How successfully has animation been used to represent gender and/ or otherness?

Racial representation in animation is an issue that has always been present, especially in the early years of animation, in which racism was prevalent. However, it has only been over the last few decades that increasing attention has been directed towards racial stereotypes that are represented within animation, as racial representation was not an issue when these animations were created as it is in today’s society. With social views on racism changing throughout the decades, animations that have dealt poorly with racial representation are seen to be offensive and insensitive towards multiculturalisms. For instance, in animated shorts such as the Merrie Melodies’ Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs, and Tom and Jerry, we see racial stereotypes being displayed. Not only do we see this in short animations, but it is also an issue that is prevalent in mainstream animated films created by Disney such as, The Lion King, Aladdin, Dumbo, Pocahontas, Mulan and also independent films such as The Triplets of Belleville – Belleville Rendezvous. Having said this there is also a number of animated shorts and films that also represent race in a healthy fashion such as, Bill Cosby’s Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (fig.1), which “covered issues pertinent to inner-city black children” (Watson, 2010). Watson also stated that the “1970s witnessed a landmark for African American animation” and proved that cartoons could finally be “a point of pride”, particularly for African Americans. This kind of animation has been continued thirty years later with Aaron McGruder’s Boondocks (fig.2) series, which “exploits the limitless possibilities of its medium to provide the type of outrageous racial satire rarely seen”(Watson, 2010). Despite this however, (Rose, 2014) argues that racial politics within animation are “stuck in the 1970s” and states that modern animation is “teaching children the finer points of racial prejudice”. With many different views being given upon racial representation within animation, this essay will attempt to answer the question of whether or not animation is being used to successfully represent race. There are several issues that revolve around racial representation however, due to the word limit of this essay, not all of these issues will be discussed.

The most obvious issue of race within animation is how well non-white races are represented in animations that are created in predominantly white cultures, such as America, which is the home to Disney and other mainstream animation companies that have produced animated series such as the Merrie Melodies. During the 1930s through to the 1950s, it was the African-American culture that was the prime target for racial stereotyping. In 1943, Merrie Melodies produced an animated short film, Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs, which is highly offensive and extremely racist towards black culture. The characters within this animation are “resolutely grotesque” (Watson, 2010), and extremely stereotypical. Characteristics such as their mouths, other facial features and some bodily features are exaggerated in an extreme fashion (fig.3). Not only are the appearances of these characters stereotypical, but the accents and the actions of these characters are also portraying an incorrect representation of the African-American culture. For instance, there is a very strong sense of a “ghetto” nature to the characters that is prevalent throughout the entire animation, ultimately encouraging an audience to assume that all African-American’s behave that way. It is also “notable that the cartoon demonstrates that black characters could get away with doing things that white characters never could” (Dubb, 2013), through the strong implication that “So White engages in some sort of sexual activity with the men of Murder Incorporated” (Dubb, 2013). One could argue that this implied that African-American people, at the time, were more likely to engage in activities and actions that White people would not, suggesting that black people were more immoral. However, Warner Bros was not the only animation company that was using stereotypes to entertain their audiences. Walter Lantz Productions, home to Woody the Woodpecker, created an extremely racist cartoon named Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat (fig.4), in 1941. This animation appears to have no apparent or obvious storyline or plot, leading one to believe that the main purpose of this animation was to simply portray the racial stereotypes that were prevalent in the 1940s. The animation implies that black people will “sleep the day away” (Dubb, 2013) in their town, which is offensively called Lazytown, until a young attractive female arrives on a riverboat and “motivates the lethargic populace to dance and shimmy” (Dubb, 2013); ultimately suggesting that music is the only thing that will motivate African-Americans.

At this point in history, Disney was one of the largest and most popular animation companies that were creating full length animated features that would be influential to many generations of children, yet this was also a company that had created many racially offensive characters and animations already. For instance, by 1941, Dumbo had been made, with its jive-talking crows (fig.5), and Fantasia had also been made, in which a black centaur named Sunflower (fig.6) was a “textbook example of the ‘pickaninny’ caricature” (Watson, 2010) (it can be noted that by the 1960 release of Fantasia, Sunflower the centaur was completely cut from the film due to a shift in civil rights sensibilities) and then Disney followed up with the Song of the South (fig.7) in 1946, in which we see a “romanticised view of post-slavery race relations” (Watson, 2010). Cohen (1997) states that despite the fact that Song of the South was recognised by The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People as having “remarkable artistic merit” the production “helps to perpetuate a dangerously glorified picture of slavery” giving a distortion of the true relationships between master and slave. During the production of this film, Disney had been warned several times about using black stereotypes (Cohen, 1997), which raises concern as to whether the Disney Studio were actually aware of the racial satires they were using and whether or not they were sensitive to the effects that these satires and racial connotations had on the audiences they were entertaining.

With the arrival of World War II racism within animation and cartoons increased greatly, as the Americans were portraying the “Japanese and the Germans in an unflattering light” (Dubb, 2013). For example, in Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips (fig.8), the Japanese are “portrayed as yammering myopic, buck-toothed imbeciles” (Dubb, 2013). Not only does this animation portray the Japanese in a strong stereotypical way, but it also uses outright racial slurs and obscenities such as, “slant-eyes” and “monkey face”. The fact that such racism is so openly expressed within a cartoon aimed at children, suggests that the whole purpose of the animation itself was to instil racial prejudice amongst the audience and imply that such racism was acceptable. Another example of this can be seen in Disney’s Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi (1943) (fig.9) in which the Germans are portrayed as stupid, clumsy and “big headed”, which only makes them appear inferior to other people, encouraging the audience to believe that is true and act accordingly. Stereotypes within animation were not the only thing that World War II changed however. In Los Angeles in particular, the world war brought about a large influx of immigrants that were predominantly black in order to work in the factories, which caused many riots due to racial stereotyping. Having said this, it was not long after the Second World War that there was an obvious “demise of racist images in cartoons” (Dubb, 2013). According to Dubb (2013), people were becoming rapidly aware of the problem of racism and were less inclined to pay to see a movie they deemed offensive. This lead to cartoons being made that “steered clear of anything that would potentially alienate any portion of the audience” (Dubb, 2013), as it was becoming more expensive to produce cartoons. Not only were people becoming more aware of the problem concerning racism but, advocacy groups were beginning to generate a voice and were becoming more vocal against racism. With such an awareness building for an issue that had already been going on for a very long period, it was safe to say that the face of animation was changing. At the same time as this newly found awareness was spreading, cartoon studios had found a new popular medium that was providing a new wave of income in the form of television. Throughout this time many cartoon studios were attempting to be more sensitive towards racial issues and edited many of the cartoons before re-releasing them on television.  For instance, any cartoons “where the black stereotypes were too pervasive” (Dubb, 2013) such as Little Lulu, were locked away and never shown again along with other cartoons that the studios deemed as the “worst offenders”. Blackface gags were also edited out and many of the voiceovers for black characters were re-done.

Having said this, one could argue that although many of the cartoon studios were becoming more aware of the effects of racism, they still were not doing enough to remove racial stereotyping from their shows. In particular, within the twentieth century Disney produced a number of animated feature length films that have been criticised and scrutinised for containing incorrect racial portrayals of a number of different cultures. In 1967 Disney created a film that portrayed the life of an Indian boy that is brought up by jungle animals. The Jungle Book was a film that children loved to watch however; it is also a film that “overtly invokes negative stereotypes” (Miller and Rode, 1995). The characters within the film, despite the fact that they are animals, are organized into certain racial stereotypes, for instance Baloo (fig.10) is a “scat-singing, bebop inflected bear” (Miller and Rode, 1995) and King Louie (fig.11) is a “potentate ape” (Miller and Rode, 1995) with a vain desire to be human. As stated by Miller and Rode (1995), this type of racial stereotyping finds its “fullest expression in a scene in King Louie’s jungle kingdom” (Miller and Rode, 1995), which is portrayed as a decaying, abandoned remain of “some now extinct, supposedly ‘primitive’ culture”. In this culture the monkeys speak in “jazz vocalese and everybody ‘swings’” (Miller and Rode, 1995). The fact that the monkeys are portrayed in this way leads an audience to believe that the monkeys can be associated with stereotypical African-American culture. Not only does it do this, but it also sets in motion the idea that black people should be associated with apes, which young children will pick up on almost immediately, as many children tend to be impressionable at young ages. Within this scene King Louie also sings the famous song “I Want to be Like You” to Mowgli in a familiar black-coded voice, which “reflects the most stereotypic African-American dialect” (Miller and Rode, 1995). When the connection is made between King Louie and African-Americanism, it becomes apparent that the lyrics within his song are a “humiliating revelation” (Miller and Rode, 1995), as King Louie expresses his desire to be a man. This raises the question of Disney’s view on African-American culture and of black people as a whole, as it appears that the film is implying that black people are an inferior race and not quite human even, as an “ape can learn to be human too”.  It is not only African-American culture that the film targets. The Jungle Book “invariably endows regal mannerisms and posh British accents to characters of power” (Miller and Rode, 1995) regardless of where their morals stand and characters of a lower “class” are given a lower-class British accent. Although this is more classist than it is racist the fact that the accents used are those of a stereotypical nature, it still raises the issue of the incorrect cultural portrayal of the British culture. According to Miller and Rode (1995) the film further “distinguishes among its entitlements, assuring the ultimate primacy of the ‘man’ whom Mowgli is to become”. Within the film King Louie is described as “beneath contempt” while Baloo is a “shiftless, stupid, jungle bum”. The fact that so much emphasis has been placed upon the fact that Mowgli is a man and that he is superior only to characters such as King Louie and Baloo, again suggests that the African-American culture within the film is not seen as an equal part of humankind and is more primitive than other cultures within the film.

Unfortunately, this was not the only case of strong racial stereotyping within their films. In 1992 Disney saw the release of Aladdin, which was a large success despite the fact that the film “draws into question issues of ‘identity’, especially related to...ethnicity” (Griffin, 1994). Upon the film’s release, Arab-Americans began to “loudly voice their objections to the portrayal of Arabic culture in the cartoon” (Griffin, 1994), protesting that the portrayal of Arabs as “cruel, dim-witted sentinels” and as “thieves and unscrupulous vendors” was a highly offensive and stereotypical account of Arabian culture. Throughout this film there are many racial stereotypes that are quite visibly present and that portray the Arabs to be a menacing, mischievous, devious and cruel people, which in fact is the opposite of the Islamic culture altogether. One scene within the film depicts an Arab merchant attempting to cut off Jasmine’s hand for feeding a small hungry child an apple from the merchant’s cart (fig.12). This alone is a direct stereotypical flaw, as it is known that within the Islamic culture it is the norm for people to give food to the hungry with no penalty. This portrayal is also incorrect, as theft is punishable by cutting off a hand in Saudi Arabia only, yet Disney still chose to portray this as an “Arabian thing” leading an audience to believe that this is the case within all variations of the Arabian culture. This leads one to believe that Disney intended for this stereotype to be there, as it helps to portray the Arabs as the “bad guys” making the main, Americanised characters appear to be the “good guys”. This then raises the question of the intentions behind the making of the film and what message Disney were trying to portray to their child audience at the time. There are also other issues within this film concerning the design of the characters. For instance, it is more than clear that the meaner, crueller Arabs (fig.13) are designed with darker skin tones and have stronger accents than the kinder characters (fig.14). This simply adds to the questions of Disney’s intentions when they made this film.

Other films created in the 1990s such as The Lion King and Pocahontas also contains strong racial stereotypes. However, it was not until the Hyenas (fig.15) within The Lion King appeared that the film was picked up for its racist connotations, up until this point the film appeared to be successfully representing race in a healthy way. As stated by (Vraketta), the hyenas within the film are portrayed as “slobbery, mangy, stupid poachers” and at the “bottom of the food chain”, which raises questions about what the characters potentially portray about the African-American culture to the child audience that this film is aimed at. The hyenas within the film are also considered to be brutish and aggressive and are seen to be bullying Simba, implying that black people, to which these animals are associated with throughout the film, are the same. The fact that they are referred to as at “the bottom of the food chain” is yet another example of how Disney appears to be referring to black people as an inferior race. Furthermore, the film’s opening song The Circle of Life conveys the films “self-confessed inability to represent Africa and masks the...reluctance to represent black people as people at all, African or otherwise” (Vraketta). This only strengthens the concept that Disney was very prejudice towards the African-American culture and that demonstrates the fact that racism was still an issue despite all the efforts made to reduce it within animation.  Pocahontas is another example of racial stereotyping. One could argue that the song Savages within Pocahontas teaches the audience that it is acceptable to alienate and have a strong distaste towards someone because they are of a different race. Not only this, but the song refers to the Native Americans as savages, implying that all Native Americans are aggressive and brutish, which is far from the truth.

As animation moved into the twenty-first century, it was apparent that efforts to remove incorrect cultural representations were being pushed however, taking a look at animated films that have been made today, one could argue that whilst the racial stereotyping isn’t explicit as it was in the twentieth century, there are still many animations that deliver racial stereotypes on a more subtle, implicit level. Take films such as Rio, Planes, Cars and Despicable Me 2 in which there are many racial stereotypes that are present that aren’t all that subtle in some cases. For instance, in Despicable Me 2, the main protagonist within the film is a “grotesquely caricatured Mexican” (fig.16) (Rose, 2014), who sports a large nose, big belly and a golden medallion around his neck. The fact that such blatant racial stereotyping is evident in such a recent film suggests that racial prejudice is something that still exists within the animation industry. Recent films also see another approach towards misrepresentation of race through the use of eradicating racial diversity altogether and using the time period the film is set in as an excuse. Frozen is a prime example of a story taking place in one of these “ethnically cleaned ‘historical’ realms” (Rose, 2014). Despite the fact that the film has become “the most successfully animated film of all time” (Rose, 2014), Frozen, is “probably the least diverse” (Rose, 2014). Rose (2014) argues that films such as Frozen and Frozen in particular, represent a step backwards in animation for campaigners such as the NAACP. However, despite this there are a few films, that one could argue, represent race in a healthy fashion, such as, The Lego Movie, which “felt no need to caricature along simplistic race lines (Rose, 2014). There is also Blue Sky Studio’s Epic, which features a brown skinned fairy queen (fig. 17) and a diversity of different accented characters that don’t follow the norms of racial stereotyping. Disney Pixar’s Wall.E is also another really good example of healthy racial representation, as the characters don’t contain any form of caricature or stereotypical accent.

It could be argued that animation has come a long way in terms of racial representation, as the racial stereotyping appears to be less offensive and explicit in the twenty-first century than when it appeared in the twentieth century. However, there are still a lot of animations out there that instil a more implicit sense of racial prejudice within their audiences. It is evident amongst modern day animation that racial representation is something that is thought carefully about in most cases, yet despite this move towards more diversity within animation, there still appears to be issues on how to approach this problem and attempts to solve the problem, more often than not, tend to miss the mark ultimately making the film incorrectly represent race. Having said this, a lot more effort could go into thinking about character design and how certain characters are voiced, as the voice of a character has a major impact on the race they are associated with. Racial stereotyping is something that will always be an issue within animation, but this hasn’t been a barrier to success for the animation sector nonetheless, there are many things the animation sector could do to reduce the misrepresentation of race that they simple aren’t and this is having a major effect on the way children, animations main audience, perceive the world. Overall, it appears that animation doesn’t represent race as well as it should, yet it feels as though the animation sector is on a very slow course in the right direction.

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