Racist Stereotypes in Tom and Jerry Bachelor’S Diploma Thesis

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Martin Ondryáš

Racist Stereotypes in Tom and Jerry Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Ph.D.

2015

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

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Martin Ondryáš

I would like to thank doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Ph.D. for supervising my work, my parents for their support, Anna for being patient with my slow writing process and Zuzana for the faith she put in me. Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 6 1 Periodization and the Change of the Portrayal of African Americans in the Media ...... 8 2 Mammy ...... 10 2.1 Origins of the Mammy Archetype ...... 11 2.2 Breaking the Archetype ...... 13 2.3 Mammy Two Shoes ...... 16 2.3.1 Mammy Two Shoes – A Maid or a House-owner? ...... 20 2.4 Jerry’s Disguise as a Mammy Stereotype (The Milky Waif) ...... 21 2.5 Tom’s and Butch’s Disguises (A Mouse in the House)...... 23 2.6 Language ...... 24 3 Blackface ...... 27 3.1 History of Blackface ...... 28 3.2 Minstrel Shows...... 29 3.2.1 Origins of Minstrel Shows ...... 30 3.2.2 Benefits of Minstrel Shows ...... 31 3.3 Tom in Blackface (Mouse Cleaning) ...... 32 3.4 Jerry’s Minstrel Performance (Casanova Cat) ...... 33 3.5 Jerry the Cannibal (His Mouse Friday) ...... 36 4 Native Americans ...... 38 4.1 Jerry’s Disguise as a Native American (Kitty Foiled) ...... 38 4.2 Pilgrims v. Native Americans (The Little Orphan) ...... 39 4.3 Two Little Indians (Two Little Indians) ...... 41 5 Censorship in Cartoons and Censored Scenes in Tom and Jerry ...... 45 5.1 Motion Picture Production Code 1930 ...... 45 5.2 Comics Code 1954 ...... 46 5.3 Blackface gags ...... 48 5.3.1 Yankee Doodle Mouse (1943) ...... 48 5.3.2 Mouse in Manhattan (1945) ...... 49 5.3.3 Safety Second (1950) ...... 49 5.4 Pickaninny gags ...... 49 5.4.1 A Mouse in the House (1947) ...... 50 5.4.2 The Truce Hurts (1948) ...... 50 5.4.3 The Little Orphan (1949) ...... 50 5.5 The Uncle gag ...... 51 5.5.1 Old Rockin’ Chair Tom (1948) ...... 51 5.6 Asian gags ...... 51 5.6.1 Puss N’ Toots (1942) ...... 52 5.6.2 Little Runaway (1952) ...... 52 5.7 Native American gags ...... 52 5.7.1 The Mouse Comes to Dinner (1945) ...... 52 5.7.2 Flirty Birdy (1945) ...... 53 5.8 Other Cuts Because of the Comics Code ...... 53 5.8.1 Flirty Birdy (1945) ...... 53 5.8.2 Part-Time Pal (1947) ...... 53 5.8.3 Saturday Evening Puss (1950) ...... 54 5.8.4 His Mouse Friday (1951) ...... 54 5.8.5 Nit-Witty Kitty (1951) ...... 54 6 Present Day Censorship of Tom and Jerry ...... 56 Conclusion ...... 60 Appendix ...... 63 Works Cited ...... 69 Summary ...... 77 Resumé ...... 78

Introduction

Tom and Jerry is one of the most popular cartoons of the Golden Age of American

Animation. It was first created during the WWII in 1940 and new episodes are produced up until today. The two main characters were created by William Hanna and Joe Barbera for

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The basic principle of the cartoon is a mouse-cat chase with slapstick comedy elements.

Although Tom and Jerry were created primarily for children audience, the cartoon reflects the culture and society of its time. Tom and Jerry became witnesses of several major breakpoints in history of the United States, leaving their traces in the cartoon.

Whoopi Goldberg in the introduction to Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection Volume 2 says that cartoons have effect of “revealing society’s unfair and hurtful representations of people of colour, women and ethnic groups”. And even though Tom and Jerry’s humour is mute, they tell the story of the troubled times in which they were created.

Contemporary events leave their marks on both films and cartoons and Tom and Jerry are no exception. In the 1940s and 1950s there were two major events that affected the cartoon. First the main characters observed and even experienced WWII in a war-like chase in the episode Yankee Doodle Mouse (1943), and then they followed the fight for the civil rights of African Americans. Especially the latter problematics influenced the cartoon throughout its first twenty years of existence and it is still debated up to these days.

In 2014 Amazon published a disclaimer warning about a potentially offensive content of Tom and Jerry, stating that “these animated shorts are products of their time”. Although it was not the first acknowledgment of the cartoon’s racist history, it provoked a debate about the censorship of at-that-time 75 years old Tom and Jerry cartoons. Throughout its

6 existence the cartoon underwent several rereleases in order to fit the contemporary requirements of the society. In the first releases the episodes contained several racist stereotypes about African Americans, Native Americans and other minorities. The aim of this thesis is to provide detailed description and analysis of these stereotypes, to document the changes of the attitudes towards the minorities and to discuss the censorship of the cartoon in the beginning of the 21st century.

The thesis consists of five main parts. The first part describes the periodization of the

Tom and Jerry cartoon and the change of the portrayal of African Americans from the late

17th century to the first half of the 20th century. The second part discusses and analyses two major representations of African-American stereotypes in Tom and Jerry, the mammy archetype and the use of blackface. Both chapters provide general overview of the period in which they emerged, detailed information on their origins and document their portrayal in the cartoon. The third part is devoted to the portrayal of Native Americans and considers the offensiveness of such depictions. The fourth part lists censored scenes after the publication of the Comics Code Authority in 1954 and analyses on what rules were the scenes removed or edited. The last part discusses the censorship of Tom and Jerry in the

21st century in connection with Amazon’s statement about the racist content of the cartoon.

Most of the examples will be documented on analyses of the scenes containing compromising materials. The descriptions of the episodes are abridged as they focus on certain aspects of the content relevant to the discussed topic. Some parts of the episodes may be omitted in the description as irrelevant to the subject.

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1 Periodization and the Change of the Portrayal of African Americans in the Media In the era of the Golden Age of American Animation (1928 – late 1960s), which is the focus of this thesis, a total of 161 Tom and Jerry episodes was produced. The episodes can be divided into four main phases that differ either by their production or by their cultural and social content: early Hanna-Barbera production (MGM) 1940-1954, late

Hanna-Barbera production (MGM) 1955-1958, Gene Deitch era (Rembrandt Films production) 1961-1962 and Chuck Jones era (Sib Tower 12 Productions, since 1964 MGM

Animation/Visual Arts) 1963-1967.

The focal point of this thesis are the episodes from early Hanna-Barbera production which contain all the racist stereotypes and gags discussed in this thesis. Despite the last recorded gag appearing in 1952 episode Little Runaway it was not until the publication of

Comics Code Authority in 1954 that were the first episodes rereleased in accordance with the politically correct standpoints; therefore the late Hanna-Barbera production is considered from the 1955. For more specific discussion of the phases see chapter 2.3.

The portrayal of African Americans in the media changed throughout the late 19th and early 20th century with the transition of their position in the society. The phases of the representation of African Americans are closely connected with stereotypes and stock characters. There are three phases of the portrayal: the antebellum representation, postbellum representation and the representation of the 1890s and early 19th century.

During the antebellum phase African Americans were usually portrayed as care-free and always happy with the stock character of Jim Crow and stereotypes of Uncle, Sambo and Zip Coon. Jim Crow and Sambo represented the idea of a care-free black, dancing, singing and generally being happy. Uncle was a representation of a good-natured slave who

8 refused to resist to his masters, and Zip Coon was an example of a freed slave who failed to adapt to the society as a free person. All these pictures followed one political aim – to support and justify slavery.

The postbellum phase brought the need of unifying images that would support the policy of Reconstruction. The typical and most famous motive was the figure of mammy; a free black woman happily and willingly working for her former master. The aim of this stereotype was to support the ideas of Reconstruction and to create the image that the blacks have their place in the society.

New image of blacks appears after the end of Reconstruction in 1877, especially in the

1890s. It is the image of “brute Negro” who, without the presence of slavery, “reverted to criminal savagery” (Pilgrim). This image spread fear and malice towards African

Americans by representing them as nothing but rapists of white women. It emerged as prevention of blacks gaining voting and civil rights; by portraying them as subhuman characters the white supremacy was preserved (Pospíšil 20).

The Brute was described as “the most horrible creature upon the earth, the most brutal and merciless” (Smith 181), “the worst and most insatiate brute that exists in human form”

(Breckinridge 174) or in a comparison that “[a] mad bull or tiger could scarcely be more brutal” (Winston 109). Although the stereotype was not based on any academic or scientific research, it quickly spread into all mass media. Just the thought of a brute black scared the white population. These attitudes let to general hatred towards African Americans and were used as justification for lynching African Americans and people of other minorities.

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2 Mammy

Mammy is one of the stereotypes about African Americans in the literature, arts and films of the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. It is an archetype of a black woman working as a maid or nanny in a white household after the abolition of slavery. By taking caring of white children and loving all members of her employer’s family, she symbolises the “perceptions of the ideal Black female relationship to elite

White male power” (Collins 72). In return for her loyalty, adoration and love of the white family, she was “the member of the black community most ‘honoured’ by prominent white southerners” (Patton 149). The mammy archetype shows what a good relationship between a black person and white society should look like; or at least how it should have looked like according to the majority of the white population and how it should have been preserved in the Reconstruction Era.

However, as Harris-Perry in her book Sister Citizen points out, being called a “mammy” in the black society was understood as an insult (131). The negative meaning does not come from working for a white family, because the majority of the house owners and property holders were whites (Leigh and Huff 3). Instead, the approach towards whites is perceived negatively as an act of collaboration with the oppressor; especially adoring and loving the white family in contrast to the neglect of her own family.

The first prototype of the stereotype appears in Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) with the character of Aunt Chloe. According to Turner, there are only two major differences between the mammy archetype of the Reconstruction Era and Aunt Chloe – the presence of a black family she takes care of and her sexual life (46). One of the generally most appreciated portrayals of the mammy stereotype is the mammy figure in Gone with

10 the Wind (1939). It is of considerable importance because the film was released only one year before the first episode of Tom and Jerry cartoon.

In Tom and Jerry the stereotype is represented by Tom and Jerry’s owner, Mammy

Two Shoes. The character is a model example of the stereotypical portrayal of a flawless black servant. Amazon’s disclaimer and Goldberg’s introduction to Tom and Jerry

Spotlight Collection, Vol. 2 are usually connected specifically to Mammy Two Shoes.

The first part of this chapter focuses on the origins of the archetype from the historical perspective. The second part provides evidence to undermine the basic features and characteristics of the stereotype and proves that the stereotype was created artificially.

The two theoretical subchapters are followed by a practical analysis of the mammy stereotype in Tom and Jerry. The last part of the chapter analyses the language with the focus on the use of African American Vernacular English features in the cartoon.

2.1 Origins of the Mammy Archetype

The basics of the mammy archetype date back to the postbellum period. Before the

Civil War there was no need of the controlling image of a happy black maid who was accepted as a member of the white family. Catherine Clinton claims that “before the Civil

War, hard evidence for her existence simply does not appear” (qtd. in Robinson 60). Ever since, mammy became a stereotype of a happy and devoted member of the black community collaborating with the white oppressors. The aim of the stereotype was to

“represent the notion that black women’s domestic labour is a natural extension of their skills and desires” (Harris-Perry 126). The mammy stereotype became a defence and justification of slavery in the Reconstruction Era.

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With the end of slavery in the South, thousands of blacks found themselves without a job or a place to sleep. Although the majority of them wanted freedom for decades, they found themselves struggling when freed ‘overnight’. The victory of the North did not mean only a new era of Reconstruction of the South, but also new concerns about the residual slavery and the position of blacks. There was a demand for “reconciliation motives [sic]”

(Morgan 94) that would calm the Northern concerns about the persistence of slavery in the

South. The origins of the mammy archetype were created in the readiness of the North to believe that slavery has ended and the position of blacks in the South is not hopeless. These ideas were also supported by the willingness of the South to make the North believe that it has overcome its history of slavery.

With the end of slavery blacks were supposed to get a proper contract about their employment, but many of them did not. Especially the “ideal Mammy” worked for her ex- master without any contract, because she was “tied to her white family by duty, gratitude, and love” (Harris-Perry 128). The employment practices and lack of contracts have never been explained in the stereotypical representations. Mammies were so devoted to the white family and immensely trusted the members of the family so much that they did not need any hard evidence of their employment. In this situation – a job without a contract – the characteristics of mammy’s job are very strongly interfering with the basic premises of the free labour. The position of mammy indeed evoked the idea of slavery; mammy was working for a white family without a contract, and although being officially free, she was tied to the household owner with her devotion.

The stereotype became very popular in a relatively short time and spread across the nation into almost every household. The “anachronistic figure from the South became one of the most widely circulated images exemplifying NortSouth [sic] reconciliation” (Morgan 12

94). With the spread of the mammy stereotype affecting people’s understanding of the position of blacks, Northerners found it normal that black women were working as maids or nannies without any proper guarantee of a salary based on a regular contract. The image of mammy became a nation-wide symbol rarely connected with slavery in the South. The portrayal of blacks’ work labour for their former masters as the meaning of their lives gave way to further oppression of African Americans.

2.2 Breaking the Archetype

The mammy character was artificially created in order to soften the reunification attitudes in the North by portraying the servant as willing, helpful and faithful to their erstwhile masters. The typical characteristics of mammies were chosen to represent the idea of an ideal servant, a freed slave who continued working for their masters – although now being properly employed as a free person. In fact, there were no such mammies as they were portrayed in the stereotype.

The typical mammy was a heavy-set, strong and overweight black maid completely devoted to her white employer’s family. Donald Bogle characterises mammy as a “representative of the all-black woman, overweight, middle-aged, and so dark, so thoroughly black, that it is preposterous even to suggest that she be a sex object. Instead she was desexed” (14-15). However, Bogle’s description and the portrayal of the mammy stereotype in films and literature are strongly interfering with the facts about the enslaved black women who were the models for the stereotype.

Mammy was usually portrayed as a middle-aged or older woman. One of the most famous representatives of mammy, Hattie McDaniel, was 44 years old when she played the role of the mammy in Gone with the Wind. The idea of middle-aged mammy is in contrast

13 with the average life expectancy of a female slave in the late 1850s and early 1860s, which was 33.6 years (Collins 51). Moreover, the maids who took care of white children were usually teenagers or very young women and it was “white supremacist imaginations that remembered these powerless, coerced slave girls as soothing, comfortable, consenting women” (Harris-Perry 120). The picture of an old woman taking care of the house owner’s children is thus inaccurate and was created only to strengthen the stereotype of a desexed black maid fully devoted to the white community.

According to Bogle, the typical mammy was overweight and very dark. Comparing these characteristics to an average slave maid in the middle of the 19th century, both attributes are completely different. Although the job of a maid or a housekeeper was not as demanding as the field labour, the “foodstuffs were severely rationed” for all slaves (Turner

44). Moreover, maids were usually of a mixed-race, as they were more trusted than completely black people (Turner 44). The selection of paler-skin women has its roots in the binary perception of the world, where everything good is white and everything bad is black.

With the mammy’s earliest appearance after the Civil War and the end of slavery, it is improbable that there were many middle-aged and “thoroughly black” maids at that time.

Mammy is also described as an asexual person; moreover it is one of her strongest features. Not being interested in sexual life and the neglect of her black family – if she had any – is the final detail to the image of the ideal servant. If she was to be considered as an object of sexual desire, the faithfulness to the white family would be endangered. The documentary film Ethnic Notions (1987) is one of the sources that provide evidence of slave maids being exposed to a sexual behaviour by their masters. If the image of sexually attractive and active black maids was to prevail, the new system created after the reunification of the nation would be put in danger; under this threat it was necessary to 14 create the “reconciliation motive” of the ideal servant who would lack all dangerous characteristics that could potentially damage the idea of the “happy South”.

Finally, one of the main traits of mammy is taking care of the white family with devotion and neglect of her own family. Mammy is hardly ever seen with her own children, either because she is too busy adoring the white children or because of the asexual image that challenges any act of sex and therefore the pregnancy and childbearing itself. With the ban on the import of the slaves in 1808, the slave owners had to support their incomes from the slave trade in the way of natural growth of the slave population. Because the origins of the stereotype are in the antebellum period, it was usual that masters encouraged women to have children. Although there were cases of black women refusing to get pregnant or even killing their infants as an act of resistance (“Slave Resistance at Work”), the numbers are not extensive enough to assume that the asexuality of mammy would actually origin in the black women’s resistance. The mammy was desexualized in order to eliminate the threat she would represent to the white family by having her own children and also to eliminate the possibility of her being attractive to the master of the house.

Hazel Carby states that “the objective of stereotypes is not to reflect or represent a reality but to function as a disguise, or mystification, of objective social relations” (22).

The ideal of mammy is much idealized in both appearance and personality. As proven above, the appearance was ‘created’ in order to represent a vulnerable character that was not a threat to the white children whom she took care about or to the white society she worked in. In the Civil War aftermath, it was necessary to minimalize the danger that free blacks impersonalized to the white society. That was achieved by showing the blacks as the ideal servants to the white community, which basically meant just a shift from the labour force paid by food and living expenses for labour force based on contracts and paid in 15 money. The worries about the living conditions of blacks were pacified by portraying freed slaves happily working for their ex-masters. Because the mammy stereotype misrepresents the reality and it is not based on real figures, it also became one of the “political icons”

(Harris-Perry 126). Although there were many other stereotypes about black people, the mammy stereotype had the biggest underlying political aim. Most other black stereotypes were primarily used to create a humorous element in the media.

2.3 Mammy Two Shoes

The owner of Tom and Jerry1 is the only recurring human character in the cartoon. In the early Hanna-Barbera production, the owner is a middle-aged black woman, whom the animators called Mammy Two Shoes (Cohen 56). Her appearance is a typical example of the depiction of a black maid who served in the white households after the end of the Civil

War. The character was inspired by Hattie McDaniel’s role of mammy in Gone with the

Wind (Palmer). Mammy Two Shoes’ first appearance is in the very first episode of Tom and Jerry, Puss Gets the Boot (1940). Her last appearance is in Push-Button Kitty in 1952.

With twelve years in which she has been appearing in the episodes, she is the longest appearing Tom and Jerry owner.

1 Even though Jerry is not owned by the family, in one episode the owners decide to keep Jerry as a pet, therefore Jerry is referred to as a pet. 16

Mammy Two Shoes is usually portrayed as a headless, heavy-set black woman with an apron and bandanna. Another typical feature of Mammy Two Shoes are socks patched at the heels and slippers in contrasting colours; although they are different in every episode, typical are red and yellow colours (see fig. 1). In the majority of the scenes only her lower- body is visible; her head is shown only in Part Time Pal and Mouse Cleaning and her face is shown only in Saturday Evening Puss, though very briefly. Her role in the series was set in the first episode where she threatened to throw out Tom (in Puss Gets the Boot called

Jasper) if there is any more damage to the property.

Figure 1. Mammy Two Shoes. Old Rockin’ Chair Tom. Dir. Joe

Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1948. Film. Mammy Two Shoes is considered the main theme when discussing the racism in Tom and Jerry.2 The character appears in nineteen episodes3 (sorted by the date of release): Puss

Gets the Boot (1940), The Midnight Snack (1941), Fraidy Cat (1942), Dog Trouble (1942),

2 See Perkins, Crocker, Furedi, or Green. 3 Cohen notes only 17 episodes (56). 17

Puss N' Toots (1942), The Lonesome Mouse (1943), The Mouse Comes to Dinner (1945),

Part Time Pal (1947), A Mouse in the House (1947), Old Rockin' Chair Tom (1948), Mouse

Cleaning (1948), Polka-Dot Puss (1949), The Little Orphan (1949), Saturday Evening Puss

(1950), The Framed Cat (1950), Sleepy-Time Tom (1951), Nit-Witty Kitty (1951), Triplet

Trouble (1952) and Push-Button Kitty (1952).

Mammy Two Shoes made her last appearance in the cartoon in the episode Push-

Button Kitty which was released on 6 September 1952. In the episodes from 1952 to 1954,

Tom and Jerry’s owner did not appear, which was not anything unusual since Mammy Two

Shoes appeared in only 20 out of the total of 87 episodes created in the period between

1940 and 1954. There were two reasons of the removal Mammy Two Shoes from the cartoon and her replacement with a white couple – symbolical and political. The character was reportedly inspired by the Academy Award winner Hattie McDaniel in the role of mammy in Gone with the Wind. The actress Hattie McDaniel died on 26 October 1952; the creators of the cartoon then gave her a symbolical tribute by removing the character from the cartoon. The real reason was the National Association for Coloured People succeeding in several key trials in the early 1950s. The last major trial before the release of the episode

Pet-Peeve, starring Tom and Jerry’s new owners Joan and George, was Brown v. Board of

Education of Topeka. The decision of the Supreme Court overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson and established that “no separation is equal”. To sum up, it is safe to assume that the reason for removing Mammy Two Shoes was the death of Hattie McDaniel, while the appearance of the new owners was more of a political pressure on the racial correctness in the cartoons.

In the late Hanna-Barbera era the position of Mammy Two Shoes was taken over by a white middle-class couple Joan and George. They first appeared in Pet-Peeve (1954) and ever since the episode The Flying Sorceress (January 1956) the owners’ faces were visible. 18

The visibility of the faces strongly distinguished between the early and late Hanna-Barbera production. There were no more connections between the headless Mammy Two Shoes and the white young couple.

Gene Deitch removed the young couple as the owners of Tom and Jerry and used his own character, Clint Clobber. Before starring in Tom and Jerry, the character appeared in seven-episode series, where he worked as a janitor of apartment building in New York

(Clint Clobber’s Cat). Although in the episode Buddies Thicker Than [sic] Water there is a white female owner of the apartment where Jerry lives, she is not listed as an owner because the plot of the episode is set in the future.4 Deitch explains that he removed Tom and Jerry’s previous owner because he did not feel that the character of maid, neither black nor white, would work in the modern context.

Under the Chuck Jones production in 1964, the original episodes from the early

Hanna-Barbera production were reworked in order to be shown on the CBS television in

1965 (Cohen 57). The character of Mammy Two Shoes was removed and replaced by a white woman. The episodes were also re-dubbed to remove the use of African American

Vernacular English, which was closely linked with the black stereotypes (Bogle 8). Lillian

Randolph’s voice was replaced by June Foray, a white actress with Irish accent, but the original Mammy Two Shoes with Randolph’s voice began to reappear in the late 80s.

However, in 1992 it was re-voiced for the last time, this time by an African American actress Thea Vidale. Ever since Mammy Two Shoes is featured in the episodes of early

Hanna-Barbera production with the original appearance but with Vidale’s voice.

4 There are many episodes set into the future or in various exotic locations, however, this is the only episode set in the future – Tom and Jerry parted their ways and now Tom refers to himself as to Jerry’s “Old Buddy” – where they have a different owner. 19

2.3.1 Mammy Two Shoes – A Maid or a House-owner?

Although Mammy Two Shoes is generally considered a maid or a housekeeper of the house, in several episodes there is evidence that she is actually the owner of the house.

Based on her clothing in most of the episodes, where she wears a loose gown, an apron and socks patched on heels, she is a maid. Her heavy African American Vernacular

English evokes that she is uneducated; moreover, she is usually seen with a broom or a rolling pin and she never leaves for work. Because she does not have a husband who would earn for their living, her job is a maid or a housekeeper, otherwise she would not have any income. In the 1940s, only 22.8 percent of the African Americans in the United

States owned a house, while 45.6 percent of white people were householders (Leigh and

Huff 4). In this light it is improbable that a single black woman would own a big house5 without a stable income.

However, in several episodes6 she appears to have her own bedroom on the first floor; when the plot of the episode is set at midnight, early morning or late evening, she usually comes to the ground floor from her bedroom. In Sleepy-Time Tom she claims that she has been guarding the icebox all night, which means that she actually lives in the house.

In the episode Saturday Evening Puss, Mammy Two Shoes is at the Lucky Seven Saturday

Night Bridge Club when she reacts to Jerry’s report of the party in the house by: “A Party?

In my house?” Moreover, when she comes back to the house and throws out the cats, she decides that she will listen to a “little soft, soothing, hot music”. That suggests that she is the actual owner of the house rather than a housekeeper, because the position of a maid would not allow her to listen to the loud music on Saturday evening.

5 The house has at least two floors – the ground floor with kitchen, living room and hall; first floor with bedrooms 6 The Midnight Snack, Fraidy Cat, Part Time Pal, Polka-Dot Puss and Sleepy-Time Tom 20

Mammy Two Shoes is not the only black woman in the cartoon. A black servant to a millionaire cat Toodles Galore appears in the episode Casanova Cat (1951). When Tom enters the apartment, he gives his hat to the black servant who opened the door for him. The servant is usually mistaken for Mammy Two Shoes; however, there are no connections or similarities between these two characters. Both their behaviour and appearance are completely different; the most striking difference is probably in the clothes and shoes. For most of the time, Mammy Two Shoes wears an apron, gown in bright colours, socks and slippers. When she goes out in Mouse Cleaning and Saturday Evening Puss she wears bright red coat and socks she wore in a previous scene where she was dressed as a maid, respectively blue dress with pink underskirt, no socks and a lot of jewellery in contrasting colours. The servant in Casanova Cat wears a black maid uniform, black tights and black shoes. The portrayal of Toodles Galore’s servant is completely different to the portrayal of

Mammy Two Shoes. The contrast of the servant with the debated position of Mammy Two

Shoes suggests that Mammy Two Shoes is the house-owner rather than a servant.

It is important to note that apart from the homeownership being an often discussed topic, the ownership of the house is just a minor attribute compared to the rest of the features and connections with the mammy archetype. Mammy Two Shoes is in every way a stereotypical depiction of black women of the 1940s.

2.4 Jerry’s Disguise as a Mammy Stereotype (The Milky Waif)

Although the major appearance of the mammy stereotype is presented by Mammy

Two Shoes, it is not the sole representation of the stereotype in the Tom and Jerry cartoon.

In the episode The Milky Waif (1946) Jerry and Nibbles masquerade to look like a mammy character.

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In The Milky Waif Jerry is asked to take care of a little orphan Nibbles and to feed him with lots of milk. They decide to make an attempt of stealing Tom’s milk, but he starts chasing them. They run into a build-in wardrobe where they find a shoe polish and a red piece of clothing, possibly headscarf or bandanna. They use the polish and bandanna to disguise themselves as black women and come out of the wardrobe, slowly waddling into the rhythm of Shortnin’ Bread tune. Before being revealed, Jerry says “Why howdy-do, Mr.

Tom?” after seeing Tom with a frying pan, and then says to Nibbles “Hurry up, honey child. Land's sakes. Hurry up, honey child.” In this scene there are several aspects to be analysed.

Both mice appear in blackface after leaving the wardrobe, even though there is not anything to colour their lips red, therefore it is a clear reference to the blackface minstrel shows. The bandana and the slow clumsy walk remind of mammy’s appearance and the walk resembles the walk of old overweight woman. In this episode, Jeremy is voiced by

Lillian Randolph who otherwise voices Mammy Two Shoes. The language is African

American Vernacular English and the phrase “Land’s sakes” makes a very strong link to

Mammy Two Shoes, who is famous for using that expression. The last fragment is the

“Shortnin’ Bread” tune playing while Jerry leaves their temporary hideout. The song usually accompanies the depiction of African American stereotypes throughout the cartoon.

Although the song was written in 1900 by James Whitcomb Riley, it is generally thought to have origins in a traditional plantation song because of the use of African American

Vernacular English. The scene was cut out in later rereleases of the episode.

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2.5 Tom’s and Butch’s Disguises (A Mouse in the House)

In the episode A Mouse in the House, Mammy Two Shoes is horrified by the results of Jerry’s raid on the kitchen. Apart from other episodes, in A Mouse in the House she has two cats, Tom and Butch, and she makes them compete against each other on who catches the mouse first.

Similarly to the episode The Milky Waif, first Tom and then Butch disguise themselves as mammy to deceive each other. To do so, they use Mammy Two Shoes’ blue gown, apron and bandanna; typical clothes for both mammy archetype and Mammy Two

Shoes. Mammy Two Shoes’ head or face has never been shown in the cartoon before.

However, when Tom and Butch put the bandanna on their heads in order to look like

Mammy Two Shoes, it gives the idea of her usual appearance. The red bandanna with dots is a typical feature of mammies used in both films and commercials. Moreover, to fool the other one completely, they both pretend to be doing chores – Tom pretends to be washing the dishes and Butch pretends to be dusting.

The relevance of Tom’s and Butch’s disguise is in the activities they pretend to be doing, because they both choose activities typical for Mammy Two Shoes to perfectly fool each other. It illustrates that she spends most of her time doing chores which indicates her social position as a servant or a maid rather than a house owner. Moreover, there is also a significance for the viewer’s conception of Mammy Two Shoes’ appearance. When they dress up to look like Mammy Two Shoes, it is the first time the Mammy Two Shoes’s upper-body is suggested by the Tom and Butch’s appearance.

The unifying element in the episode is the “Shortnin’ Bread” tune that plays whenever Mammy Two Shoes (Tom and Butch disguises as mammy) appears on the

23 screen. The tune plays five times in total – three times when Mammy Two Shoes is on the screen and two times when the cats disguise themselves as mammies.

2.6 Language

Stereotypes of black people in the popular culture varied in their appearance, behaviour and relationships to the white population, however, one feature connected them all – the language. The stereotypical idea is that African Americans cannot speak Standard

English (SAE) and all of them speak in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) which is considered a completely different language. However, AAVE is a dialect rather than a separate language that emerged during slavery period when slaves simplified the

English language in order to learn it easier.7 This “butchering of the English language”

(Bogle 8) appears also in Tom and Jerry cartoons – represented by the three main characters; Mammy Two Shoes, Tom (Mouse Cleaning) and Jerry (The Milky Waif).

Especially Mammy Two Shoes, voiced by Lillian Randolph, is famous for her use of

AAVE.

There are several aspects of AAVE in Mammy Two Shoes’ language. When the character is surprised or shocked – usually by the mess that Tom and Jerry make – she uses exclamation ‘land sakes!’ The phrase itself does not directly connect to AAVE, but it is of very similar origins. The full form of the phrase is “For the Lord’s sake”; the shortened version would be “Lord’s sake” (Urban Dictionary). The final phrase ‘land sakes!’ was created by derivation from the shortened version in order to avoid profanity. Motion Picture

7 This thesis understands AAVE as a dialect of English, although some understand it as a separate language – a pidgin that emerged from the need of African captives to communicate with their captors, and later was passed on the next generation and became a creole (Wolfram, Language Ideology and Dialect 112). 24

Production Code (1930) defined the basic rules for films in order to be approved for screening, one of them forbidding the use of words referring to God in different than reverent meanings. To have the cartoon authorised for screening meant to simplify the original remark containing the word “Lord”.

Even though the phrase ‘land sakes’ itself is not a significant feature of AAVE, it is very important for Mammy Two Shoes’ cultural and social background. When the episodes voiced by Lillian Randolph were re-dubbed for later releases, the phrase was usually changed to ‘My Goodness’.

Negative sentences are the typical feature of AAVE. Negation is usually created by the universal “negator” ‘ain’t’, which is the same for all persons both singular and plural

(Green 39). It is also possible for double negative to appear in a single sentence, e.g. “She ain’t no trouble at all, are you, honey?” (Puss n’ Toots) or “Go on, you no-good-for- nothing, moth-eaten mousetrap!” (The Midnight Snack). The double negative, unacceptable in SAE but very common in AAVE, is called “multiple negation” (Rickford 42). When

Mammy Two Shoes uses negation of a single word, she usually puts prefix “no-” in front of the word. In this way, the phrases “no-good cat” and “no-how” were formed and occur on many instances throughout the first Lillian Randolph’s voicing. It is another example of the simplification of the language, because the use of prefix ‘no-’ does not require knowledge of other prefixes and the rules of their usage.

In Tom and Jerry cartoons, Mammy Two Shoes always uses the third person singular form of the verb ‘be’ for all first, second and third person in all tenses and situations, e.g.

“Thomas, if you is a mouse catcher, I is Lana Turner, which I ain't” (Old Rockin’ Chair

Tom). Although it is a significant simplification of SAE, this feature is not very typical for

AAVE. In AAVE the simplification of the verb ‘to be’ is usually in either ellipse of the 25 verb or in its use in the basic form in all persons (Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams 462), e.g.

‘I happy’, ‘you happy’, ‘he happy’, or ‘I be happy’, ‘you be happy’, ‘he be happy’.

According to Wolfram, the “generalization of is” appears only in spoken communication, though very rarely (qtd. in Rickford 7). In conclusion, even though the form of the verb ‘to be’ in the third person singular is not a general feature of AAVE, it belongs to the dialect in its spoken form.

Very strong African American Vernacular English feature is in the very first episode

Puss Gets the Boot. When Mammy Two Shoes is speaking to Tom, she warns him that if he breaks anything else in the room, “he goes out; O-W-T”.8 The wrong spelling of ‘out’ suggest her fitting the stereotype of an uneducated person, because she does not know the proper spelling of the word and instead she spells it as it sounds. AAVE is a typical feature for the black stereotypes which usually involve illiteracy, general lack of education, and even certain toughness, both physical and mental.

8 In some sources spelled as O-U-W-T, see Pilgrim and “Puss Gets the Boot” (The Big Cartoon Database) 26

3 Blackface

Blackface was a method of disguise used by white actors who represented blacks in a theatrical performance. Later the method spread to the movies and advertising campaigns as well. Blackface is connected to the term “racechange”: a member of one “race” imitates or impersonates a member of another “race” (Gubar 5). Wittke states that the purpose of blackface was to “give the impression that all Negroes were lazy, shiftless fellows, careless of the morrow (7-8). In the perspective of the 21st century such depictions are considered racist, because their essential purpose was to ridicule African Americans “by stressing

Negro inferiority” (Bogle 4).

Even though colouring actors’ faces as such date backs to the 17th century with the most famous black character of Othello (Strausbaugh 62), the 17th century portrayals are different to those of the 18th century in the North America. The difference is in the meaning of the depiction; in Othello the purpose of blacking the skin was to portray a Moor. In the late 18th and early 19th century theatre actors blacked their skin in order to bring the comical element of the African American characters. Actors usually disguised themselves in blackface with greasepaint, shoe polish or burnt cork9 to make their skin as dark as possible. They also exaggerated their lips with red colour, which contrasted with the completely black skin. Blackface performers usually wore bright and shiny or ragged clothes, based on the type of the stock character they wanted to portray.

In Tom and Jerry blackface is of common appearance. Nearly in half of the episodes of the early Hanna-Barbera production there is a blackface scene or a blackface gag. This chapter deals with the blackface scenes, the blackface and other gags are discussed and

9 Because the use of burnt cork as a dye Wittke calls blackface and minstrel performers “the burnt cork artists” (5) or masters of “the burnt cork profession” (135). 27 analysed in chapter 5 “Censorship in Cartoons and Censored Scenes in Tom and Jerry”.

The distinction between blackface scenes and blackface gags is that in gags blackface usually appears as a result of an explosion, blackening with shoe polish or other means; there is not any follow-up to the scene and it could be easily cut out without affecting the story. The scenes discussed in this chapter play specific role in the plot and their purpose is not purely comical, though it brings up a comic element. The blackface scenes are in three episodes, Mouse Cleaning (1948), Casanova Cat (1951) and His Mouse Friday (1951).

Coincidentally, these episodes become a point of dispute about the controversy of African

American stereotypes at the beginning of the 21st century.

3.1 History of Blackface

The first instance of a white actor in blackface impersonating a role of an African

American was recorded in 1769. In the play The Padlock black slave Mungo, played by a white actor Lewis Hallam Jr. disguised in blackface, got “drunk on the stage to the delight of his audience” (Wittke 9). In the 1840s black actors started appearing in blackfaces, too, in order to be allowed to perform in front of the white audience.

The blackface stopped appearing in the popular culture in the 1950s, mostly because of the pressure of the NAACP. The use of blackface and other racial stereotypes was also limited by the 1954 Comics Code Authority. However, already in the 1940s representatives of the NAACP agreed with several Hollywood studios on the restrictions on the use of the

African American stereotypes (“From Blackface to Blaxploitation: Representations of

African Americans in Film”).

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3.2 Minstrel Shows

In the 1840s minstrel shows advanced from minstrel acts, a short acts consisting of songs or dances, performed by a white man in blackface. The minstrel shows usually staged four white actors in blackface, who performed a dance, a song and a speech.

Although the shows were popular among the white population, they were usually refused and criticised by the black representatives. Frederik Douglass in his anti-slavery newspaper North Star wrote that the white minstrel shows were “the filthy scum of white society, who have stolen from us a complexion denied to them by nature, in which to make money, and pander to the corrupt taste of their white fellow-citizens” (27 October 1848).

The minstrel shows had a significant role in the racial politics from its emergence in the 1830s as occasional interludes to the plays performed in New York (Lott 17). Prime examples of the representation of the racial politics of the first half of the 19th century are the stock characters. One of the most famous stock characters Jim Crow represents the idea of a ‘care-free’ black.

The ‘care-free’ black character is portrayed as happy, singing, dancing and playing musical instruments, mostly banjo or tambourine (Wittke 7). The stereotype of a carefree and happily dancing slave dates back to the time of slave transports from Africa to the

North America. According to Wittke, slave captains forced their slaves to sing and dance on the shipboard to keep the morale of the slaves and to entertain the crew. Slave masters took over this custom and even paid extra money to the leader of the group because they thought it increased the “effectiveness of the workmen” (6). The representation evokes the idea that although the black are enslaved and hardworking for their masters, they are happy

29 and they enjoy their lives. If the blacks are happy even after eighteen-hour shifts10 on plantations, the slavery probably wasn’t that evil after all (Morgan 94).

The origins of the carefree black stereotype contrast with the origins of the mammy stereotype. The mammy stereotype was not based on the way real-life blacks behaved; instead it was artificially created by the white society. Although the carefree black stereotype was based on a real prototype of blacks’ behaviour, it was the behaviour that was artificially created and enforced by the slave masters. It is safe to assume that despite both stereotypes were artificially created they are not of the same origins. Nevertheless, in both cases black have been inscribed attributes that were not their own and they have “been made the bearer[s] of another people’s ‘folk’ culture” (Lott 17).

3.2.1 Origins of Minstrel Shows

The plays performed in the colonies and later in the United States were of European origins. The first American play Androboros was written in 1714, but never performed on a stage. The first American play ever performed was Thomas Godfrey’s The Prince of

Parthia written in 1765 and first staged in 1767 (Quinn 3). The use of blackface is therefore commonly referred to as the first theatrical feature of the white theatre invented in the

North America. The blackface performance was followed by the creation of a new genre – minstrelsy. Johnson in his book Black Manhattan claims that “minstrelsy originated on the plantation and was the only completely original contribution of America to the theater”

(87). However, minstrelsy did not origin on plantations as Johnson claimed. According to

Saxton it was artificially created by Thomas Rice, Dan Emmett and E. P. Christy who are

“generally recognized as founders of blackface minstrelsy” (4). Minstrelsy in the early 19th

10 For more information see “On the Plantations” 30 century was represented by small travelling groups of white artists who sang minstrel songs and danced in blackface.

The popular minstrel shows emerged from the early minstrelsy in the 1840s. In

1843 Emett and Christy, each independently, created a new form of minstrel shows, a “complete evening’s entertainment” (Strausbaugh 108), and both claimed its authorship.

In contrast to the minstrelsy of the late 18th and early 19th century, there were four performers in blackface instead of one central actor. The performance was still centred on the use of the blackface, but it was extended by a new feature – the ‘stump speech’. The

‘stump speech’ was a monologue on different topics delivered in a parodied version of

AAVE. It usually consisted of nonsense sentences and “malapropism” (Meer 35), which helped to ridicule African Americans by stressing out their wrong usage of the language.

The minstrel shows quickly gained popularity thanks to the wide spread of newspaper and from the mid-1840s to the 1870s the minstrel shows were the most popular form of entertainment in the United States (Agnew 36).

After the Civil War the minstrel shows started to decline; most of the minstrel companies oriented towards the new genre in the theatres, vaudeville. Despite the time and the cultural change the minstrel shows managed to maintain their audience and the genre as such lasted until the 1960s. Late 1950s and early 1960s mark the end of the use of blackface, although in some limited instances it appears up until today.

3.2.2 Benefits of Minstrel Shows

In spite of Douglass’ negative commentary on the Minstrel shows, he appreciated the black minstrels in other aspects: “It is something to be gained when the colored man in any form can appear before a white audience” (29 June 1849). Another benefit of the

31 minstrel shows was the popularization of the African American culture (Lott 17).

Minstrelsy allowed blacks to become part of the white society as the theatre performers.

Minstrel shows often considered tabooed issues11, to which the blackface performance was a tool for their publication: “the genre provided a kind of underground theater where the blackface ‘convention’ rendered permissible topics which would have been taboo on the legitimate stage or in the press” (Saxton 4). Topics that were considered inappropriate in the white society were presented through blacks who were thought to be of lower standards.

To sum up, although from todays’ point of view the minstrel shows were inappropriate and politically incorrect, they carried several positive aspects in their prime.

Minstrel shows represented the African American culture, they allowed black artists to perform in front of the white audience and it broke the taboo on controversial topics of sexuality.

3.3 Tom in Blackface (Mouse Cleaning)

In Mouse Cleaning Tom appears in blackface at the end of the episode. However, despite being in blackface for only a few seconds, its appearance is so crucial for the plot of the episode that the episode was banned from the Tom and Jerry Golden Collection.

Mammy Two Shoes cleans the house when Tom and Jerry come and soil the entire house again. She tells Tom to clean the house, otherwise “we is going to be minus one cat around here”. Jerry tries to make the house dirty again while Tom is trying to clean everything up. At the end of the episode, the supply of coal arrives and Jerry makes it unload into the living room. When Mammy Two Shoes comes back home she finds the

11 i.e. sexual, homosexual or pornographic messages 32 house full of coal. Tom gets out of the pile of coal disguised in blackface and to Mammy

Two Shoes’ question if he has seen “a no-good cat around here” he answers with a heavy

African American Vernacular English accent: “No, ma’am. I ain’t seen no cat around here, uh uh. There ain't no cat, no place, no how. No, ma’am.”

Tom is well aware of the consequences that the mess in the house would have. He tries to do everything to clean the entire house, but after the coal delivery he knows he has lost the fight with Jerry and that he will be thrown out. When he sticks out his head from the pile of coal and sees Mammy Two Shoes, he is shocked and frightened at first, but when he realizes that Mammy Two Shoes did not recognize him he proceeds to play the role of African American. Disguised in blackface he reminds of white actors of minstrel shows; Tom’s walk is slow and hunched, his intonation is heavy and tough. By the use of

AAVE and other features of his disguise he reflects both social and cultural position of

Mammy Two Shoes. Although Mammy Two Shoes’ shoulders and her neck are not visible, we can assume that they are similar to those shown by Tom in this scene. The scene is therefore important not only for the appearance of blackface, but also for the imitation of

Mammy Two Shoes.

3.4 Jerry’s Minstrel Performance (Casanova Cat)

Similar to the previously discussed episode, Casanova Cat causes arguments as it is banned from both Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection and Golden Collection released by

Warner Bros. Although the compromising scene was cut out in the later rereleased versions of the episode, the seriousness of the African American ridicule was considerable.

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Tom comes across a newspaper article about kitten Toodles Galore who inherited several millions dollars. He goes to visit her to her apartment with flowers and Jerry with a yellow ribbon as gifts. Tom wears a yellow flat hat with a blue ribbon. He gives it to a black servant who opens the door for him and to whom Tom does not give a single look.

When he sees Toodles he immediately rushes towards her and presents her the flowers and

Jerry. Toodles is impressed with Jerry; Tom bends Jerry’s tail into the shape of a small key and ‘winds-up’ Jerry who proceeds to walk like a wind up figure to the tune from a music box. After that Tom lights up a cigar, inhales it and blows the smoke to Jerry’s face. Jerry appears in blackface; Tom turns around the ribbon to create the impression of a yellow bow tie. He puts Jerry on a plate and makes it red-hot with a match. Jerry starts dancing into the song Old Folks at Home so he does not burn his feet (see fig. 2).

Figure 2. Jerry’s Minstrel Performance. Casanova Cat. Dir. Joe

Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1951. Film.

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The song Old Folks at Home was written in 1856 by Stephen Foster, “the major white innovator of minstrel music” (Saxton 5). The song was meant specifically for minstrel shows, which coincides with the plantation themes and the racially offensive lyrics, especially of the chorus:

All de world am sad and dreary,

Eb-rywhere I roam;

Oh, darkeys, how my heart grows weary,

Far from de old folks at home! (9-12)

The term ‘darky’ was used as a nickname for African Americans. According to Spears, it was once “mild and polite” (49); however, it was perceived with a strongly negative meaning and was usually replaced in the theatre performances (Becnel and Grimes 23).

Although the song became a national song of the state Florida in 1935, the original lyrics were not changed until 2008 (Summary of Bills Related to Arts, Cultural, Arts Education.

Or Historical Resources That Passed the 2008 Florida Legislature May 5, 2008 2).

When Jerry is disguised in blackface and Tom turns the ribbon around, it creates a yellow bow tie. The bow tie was typical for white actors in blackface portraying blacks in theatres. Jerry gets to the role of a minstrel performer, as dance and music were essential for the minstrel shows. The song was created specifically for minstrel performances and at the time of the composition of the song it was the most popular song. According to its publisher 130,000 copies of the song were sold in three years (Saxton 6).

On the contrary, the dance, although considered to be minstrel, originates in the

Irish Jig and contains several dance moves typical for the Irish Jig. The dance was typical for its “very rapid leg and footwork, tapping with both toes and heels, with the arms held close to the sides, and the upper half of the body stiffly erect” (Stearns 49). One of the 35 typical Irish Jig moves is called a ‘heel-click’; the performer jumps and taps his heels together in mid-air. In the minstrel shows the heel-click was popularized by Bill Robinson, better known by his stage name Bojangles (Stearns 147).

The authors of minstrel shows were usually observing blacks and their behaviour mostly in Mississippi Valley South and the frontier (Saxton 7). The frontier was a melting pot of different cultures; the culture of blacks on the frontier was affected by the already present Irish and their culture – especially dances. The observed black dances were not of solely black origins as they consisted of features from different regions. The minstrel dance performed by Jerry is a mixture of black dance with significant features of the Irish Jig.

3.5 Jerry the Cannibal (His Mouse Friday)

The episode His Mouse Friday is rather controversial for the representation of cannibals. It was edited after 1954 to fill the requirements set by the Comics Code. For information about the Comics Code and the censorship of the episode, see chapter 5.8.4.

Tom is a starving castaway on a small island when he comes across Jerry and tries to eat him. Jerry manages to escape and after a short chase they end up in a village of an indigenous tribe. Jerry disguises himself in blackface, creates a grass skirt and puts a bone on his head. He captures Tom and forces him to get into a pot and cut vegetables. Then

Jerry proceeds to walk around the pot in a war-like pace regularly interrupted by a different happy dance moves. During the dance moves Jerry’s skirt falls down and Tom realises he has been tricked.

Although blackface in this episode is not primarily used to caricature African

Americans, the episode is included in this chapter because of the characteristics of the blackface.

36

When Jerry captures Tom, Jerry walks around and talks to himself in a nonsense tribal-like language. Next time he speaks he gives Tom instructions to jump to the pot and then to cut the vegetables. Apart from the previous nonsense language, this time there are understandable elements. The language itself reminds of a pidgin; Jerry says English words in a heavy tribal accent and deforms some of them: “Hop in pot. Hop in pot, there! Cut a potato. Cut a potato. Cut a ‘carata’. Hold the onions!” Pidgin is usually a combination of at least two languages “structurally reduced” in order to enable communication between two groups of people who do not share the same language (Mair 252). In the process some words are deformed, such as the word ‘carata’ in this situation. One of the theories on the origins of AAVE claims that it emerged as a pidgin between black slaves and their captors, so there is a connection between Jerry’s language and AAVE.

Jerry walks around the pot and regularly interrupts his war-like pace by short sequences of happy minstrel dance. The dance is similar to the one in Casanova Cat; he looks straight at the viewer, smiling a dancing happily. The most striking connection is the

‘heel-click’, which he performed in the other episode, too.

The appearance of blackface in this episode is not a stereotypical depiction of African

Americans; however, there are several connections between Jerry’s behaviour and the stereotypical portrayal of African Americans. Be it the way of blackening his face, his language or dance, all these features are representing the blacks and their society as it was represented in the late 18th and 19th century minstrel shows.

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4 Native Americans

Behnken and Smithers in their book Racism in American Popular Media: From Aunt

Jemima to the Frito Bandito claim that the Tom and Jerry cartoon “frequently lampooned

Native Americans” (97). Although the cartoon shows several Native American stereotypes, from the European point of view they do not seem offensive or insulting. Nevertheless, there stereotypes are present in the cartoon in both forms of scenes and gags and therefore they will be discussed and analysed in this chapter. The most striking appearances are in

Kitty Foiled (1948), The Little Orphan (1949) and Two Little Indians (1953).

4.1 Jerry’s Disguise as a Native American (Kitty Foiled)

A scene similar to the one in The Milky Waif appears in Kitty Foiled (1948). In The

Milky Waif Jerry disguised himself and Nibbles as a mammy stereotype so they would escape Tom from a wardrobe. In Kitty Foiled, Jerry and the canary disguise themselves as

Native Americans to escape from behind the curtain.

Tom chases Jerry and the canary who hide into a curtain that looks like a tepee. When they leave the curtain, Jerry wears a blue robe, red headband with canary’s feather and a papoose. The canary wears the same feather headband as Jerry. At first, Jerry greets Tom by saying ‘háu’ and Tom responds by smiling and waving at them; however, after a while

Tom realises he has been fooled and starts chasing them.

The Native Americans’ appearance and behaviour illustrated by Jerry in this episode are historically inaccurate. First, there is an inconsistent portrayal of appearance and behaviour that was typical only for one gender. ‘Háu’, in English sometimes transcribed as

‘how’ or ‘howgh’, was according to New Lakota Dictionary Online used as a greeting by

38

Lakota men. However, Jerry has a papoose on his back which was usually carried by women; that causes the first problem in the interpretation of the scene.

Secondly, there are geographical inaccuracies. The word ‘háu’ and the tepee-like dwelling both indicate that the prototype of the Native American depiction is of the Great

Plains origin. Notwithstanding the Lakota features, Jerry and the canary wear feather headbands, which were used in the northeast Woodlands (“Native American Headdresses:

Facts for Kids”).

There are discrepancies between the appearance and behaviour shown in Kitty Foiled and the factual information about Native Americans. Although it is disputable to what degree are these images offensive, such depictions help to create mainstream images and stereotypes.

4.2 Pilgrims v. Native Americans (The Little Orphan)

In the episode Life with Tom (1953) which contains footage from The Little Orphan

Jerry describes the latter episode: “On Thanksgiving Day, my little nephew and I dressed up as Pilgrims… Tom, of course, also got into the act…”

Nibbles comes to Jerry because Jerry promised that he would spend Thanksgiving

Day with him. Nibbles gives Jerry a message saying that “He’s always hungry.” After Tom drinks all his milk, Jerry and Nibbles see Mammy Two Shoes serving a turkey on the table.

They climb on the table and see little figures of Pilgrims standing next to place cards. Jerry takes the figure’s hat12 as well as a little rifle. Nibbles follows Jerry’s example but he takes only the hat. After that they accidentally wake Tom up by throwing an orange at him. Tom uses a feather duster as a warbonnet and fights the mice. In the following battle Tom makes

12 Typical Pilgrim hat; a black hat with buckle and a red ribbon 39 a battle cry sound13 several times, usually after he is hurt or succeeds in temporarily catching one of the mice. After a short fight Tom surrenders and at the end of the episode they all sit at the table, pray before the meal and then Nibbles eats the whole turkey by himself.

In The Little Orphan Tom is wearing a warbonnet usually worn by Indians of the

Great Plains; this type of headdress was usually worn by chiefs or warriors and only rarely was taken to the battle (“Native American Headdresses: Facts for Kids”). However, in the episode Tom wears it to a fight; therefore the depiction of the headband is not consistent with the social and cultural background of the headdress. It is probable that Tom wears a headdress only because it was a usual mainstream depiction of Native Americans rather than a symbolism of his behaviour or attributes.14

Tom does the war cry three times; nevertheless, there was no such thing as a united war cry for all Native Americans. Every tribe had its own war cry, different from the stereotyped war cry depicted in Tom and Jerry. Similar sound to the one from Tom and

Jerry produced “women when their husbands went to war, when they returned from a successful hunt or raid, or at the death of a loved one” (Riverwind). However, the sound was not created by the movement of the hand towards and away from the mouth; instead, it was ululation, which was “produced with a high-pitched, loud voice, accompanied by rapid movement of the tongue and the uvula” (Pendle 430). The hand movement, inaccurate in the historical perspective, was used by whites who were not able to ululate with their tongue or by white children who pretended to be Native Americans in a play.

13 Sometimes referred to as a whoop cry or a war cry 14 Native Americans earned the feathers for brave deeds 40

The episode is not only a first-rate allegory to the symbols of Thanksgiving Day, it also documents several stereotypes about Native Americans. The misuse of headdress could be potentially offensive to the tribe members of the Great Plains and the northeast

Woodlands; the war cry and its ridicule could be understood as offensive to Native

Americans in general.

4.3 Two Little Indians (Two Little Indians)

Behnken and Smithers note this episode as the most offensive one toward the North

American Indians (97). In contrast with the previously discussed episodes, Two Little

Indians solely focuses on the depiction of Native Americans. It documents a children’s game where children pretend to be Native Americans. It is a valid example of white understanding of the stereotypes and their representation. More specifically, it shows how the whites were affected by the stereotypical portrayal of Native Americans because it is shown on children’ behaviour. It was highly improbable that the children in the 20th century would personally meet any indigenous people; therefore their understanding of their appearance and behaviour came from the stereotypes.

Two little orphans come to Jerry and give him letter from Bide-A Wee Mouse

Home.15 Jerry is asked to take the orphans, who are both equipped with bows and arrows and they wear feather headbands, on a hiking trip. He goes back for his hat when the two orphans separate and seek for an enemy to attack. One of the orphans tries to shoot Spike’s palatine uvula, but Jerry manages to stop him from doing so. However, they wake up Spike, and so in order to disguise their retreat Jerry plays “Turkey in the Straw” song. Then both

15 The orphans are from the same orphanage as Nibbles. It could be possible that Nibbles is one of the two mice; however, when Nibbles first appeared he was left in front of Jerry’s door. He put Nibbles to Bide-A Wee Mouse Home as the second time Nibbles he gave Jerry a letter from the orphanage stating that Jerry promised to spend Thanksgiving Day with him. If Nibbles had an identical twin, it is improbable that it would not appear in any of the previous episodes. 41 orphans decide to attack Tom; one unsuccessfully tries to scalp him with an axe while the other shoots him to his buttocks. Jerry tries to save the orphan by pretending that it was him who shot Tom but he fails to shoot the arrow from the bow. Tom catches Jerry and he is holding him in his paws, when one of the orphans cuts Tom’s tail with the axe while doing the Native American war cry. The other orphan then successfully scalps Tom with another axe. After that Tom captures Jerry once again and carries him away. The orphans scare

Tom by drawing faces on badminton shuttlecocks so they look like faces of the North

American Indians. Tom panics, ties Jerry to a wooden porch pillar and takes a rifle and a coonskin hat from the house. After a short fight Tom surrenders and they all smoke from a ceremonial pipe. Tom fails to puff the smoke out of his mouth and it comes out of his ears.

Both orphans wear a feather headband which was typical for the tribes from the

Northeast Woodlands (“Native American Headdresses: Facts for Kids”). These headbands, apart from many others headdresses, were not associated with war, which is in direct contrast with the two little Indians’ behaviour. Based on their bloodlust they seem to be on the warpath. Such inaccurate uses of feather headbands and warbonnets as in Two Little

Indians, Kitty Foiled or The Little Orphan contributed to the creation of stereotypes about headdresses being a typical feature of Native Americans.

In the episode, the orphans’ attempts to scalp Tom suggest that Native Americans are very aggressive. However, the depiction of scalping by the North American Indians is fallacious as they scalped only defeated enemies to display their victory. Moreover, there was no mass scalping before the Pequot War in the 1640s. During the war “Connecticut and Massachusetts colonial officials had offered bounties… for scalps [of Native

Americans]” (Dunbar-Ortiz 4). Although scalping was present in the North America 42 already in the pre-Columbian era, it was European colonists who introduced the mass scalping of Native Americans for bounty.

Last stereotype about Native Americans discussed in connection to Two Little Indians is the coonskin cap worn by Tom. Although it was usually worn by “American frontiersmen” (V. Chang), it was first recognized as clothes of the Native Americans. One of the first records of the coonskin cap dates to 1777 when George Roush volunteered to be an Indian Spy at Fort Pitt (Dann 258). When he was asked to disguise himself as a Native

American he proceeded to “tan his thighs and legs with wild cherry and white oak bark and to equip himself after the following manner, to wit, a breechcloth, leather leggings, moccasins, and a cap made out of a raccoon skin, with the feather of a hawk, painted red, fastened to the top of the cap” (Pencak and Richter 244). The origin of the cap is therefore unsure, because although it is recorded that it was worn by an Indian spy, there is no evidence of actual Native Americans wearing this type of cap.

The episode portrays also several stereotypes about whites. One of them is that whites were unable to use the North American Indians’ bows. It is shown when Jerry tries to shoot Tom, but he fails three times until the little orphan comes and shoots Tom himself.

Another stereotype is that whites cannot smoke the ceremonial pipe as it is shown in the scene where Tom cannot puff the smoke out.

To sum up, the episode contains several stereotypes about both Native Americans and whites. Although Behnken and Smithers claim the episode Two Little Indians contains “the most extreme form of racism toward Native Americans” (97), in light of the analysis of the stereotypes the statement seems to be exaggerated. Most of the Native American stereotypes were created by misinterpretation of history, such as the headband or the scalping. Probably the only stereotypes that might be understood as ridicule of Native 43

Americans are the war cry and the orphans’ belligerent behaviour. On the contrary, there are stereotypes ridiculing whites as well, be it the inability to use the bow properly or the inexperience with smoking the ceremonial pipe. Despite containing many stereotypes, none of them seems offensive enough to earn the nickname of the “most extreme form of racism” given by Behnken and Smithers.

44

5 Censorship in Cartoons and Censored Scenes in Tom and Jerry

At the time of creation of early Hanna-Barbera Tom and Jerry episodes, the authors had to follow set of rules defined in the Motion Picture Production Code (Production Code) created in 1930. One of the main reasons for the creation of the Production Code was the concerns about the influence of film on children (Smith 73). The aim of the Production

Coda was to eliminate the elements of the films that would be most likely considered to affect children in a negative way.

The Production Code rules were later updated in 1954 with the creation of Comics

Code, which expanded several rules of the Production Code. Although it primarily aimed at the Comics Books, it expanded the rules of the Production Code and affected the cartoon as well. Joe Barbera explained that they “never had a serious censorship problem because they steered clear of problematic content” (qtd. in Cohen 132). Cohen calls this process “self- censorship” and explains it as a process when the compromising material is removed by the authors themselves (132). This process requires awareness of contemporary issues and applicable rules to the specific content.

5.1 Motion Picture Production Code 1930

In 1915 case Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio the United

States Supreme Court ruled that the freedom of speech does not apply to motion pictures.

This decision allowed a creation of censorship boards, especially in New York City in

1921. For film industry it was a big limitation as “New York represented one of the major markets in the United States” (Butters 148). In 1927 on the initiative of Motion Picture

Producers and Distributors of America representatives of several big film production

45 studios created a list of ‘Don’ts and Be Carefuls’ based on the materials usually marked as inappropriate by the individual censorship boards.

In 1930 several major film production studios accepted the Motion Picture

Production Code in the belief that “censorship could be defeated if the industry would essentially suppress censurable material from its films during production” (Prince 21). If there were different censorship boards in each state they could ban the film from screening, which would lead to the ban on the film in the particular state and to the loss of the box office. If the material that would otherwise cause the ban of the film was removed during the production, there was no need of censorship boards and therefore there was danger of the film being banned. “The result was a document that enshrined the ideals of family and marriage, religion and country abhorred behaviors that were sinful to the religious mind”

(Prince 21).

In both ‘Don’ts and Be Carefuls’ and the Production Code there are strict rules concerning vulgarity and profanity. In the paragraph V. of the Production Code titled

Profanity is a list of words that will cause that the film would not be given an approval. One of the topics are words “God, Lord, Jesus and Christ (unless used reverently)”. As it is mentioned in chapter 2.6, one of the famous Mammy Two Shoes’ quotes is ‘Land Sakes’, which was created by simplification of ‘For the Lord’s sake’.

5.2 Comics Code 1954

The Comics Code Authority (Comics Code) is based on the same principles as the

Production Code, although it was not created in order to avoid censorship. It was created because of the “widespread public concern over gory and horrific” content of the comics

(“The Press: Horror on the Newsstands”). The rules are similar to those of the Production

46

Code with addition to the religion and racial topic. In the paragraph on religion the Comics

Code states: “Ridicule or attack on any religious or racial group is never permissible.”

More specifically, the purpose of the addition was to limit the ridicule caricature portrayal of blacks and other racial groups.

The Comics Code further develops Production Code’s limitations concerning language, especially concerning the use of slang: “Although slang and colloquialisms are acceptable, excessive use should be discouraged and, wherever possible, good grammar shall be employed.”

The Comics Code was published in September 1954, nearly two months before the release of the episode Pet Peeve, where Tom and Jerry have white owners after the removal of Mammy Two Shoes in 1952. Moreover, after the publication of the Comics Code blackface and other racial gags disappear from Tom and Jerry.

The Comics Code affected Tom and Jerry immediately. Before 1954, a black stereotype appeared in almost every episode, represented either by Mammy Two Shoes or by a blackface gag. After 1954 there are no references to the black stereotypes and Tom and Jerry become free of the racial themes. However, the pre-Comics Code episodes, otherwise referred as the early Hanna-Barbera Production, were not innocent in the light of the racial policies. In order to avoid censorship problems, the episodes had to be rereleased to fulfil the Comics Code requirements with the special focus on the portrayal of blacks and minorities. A series of rereleases began in 1955 and continued until 1958.16 Some episodes were rereleased by MGM even after the closure of the MGM cartoon studio in 1957.

16 Based on the information from BoxOffice magazine, section “Shorts Chart”, published between 1955 and 1958. 47

Mammy Two Shoes was removed from the cartoon during Jones’ edits. She was replaced by a slim white woman and Lillian Randolph’s voice was redubbed by June Foray

(Cohen 57). Other racial stereotypes, such as blackface or Chinese gags were removed in the rereleases already in the late 1950s. The particular scenes were usually cut out (gags) or muted (AAVE or slang). Together with the removal of Mammy Two Shoes, many other scenes containing blackface or other potentially offensive content were removed as well.

There is a list of deleted scenes ordered by themes of the deleted scenes below. For the pictures of the deleted scenes see Appendix.

5.3 Blackface gags

The major difference between the blackface gags and blackface scenes discussed in chapters 3.2, 3.3 and 3.5 is in the length of the scene and its importance for the plot of the episode. Blackface gags were usually cut out from the episode which was then shown without the compromising scene, while the episodes containing blackface scenes were banned completely. The edits were based on the Comics Code’s rule that “ridicule or attack on any religious or racial group is never permissible”. Therefore the compromising scenes had to be removed in the later rereleases.

5.3.1 Yankee Doodle Mouse (1943)

Tom chases Jerry who hides into a yellow kettle; Tom throws a firecracker into the kettle and closes it. At first the firecracker seems to be faulty, giving Jerry time to run away through the kettle spout. Tom is suspicious that it did not explode and looks into the kettle at the very moment it detonates. The explosion leaves Tom in blackface with the remains of the kettle as sunflower petals (see Appendix, fig. 3).

48

Despite containing such depiction of African Americans, the episode won the

Academy Award for Best Short Subject in 1943.

5.3.2 Mouse in Manhattan (1945)

Jerry gets stuck on a chewing gum on the floor. When he frees himself, he slides next to a bottle of shoe polish. A man who is polishing shoes then mistakes Jerry for a brush and uses him to polish the shoes. After he does so, he puts Jerry’s head into the bottle of shoe polish, causing him to appear in blackface (see Appendix, fig. 4).

5.3.3 Safety Second (1950)

Nibbles lights a firecracker, but then he hides it from Jerry into a party horn. Jerry comes and blows the party horn when the firecracker explodes, causing him to appear in a blackface. The remains of the party horn create petals similar to those in Yankee Doodle

Mouse (see Appendix, fig. 5).

5.4 Pickaninny gags

Pickaninny is a stereotypical depiction of black children. Bogle describes it as

“a harmless little screwball creation whose eyes popped, whose hair stood on end with the least excitement, and whose antics were pleasant and diverting” (7). Pickaninny gags in the

Tom and Jerry cartoon are rather complex, as there are no children who appear in blackface. Instead, the characters appear in blackface with the typical features of little hair standing on end and a red ribbon on their heads. The scenes were usually removed by Jones in 1964 or 1965.

49

5.4.1 A Mouse in the House (1947)

Tom and Butch are chasing Jerry who hides in a gas oven. They close the oven door and turn on the gas, however, Jerry escapes through the ventilation. When Tom and Butch open the oven Jerry throws there a lit match, causing an explosion. Both cats appear in blackface with short braids with knots at the end; the Shortnin’ Bread tune plays in the background (see Appendix, fig. 6).

5.4.2 The Truce Hurts (1948)

Tom, Jerry and Spike walk side by side when they come to an oil puddle on the side of the road. There are two interpretations of the scene. Either that Spikes takes of his skirt- like jacket and has a red pullover underneath, or he takes off his skin and shows his muscles. Nevertheless, Spike throws it over the puddle so Tom and Jerry can cross it safely.

When they are getting ready to cross the puddle, a meat truck passes by and splashes them with the oil. After being splashed over, they are all in blackface with red ribbons on their ears (see Appendix, fig. 7).

5.4.3 The Little Orphan (1949)

Nibbles throws a candle that lands on Tom’s tail and burns his fur. Although he does not appear in blackface but in more of a burnt-brown, he has the typical pickaninny hair with knots standing on end. The offensiveness of this image is proved by two different edited versions. While in one version the entire scene is cut out, the other was redrawn by

Chuck Jones in the 1960s; instead of the short braids with knots at the end, Tom’s warbonnet retains on his head in a burnt-down form. The controversy of the scene is therefore in the depiction of the pickaninny hair rather that in the image of burnt Tom (see

Appendix, fig. 8).

50

Although the episode was officially released in 1949, it won the Academy Award for

Best Short Subject in 1948, because it was first screened already in 1948 in order to fulfil the requirements of the nomination for the Academy Award.

5.5 The Uncle gag

Uncle Tom is a stereotype of a loyal and religious slave, first portrayed in Stowe’s

Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In 1914 film interpretation of Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom is played by an African American actor Sam Lucas who was seventy-two-year-old at that time (Turner

79). This movie helped to stereotype Uncle Tom as an old and physically weak man. In

Tom and Jerry, the Uncle stereotype appears in the episode Old Rockin’ Chair Tom and it was removed by Jones on the same principle as the blackface and pickaninny gags.

5.5.1 Old Rockin’ Chair Tom (1948)

After Lightning kicks Jerry out of the house, he runs towards Mammy Two Shoes.

When passing by Tom, he spins Tom around, causing him to stagger. Lightning gives him a cane and puts a shaving cream on his face that creates the idea of a beard and remains of hair. Although the scene is uncut, Mammy Two Shoes’ voice is redubbed from “Take care of old Uncle Tom” to “Take care of old Tom”, removing the reference to the Uncle stereotype (see Appendix, fig. 9).

5.6 Asian gags

Asian gags are based on the ridicule of physical differences between the white and

Asian populations. These gags are different from the others, because they lampoon appearance rather than mental attributes or behaviour.

51

5.6.1 Puss N’ Toots (1942)

Tom chases Jerry onto a gramophone when Jerry changes the disc, which hits Tom to his head. Asian music starts playing when Tom appears with a Fu Man Chu moustache and epicanthic fold, typical for Asians. As he is slowly turning around on the gramophone disc with his paws crossed on his chest, Jerry parodies him and bows before the scene ends

(see Appendix, fig. 10).

5.6.2 Little Runaway (1952)

The little seal throws Tom against a bird bath, causing the bowl to fall on Tom’s head and making the gong sound. Tom’s whiskers imitate a Fu Man Chu moustache and his eyes imitate the epicanthic fold. With the bowl reminding of an Asian conical hat this gag is a prime example of the stereotypical portrayal of Asians (see Appendix, fig. 11).

5.7 Native American gags

Native American gags were removed on the same basis as the blackface and pickaninny gags. Apart from the previously discussed episodes containing Native American stereotypes these gags could have been removed without affecting the story.

5.7.1 The Mouse Comes to Dinner (1945)

Mammy Two Shoes is setting up the table when Jerry climbs on the tablecloth and hides in the plate with vegetables. He hides behind chives and then runs into a tepee-like napkin. When he looks out of the tepee he has a warbonnet made out of the chives (see

Appendix, fig. 12).

52

5.7.2 Flirty Birdy (1945)

The bird throws Tom down through the hollow trunk, causing Tom to fly into the laundry. Then he appears in the impression of a slightly hunched Native American with a warbonnet (see Appendix, fig. 13).

5.8 Other Cuts Because of the Comics Code

5.8.1 Flirty Birdy (1945)

There is another edited scene in the episode apart from the one described above.

Tom lures the bird with his eyelash to go behind the chimney. When the bird does so and looks behind the corner of the chimney, Tom hits him to his head with a brick. The bird then says “she loves me”, which was muted under Jones production.

The Comics Code states that “all characters shall be depicted in dress reasonably acceptable to society.” Tom’s disguise can be understood as a trick to look like one of the bird’s species until the bird refers to Tom as to ‘she’. By doing so he acknowledges Tom a woman; Tom’s costume thus could be interpreted as a sing of transvestism, which was unacceptable in connection with the Comics Code rule. The phrase “she loves me” was therefore muted and the hint on transvestism was removed.

5.8.2 Part-Time Pal (1947)

Tom’s drunk performance of a nursery rhyme “one for the money, two for the show, three to make ready and four to go” when he gets ready to splash the jug of water on

Mammy Two Shoes is muted in order to mitigate the drinking humour.

53

5.8.3 Saturday Evening Puss (1950)

When Jerry is awoken by the cats’ music he goes to complain to Tom: “I'm trying to sleep and youse guys are out here goin' bang bang bang bang!” His complains, though hardly understandable in the original version, are muted in the later rereleases based on the

Comics Code rule limiting the use of slang.

5.8.4 His Mouse Friday (1951)

At first, the episode His Mouse Friday was edited in the late 1950s to fit the 1954

Comics Code. Nevertheless, it was later banned completely and it was not shown on the television at all.

The phrases “barbecued cat” and “barbecued mouse” spoken by indigenous people of the island were muted, leaving their lips moving without uttering any sound. It was muted because of their disputed species; although they have humanlike chest, legs and feet, the face could be interpreted as both human and cat disguised in blackface. For the latter interpretation it would symbolise that the indigenous people are cannibals.

Comics Code rules that “scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism are prohibited”. Therefore the scenes had to be muted in order to eliminate the possibility of the cannibal interpretation of the episode.

5.8.5 Nit-Witty Kitty (1951)

Tom suffers from amnesia and he thinks he is a mouse. Jerry cures him with a hit to his head, but then Mammy Two Shoes gets the same idea and before hitting Tom she says: “It says here a sharp blow on the head is a sure cure for amnesia. And that what he is gonna get.” The scene was muted for two possible reasons; either for the use of slang as the

54 second sentence is grammatically incorrect or by derivation from a rule that “advertisement of medical . . . products of questionable nature [is] to be rejected”.

Nevertheless, the quote was not forgotten, the very same sentence was used by

Canadian rock band Saga as the intro to their song “Amnesia” (album Worlds Apart).

55

6 Present Day Censorship of Tom and Jerry

Warner Bros. Entertainment has been the official distributor of Tom and Jerry since

1998. Warner Bros. release their own content featuring Tom and Jerry as well as collections of the old ones. Between 2004 and 2007 they issued three-volume DVD Tom and Jerry

Spotlight Collection of Hanna-Barbera Tom and Jerry. The complete collection contained

112 out of the total of 114 episodes of Tom and Jerry. Two episodes, Mouse Cleaning and

Casanova Cat were excluded from the collection. The official statement of Warner Bros. was:

Two shorts, “Mouse Cleaning” and “Casanova Cat,” will not be included in the

third and final “Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection” of theatrical animated shorts

from the Hanna-Barbera era at MGM. Although this collection is intended for

mature audiences and collectors (not for children), Warner Home Video made the

decision to omit these two shorts because, regardless of their historical context and

artistic value, the offensiveness of certain scenes containing inappropriate racial

stereotypes would diminish the enjoyment of the Collection's 35 other classic

cartoons for a large segment of the audience. (Lacey)

In February 2013 it was announced that the two previously excluded episodes will not be featured on the DVD and Blu-ray two-volume collection Tom and Jerry Golden

Collection (Lambert , “Episode List for ‘Golden Collection Volume 2’”). The ban on the episodes caused confusion as the Golden Collection was primarily meant for collectors and not for children, for whom was the censored Spotlight Collection.

There is controversy about the second volume of the collection; the first volume was released on 25 October 2011, while in April 2013 it was announced that the second volume

56 has been postponed indefinitely (Lambert, “Blu-rays, DVDs Postponed for ‘Golden

Collection Volume 2’”).

In 2014 Amazon and iTunes put a disclaimer that the Tom and Jerry cartoon contains several racial stereotypes. The disclaimer caused uproar, especially after Coughlan points it out on the BBC internet portal. Nevertheless, this disclaimer is not the first acknowledgment of the racist content of early Hanna-Barbera Tom and Jerry.

The Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection, Volume 2 (2006) contains an introduction by

Whoopi Goldberg on behalf of the racist stereotypes portrayed in early Hanna-Barbera production. She says that “some of the cartoons here reflect prejudices that were common in American society, especially when it came to racial and ethnic groups. These prejudices were wrong then and are certainly wrong today.” Although these two statements appear in

2014 in Amazon’s official disclaimer, they did not cause uproar at the time of the publication of the Spotlight Collection in 2006. Goldberg explains that the stereotypes “are presented… to accurately reflect a part of our history that cannot and should not be ignored.” In the difficult situation of the racist content in the early Hanna-Barbera Tom and

Jerry episodes Warner Bros. decided to avoid censorship by acknowledging the possible offensiveness of the cartoon.

On 1 October 2014 Coughlan reports the disclaimer on Amazon:17

These animated shorts are products of their time. Some of them may depict some of

the ethnic and racial prejudices that were commonplace in American society. These

depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. While the following does not

represent the Warner Bros. view of today’s society, these animated shorts are being

17 Exact date of the publication of the disclaimer is not noted, however the estimated publication is around 30 September 2014. 57

presented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the

same as claiming these prejudices never existed. (Tom and Jerry Spotlight

Collection, Vol. 3)

The disclaimer, called a “trigger warning” by Coughlan, begins a public debate about the necessity of such warning for a cartoon that was created nearly 75 years ago. The disclaimer has both its supporters and opponents. The supporters usually point out that the disclaimer is advisory and is not a form of a censorship: “There’s nothing wrong with admitting openly that outdated and possibly offensive stereotypes and imagery exist in older cartoons or any kind of entertainment” (Winkle).

Some see similarities between the Motion Picture Production Code concerns about children and the Amazon’s disclaimer: “The advisory is really meant to warn parents that the cartoon may include things like smoking or the black housekeeper that they might have to explain to their children” (Beck qtd. in Crocker). Both the creation of the Production

Code and the publication of Amazon’s disclaimer were worried more about the influence of films on children rather than by their political correctness.

However, Perkins doubts the necessity of such “health warning”: “I struggle to see that the blackness of the adult and her [Mammy Two Shoes’] subordinate role in the household is likely to have a profound influence on the way a child understands the world in which she lives.”

The strongest criticism of the disclaimer comes from Frank Furedi, an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent. He describes the warnings as “empty- headed”, “false piousness” and part of a “new type of censorship which seems to be sweeping cultural life” (qtd. in Green). Moreover, he compares the disclaimer to George

Orwell’s ‘thought police’ in 1984. 58

In conclusion, the disclaimer is called by many different names such as “trigger” or

“health” warning. Jeff Chang fittingly closes the debate: “The Disclaimer may be an indication that times have indeed changed. But the strange fury of this debate may also begin to tell us how and why they haven’t.” The importance of the disclaimer is overemphasised, especially in Furedi’s commentary when he claims that it is a “new type of censorship”. The purpose of the disclaimer is to warn about a potentially offensive content of the racist stereotypes; nothing has been removed from the cartoon.

59

Conclusion

Almost every form of entertainment reflects difficulties of the time of its creation.

Tom and Jerry are no exception as they display the era of the WWII and the Civil Rights

Movements in the 1950s. The cartoon contains several racist stereotypes about African

Americans, Native Americans and other minorities. The purpose of the thesis was to document their occurrence and to develop the argumentation on why the cartoon is considered racist in the 21st century.

In the first chapter the thesis offered a brief overview of the periodization of the Tom and Jerry cartoon and the portrayal of African Americans. The main focus of the thesis was the early Hanna-Barbera era from 1940 to 1955. The breaking point in the Hanna-Barbera production was the publication of the Comics Code in 1954 and the series of rereleases of earlier episodes in 1955.

The second part of the thesis was concerned with the mammy archetype and its representation in Tom and Jerry. The origins of the archetype are in the postbellum era and the demand of “reconciliation motives”. The purpose of such “motives” was to unify the nation divided by the Civil War by bringing features that would allow the North and the

South to merge together. However, the archetype was not based on actual characters as it was proven in the following subchapter by providing evidence undermining the basic features of the archetype. Additionally, the chapter documented three representations of the mammy stereotype in the cartoon. The first and most famous portrayal was the character of

Tom and Jerry’s owner Mammy Two Shoes. She appeared in the episodes created between

1940 and 1952 and she was usually considered as the most obvious stereotypical representation of the stereotype. Mammy Two Shoes’ appearance, depiction and social

60 position were discussed in the two subchapters devoted to the character. Other two portrayals of the mammy stereotype occurred in the episodes The Milky Waif and A Mouse in the House, where Jerry, Tom and Butch respectively, disguise themselves as mammies.

The entire chapter was concluded by a practical analysis of Mammy Two Shoes’ language which contains many features of African American Vernacular English.

The third part provided analysis of the use of blackface in Tom and Jerry. The chapter gave an overview of the blackface social and historical background and discussed its influence on minstrel shows that were particularly popular between the 1840s and

1870s. Furthermore, the chapter noted three main appearances of blackface in Mouse

Cleaning, Casanova Cat and His Mouse Friday that were crucial for the evolution of the stories. The analyses of the episodes highlighted the main features of the blackface stereotype.

The fourth part was focused on the stereotypes about Native Americans and Behnken and Smithers’ statement that the depiction of the North American Indians in Tom and Jerry is extremely racist. Such representations appeared in three episodes: Kitty Foiled, The Little

Orphan and Two Little Indians. The chapter regarded the episodes thoughtfully and it considered different elements and depictions of the stereotypes. Although the conclusion was that the episodes indeed contain stereotypes about Native Americans, the Behnken and

Smithers’ statement was exaggerated.

The fifth chapter presented information about Motion Picture Production Code from

1930, Comics Code authority from 1954 and the censorship of Tom and Jerry in the late

1950s. The chapter also provided a detailed list of scenes that were cut out or edited in order to be shown on television. Although the gags noted in the episodes were rather severe, two of the episodes containing such stereotypes won the Academy Award: Yankee 61

Doodle Mouse and The Little Orphan. The first subchapter was focused on several occasions when one or two characters appeared in blackface, usually as a result of an explosion. The second and the third subchapters were concerned with other African-

American representations – the pickaninny and uncle stereotypes. The next two subchapters documented Asian and Native American gags. The chapter was closed by a list of episodes that were edited on the basis of Comics Code but did not contain any racist gags.

The last part of the thesis documented the ongoing debate about the censorship of the cartoon in the 21st century. First it discussed the omission of two episodes containing blackface and then it examined Amazon’s disclaimer about the cartoon’s potentially offensive content.

62

Appendix Censored Gags

Figure 3. Tom in Blackface after Explosion. Yankee Doodle Mouse. Dir. Joe Barbera and

William Hanna. MGM, 1943. Film.

Figure 4. Jerry in Blackface. Mouse in Manhattan. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna.

MGM, 1945. Film.

63

Figure 5. Jerry in Blackface after Explosion. Safety Second. Dir. Joe Barbera and William

Hanna. MGM, 1950. Film.

Figure 6. Tom and Butch in Blackface. A Mouse in the House. Dir. Joe Barbera and

William Hanna. MGM, 1947.

64

Figure 7. Spike, Tom and Jerry in a pickaninny gag. The Truce Hurts. Dir. Joe Barbera and

William Hanna. MGM, 1948. Film.

Figure 8. Burnt Tom. The Little Orphan. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM,

1949. Film.

65

Figure 9. Uncle Tom. Old Rockin’ Chair Tom. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM,

1948.

Figure 10. Asian Gag on a Gramophone. Puss N’ Toots. Dir. Joe Barbera and William

Hanna. MGM, 1942. Film.

66

Figure 11. Asian Gag with a Bird Bath. Little Runaway. Dir. Joe Barbera and William

Hanna. MGM, 1952. Film.

Figure 12. Jerry as a Native American. The Mouse Comes to Dinner. Dir. Joe Barbera and

William Hanna. MGM, 1945.

67

Figure 13. Tom as a Native American. Flirty Birdy. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna.

MGM, 1945. Film.

68

Works Cited Primary Sources

A Mouse in the House. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1947.

Buddies Thicker Than Water. Dir. Gene Deitch. Rembrandt Films, 1962. Film.

Casanova Cat. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1951. Film.

Dog Trouble. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1942. Film.

Flirty Birdy. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1945. Film.

Fraidy Cat. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1942. Film.

His Mouse Friday. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1951. Film.

Kitty Foiled. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1948. Film.

Life with Tom. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1953. Film.

Little Runaway. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1952. Film.

Mouse Cleaning. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1948. Film.

Mouse in Manhattan. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1945. Film.

Nit-Witty Kitty. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1951. Film.

Old Rockin’ Chair Tom. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1948.

Part Time Pal. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1947. Film.

Pet-Peeve. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1954. Film.

Polka-Dot Puss. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1949. Film.

Push-Button Kitty. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1952. Film.

Puss Gets the Boot. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1940. Film.

Puss N’ Toots. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1942. Film.

Safety Second. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1950. Film.

Saturday Evening Puss. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1950. Film.

69

Sleepy-Time Tom. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1951. Film.

The Flying Sorceress. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1956. Film.

The Framed Cat. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1950. Film.

The Little Orphan. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1949. Film.

The Lonesome Mouse. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1943.

The Midnight Snack. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1941. Film.

The Milky Waif. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1946. Film.

The Mouse Comes to Dinner. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1945.

The Truce Hurts. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1948. Film.

Triplet Trouble. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1952. Film.

Two Little Indians. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1953. Film.

Yankee Doodle Mouse. Dir. Joe Barbera and William Hanna. MGM, 1943. Film.

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& Other Offbeat Stuff. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2006. Print.

Bogle, D. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks

in American Films. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2001. Print.

Carby, H. Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman

Novelist. New York, NY: Oxford UP, 1987. Print.

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Summary The thesis focuses on Tom and Jerry, a popular cartoon created in the 1940s. The main premise of the thesis is the idea that all cartoons, films and media reflect the time of their creation. The aim of the thesis is to document individual racist stereotypes appearing in the cartoon and to discuss and analyse them in their socio-cultural context.

A brief introduction, in which the author explains the periodization of Tom and Jerry, is followed by the description of two stereotypical depictions of African Americans, the mammy and blackface stereotypes. The first one is an image of a black woman working for the white family in the postbellum period. This stereotype is represented by the owner of

Tom and Jerry, Mammy Two Shoes. The blackface stereotype was a method of disguise originally used by white actors who portrayed African Americans in the early times of the

American theatre. The stereotype is represented in the cartoon on many occasions that can be divided into two types: scenes with blackface and blackface gags. In the next part the author discusses the statement that there is an “extreme form of racism” towards Native

Americans in the cartoon.

The last part of the thesis is concerned with the censorship of the cartoon. First it describes the Motion Production Code from 1930 that created the basic set of rules for films. Then it focuses on the Comics Code Authority that was created in 1954 and discusses its impact on Tom and Jerry. Author of the thesis documents the edits that were made in order to fulfil requirements set by the Comics Code and provides a list of censored episodes. The very last subchapter discusses the censorship of the cartoon in the 21st century, especially in connection with Amazon’s 2014 statement about the racist content of

Tom and Jerry.

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Resumé Tato práce se zaměřuje na populární seriál Tom a Jerry vytvořený ve čtyřicátých letech dvacátého století. Hlavní premisou práce je tvrzení, že jak animované seriály, jejichž primárním účelem bylo pobavit dětského diváka, tak ostatní typy filmů a médií v sobě odrážejí dobu, v níž byly vytvořeny. Cílem autora je zdokumentovat jednotlivé rasistické stereotypy, které se v seriálu objevují, a popsat je v historicko-kulturním kontextu.

Po krátkém úvodu, v němž autor člení epizody Toma a Jerryho podle období, ve kterých byly vytvořeny, se práce zabývá dvěma stereotypními zobrazeními Afroameričanů.

Prvním je tzv. „mammy“ stereotyp, neboli archetyp černošky oddaně sloužící bělošské rodině i po zákazu otroctví a propuštění otroků, který je v seriálu reprezentován postavou majitelky Toma a Jerryho, Mammy Two Shoes. Druhým je pak stereotyp zvaný

„blackface“, což byla metoda nanášení barev na obličeje bílých herců, kteří měli představovat Afroameričany v divadelních hrách a představeních. V seriálu se tento

„blackface“ stereotyp objevuje v několika případech, které lze všeobecně rozdělit na scény a žerty. Zatímco scény trvají ze zásady déle a mají pro příběh epizody důležitější roli, žerty trvají pouze několik vteřin a jejich jediným účelem je pobavit na úkor zesměšnění některé z menšin. V další části se autor pozastavuje nad tvrzením, že se v seriálu objevuje

„extrémní forma rasismu“ vůči severoamerickým Indiánům a pokouší se pro tento výrok poskytnout důkazy.

Další část práce se věnuje cenzuře seriálu. Nejprve popisuje tzv. „Motion Picture

Production Code“ z roku 1930, který ustanovil základní pravidla ohledně obsahu filmů, a poté se věnuje „Comics Code Authority“ založené v roce 1954. Právě v roce 1954 byla upřesněna pravidla pro komiksy a animované seriály, zejména ohledně zobrazování národnostních menšin. Následuje seznam cenzurovaných scén, které musely projít

78 dodatečnou kontrolou a úpravami, aby mohly být vysílány v televizi. Poslední část práce se zaměřuje na cenzuru seriálu ve 21. století, zejména pak na oficiální varování, které k seriálu vydal Amazon ohledně rasistického obsahu Toma a Jerryho.

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