black tradition. Because he anachronistically attributes bebop influences to the rabbit's character, his argumentation is very weak to say the least.

Likewise, Lehman suggests that Donald Duck's role as a bad soldier is rooted in a black representation tradition, as if it were not possible for white people to be bad soldiers! Several 1930's Laurel & Hardy films defy that statement.

But Lehman's biggest flaw is that he ignores all instances of cannibals in animated cartoons. Cannibals were the most common and most backward representations of black people, but Lehman sticks to Afro-American representations, only.

This is a major omission, especially when Lehman describes the Betty Boop cartoon 'I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You' (1932). Lehman praises it as one of the cartoons to feature real black entertainers, in this case Louis Armstrong. But he fails to notice that in this cartoon Louis Armstrong and his band are directly linked to most backward images of black cannibals, thus degrading the entertainer and his musicians severely.

I suspect that the cannibals had a more devastating influence on black representation in film than all the Mammies and Sambos Lehman raves against.

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unfortunate that it is limited in timeframe, as problematic representation didn't end in the 1950s, as this book does.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great read on the racist, sexist history of some of America's most beloved cartoons and cartoon characters.