Black Representation in American Short Films, 1928-1954
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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 1-1-2002 Black representation in American short films, 1928-1954 Christopher P. Lehman University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1 Recommended Citation Lehman, Christopher P., "Black representation in American short films, 1928-1954 " (2002). Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014. 914. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1/914 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. m UMASS. DATE DUE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST BLACK REPRESENTATION IN AMERICAN ANIMATED SHORT FILMS, 1928-1954 A Dissertation Presented by CHRISTOPHER P. LEHMAN Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2002 W. E. B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies © Copyright by Christopher P. Lehman 2002 All Rights Reserved BLACK REPRESENTATION IN AMERICAN ANIMATED SHORT FILMS, 1928-1954 A Dissertation Presented by CHRISTOPHER P. LEHMAN Approved as to style and content by: Ernest Allen, Chair Johnl|L Bracey, Jr., Member Robert P. Wolff, Member Lynda Morgan, Member Esther Terry, Department Head Afro-American Studies W. E. B. DuBois Department of ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Several archivists have enabled me to find sources for my research. I thank Tom Featherstone of Wayne State University's Walter Reuther Library for providing a copy of the film Brotherhood ofMan for me. I am deeply indebted to Ned Comstock of the University of Southern California's Cinema-Television Library for sending and copying cartoon scripts and for his assistance upon my visit to USC. I am grateful to Noelle Carter of the Warner Brothers Archives for allowing him to present the studio's cartoon scripts to me. portions of I sincerely thank Heldref Publications for allowing me to use my 2001 issue of article, "The New Black Animated Images of 1946," from the Summer and fifth Journal ofPopular Film and Television for the dissertation's fourth chapters. The company holds the copyright to the article. Feedback from interviewees and dissertation committee members was Bill Littlejohn, Bill Melendez, invaluable. I thank David DePatie, William Hurtz, and Jack Zander Emanuel Muravchik, Martha Sigall, Myron Waldman, Berny Wolf, committee members- for allowing me to interview them. I wish to thank my Robert P. Wolff, and Dr. Lynda Professor Ernest Allen, Dr. John H. Bracey, Jr., Dr. Morgan—for their helpful suggestions. for teaching me how My family has always supported me. I thank my father write about this topic, and my brother for to write, my mother for inspiring me to the love and encouragement that I viewing countless films with me. I am grateful for Imani. receive from my wife, Yolanda, and my daughter, IV ABSTRACT BLACK REPRESENTATION IN AMERICAN ANIMATED SHORT FILMS, 1928-1954 MAY 2002 CHRISTOPHER P. LEHMAN, B.A., OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Ernest Allen Black representation in American animated short films circularly evolved between 1928 and 1954. Blackface minstrelsy at first figured heavily in black representation. The increasing prominence of African-American movie stars and technological improvements in animation led to extremely diverse animated black film images in the late 1930s and early 1940s. With the decline of African-American black images. roles in the 1950s, however, animators fell back to minstrelsy-derived Animated black characterization emerged as blackface changed in the first black sound cartoons from a generic cartoon design to an image restricted to significantly differentiate characters. In the early 1930s, cartoon studios began to developing characters black characters from animal characters. Studios focused upon characterizations were mostly with strong personalities in the mid-1930s, but black African-American artistic derivative of blackface minstrels and black actors. but did not affect the studios' expressions influenced animation during World War II African-American artistry and black images. From 1946 to 1954, studios ignored reverted to past styles of black imaging. CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv ABSTRACT v CHAPTER 1 . BLANK BLACKS : IMAGES OF THE EARLY SOUND ERA, 1 928- 1 93 1 1 2. BLACKNESS BY STUDIO: IMAGES FROM 1932 TO 1934 25 3. BLACK PERSONALITIES: IMAGES FROM 1935 TO 1938 47 4. BLACKNESS TO BEAT THE AXIS: IMAGES FROM 1939 TO 1945 89 5. TRIED AND TRUE BLACKNESS: IMAGES FROM 1946 TO 1954 141 EPILOGUE 202 BIBLIOGRAPHY 207 vi CHAPTER 1 BLANK BLACKS: IMAGES OF THE EARLY SOUND ERA, 1928-1931 Introduction The first sound-synchronized cartoon, Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie, would not have existed without black representation. Every milestone in American film history prior to the cartoon's release in 1928 involved white filmmakers' exploitation of the African-American image (Lott 5). Three films laid the groundwork for these developments. In 1907 the first animated film James Stuart Blackton's Humorous "coon" Phases ofa Funny Face made a gag from an ethnic slur by having the word 1915 evolve into ablack caricature (Kanfer 18). Birth of a Nation, D. W. Griffith's as black characters, feature of Reconstruction featuring white actors cast in blackface The Jazz Singer, was the longest and most costly motion picture of its day (Sklar 58). sound to movies in 1927. whose plot focused on a Jewish blackface minstrel, brought in a novel manner. Disney's Steamboat Willie likewise offered black representation of black caricatures to The studio used a blackface minstrel song and aspects contained gags built around inaugurate sound-animation. The film Steamboat Willie version of the minstrel song "Zip the song "Turkey in the Straw"—an instrumental and a 1 rodent with large eyes Coon." The protagonist was Mickey Mouse, a jet-black blackface stage-makeup. wide white mouth-an appearance resembling minstrels' generalizations, Disney's Steamboat Willie Without these references to crude ethnic would not have introduced sound to animation. of its sound-synchronization. Film Steamboat Willie was unique only because and his crew for discovering the sound historian Leonard Maltin credited Disney l cartoon (35). Disney, however, did not introduce blackface-designed characters and minstrel tunes to animation. Both aspects of black representation had helped to define silent-era animation. The exaggerated facial features of black caricatures and blackface minstrels appeared on the silent era's most popular stars. Mickey Mouse looked like Disney's silent cartoon star Oswald the Rabbit. Oswald, however, had favored Pat Sullivan's extremely popular cartoon star Felix the Cat, who was a feline version of Sullivan's black juvenile silent character named Sammy Johnsin. Sammy, in turn, was derived from a comic-strip adaptation of Helen Bannerman's short story, The Story ofLittle Black Sambo (Crafton 303-304, 527). Meanwhile, Max Fleischer often constructed cartoons around plantation tunes for his silent "Song Car-Tunes" series. In the early sound cartoons, released between 1928 and 1931, black signifiers were both a boon and a hindrance to animated short films. The cartoons sustained black caricature, what the minstrel show had started one century earlier—a market for American actions and music. The wide white eyes and lips and black faces of Studios' music minstrels enabled animators to produce cartoons at a quick pace. jazz tunes not only to help directors also used minstrel songs and black composers' Warner Brothers' develop black characterizations but also to sell cartoon series like characters "Looney Tunes." Studios, however, hesitated to give their black speech" frequently used in dialogue—especially the stilted and stereotypical "Negro characters. The technology for such literature and stage for black slave and urbanite musicals remained popular with synchronization was still crude, and animated audiences. Black characters were thus seen and not heard, and the visual and musical black signifiers were animators' sole means to develop black characterizations (Lott 43). Cartoons comprised a portion of Hollywood films that kept the previous century's minstrel music and Southern black stereotypes alive during the 1930s. During the Great Depression years (1929-41), both live-action and animated films depicted the antebellum South as a productive and fun region. Both types of film genres differed in how they perceived the South' s escapism. The feature films commented indirectly upon America's current economic troubles, but the animation studios adapted the South to the musical-comedy genre, which characterized most landscapes cartoons. Live-action films showed via lavish plantation mansions and prosperity after the that the United States was once prosperous and would return to Depression ended. Cartoons, meanwhile, concentrated upon slaves' contentment mindlessly happy while picking cotton; the slaves' happiness was on par with other (Campbell 85). cartoon characters like Felix the Cat and Mickey Mouse 74, from animal From 1928 to 1931, black characters were indistinguishable cartoons were