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Topic: Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted January 23, 2010 09:03 AM
Magnificent cartoon. Derann did a stunning print of this cartoon and it is one of the absolute best Warner Brothers cartoons you will ever see on Super 8.
Yes, racial stereotypes, but then Warners stereotyped all races, white, black, hispanic, Indian and asian, whatever the situation called for. I love the cartoon for it's scat music/jazz soundtrack. It moves at an incredible pace and is among Bopbn Clampett's best.
I already have this Derann print. Are they still releasing this print? I know that some of their earlier Warners are out of print, (such as my highly desired "Gruesome Twosome"!)
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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Tom Photiou
Film God
Posts: 4837
From: Plymouth U.K
Registered: Dec 2003
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posted January 24, 2010 08:33 AM
Well, this is a great cartoon, the Derann print is stunning and i have put this on a kids show before and not one single child or adult complained about it, the children laughed all the way through, the adults sniggered, and if anyone tried to have any verbals about it i was ready for them, ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
I think a lot of the PC nonsense comes from the adult world, refer to my previous editions of FFTC on cartoons, you can see where it just goes OTT. I love a laugh, todays cartoons teach kids how to back chat there elders and with some of the faggot, ere sorry ,gay paradys i say give me the good old Warner and Tom & Jerrys any day. Although there may be racial undertones in some of them you never hear anything said which is directly nasty. IMHO ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted January 24, 2010 02:07 PM
Good points, Tom.
There's something else quite important to factor in, especially when it comes to Asian characters.
We were at war.
The japanese were the enemy. Now today, we live in such a mixed-up world that we actually have people who would say, "We can't make fun of that arab (or name whatever nationality)! Thats insensitive", completely ignoring the fact that these people are KILLING our fellow americans, and not just solders, women and children.
The world war 2 cartoons were dealing with people who wanted to kill us, and destroy our way of life and that was a fact, so when Bugs Bunny would say "Here ya go slant eyes!" (giving the japanese solder an "ice cream grenade") or Daffy making fun of stereotyped German's or Italians ...
... if this was the worst that was done, it was incredibly upperhanded.
That doesn't mean that any kind of racism is OK. The world war 2 cartoons, were not a matter of racism, it was a matter of these are THEE enemy. You aren't going to endorse and make nice and clean the enemy. It strange, because today, we almost tend to do that.
I don't necessarily agree with the idea "well, that was just what was done back then", as Chuck Jones was quoted as saying, but I would also say that to place the morals and methods of today on a very different period of time, is equally wrong. I don't think for a moment that the Warners lot, (and lets not forget that Disney himself equally had its own share of "racist" material, though they have done a great job of hiding it), or any other studio was made up of a bunch of racists or bigots.
There I go being long winded again. It's just a GREAT cartoon folks!
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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John Skujins
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 220
From: Greensboro, NC, USA
Registered: Mar 2009
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posted January 25, 2010 03:52 PM
Well, I do not believe any classic cartoons should be censored or altered in any way, or restricted from the public for any reason. They are what they are and history should not be "revised."
That said, I considered ordering "Coal Black" from Derann (after a fuzzy preview on YouTube) because I found it to be interesting, shocking, and I just like having rare stuff! But I decided against it because I wouldn't want to show it to an audience. I would just be uncomfortable with having to explain why I own this cartoon, as some of the black stereotypes are extreme.
In this case you can't explain it by saying they were "the enemy" and so we had to dehumanize them as a race. Blacks were not an enemy of the US, although groups like the KKK considered them an enemy obviously.
As for the asian stereotypes in other cartoons, I don't agree with the reasoning that it was okay to criticize their physical appearance because some of them wanted to kill us. The dehumanizing of an entire race of people, though it may get the troops excited about killing them, is not right in my opinion. And that goes for middle-easterners too: Most of them don't want to destroy the US so insulting their appearance will only cause harm to their image of Americans (or westerners).
Basically, I don't want to insult people, even if I think they have no good reason to be insulted. It's the effect that matters, not the intention.
My two cents.
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted January 25, 2010 09:55 PM
Your reply concerning the Tom and Jerry's is quite interesting, as the original Tom and Jerry's had a housekeeper "Mammie" character ...
" When I says out, I means out! O.W.T Out! "
Many of these were actually re-animated to show instead an irish housekeeper, (and, if compared to the original animation surrounding, not up to snuff). Though many of the original Mammie versions of the Tom and Jerrys are available on Super 8.
I just mention it as everybody, every studio, engaged in the stereotypes.
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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Tom Photiou
Film God
Posts: 4837
From: Plymouth U.K
Registered: Dec 2003
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posted January 26, 2010 06:04 AM
John, this is what i mean buddy, you'd like to get the cartoon but you say you wouldnt have a audience to show it to?
Well. treat yourself up and get it for you, other than that, anyone who doesnt like it, well, then they wont have to see it a second time, no one should have to explain to anyone why we like anything. Its a cartoon, its classic and its very funny.
Strange how we never seem to worry about folks in the mid-east calling us everything they do, and Whites in movies being refered to white trash and do whites say to police, are you arresting me cos im white? so the list goes on, its always one way so why must we pick holes in kids cartoons,
Dont be afraid to put that rare (and top quality)film in your collection because of what others may think, if they ask you why you want it the answer is simple,
your a collector of rare titles and its dam funny
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John Skujins
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 220
From: Greensboro, NC, USA
Registered: Mar 2009
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posted January 26, 2010 08:09 AM
Tom, I was tempted to buy a print for myself, and friends who would appreciate it for what it is, but whenever I've decided to splurge on a new print there's always something else I would rather have.
Yes, there are lots of crazy & stupid "white" cartoon characters, but there really aren't any offensive "white" stereotypes historically unless you break it down into specific ethnicities like Italian, Jew, etc... and people do get offended by these, understandably. I don't think Elmer Fudd matches any ethnic stereotype, so he's not offensive.
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted January 26, 2010 08:36 AM
Elmer speaks with a speech inpediment! How incredibly insensitive! How can we say we're PC if we tolerate such travesty!
OK, I'm being silly, of course. I think a factor of all this is white people being the "top dog" (so to speak) and the top dog doesn't have a long history of abuses, and the images reminding them of those said abuses of the past.
One of the other things I like about that cartoon is the little "microcasm" (I'm not sure if I spelled that right) of life in the 40's, especially during the war years. "Prince Chawmin" wsearing a zoot suit and that CRAZY hat, with sparkling dice for teeth, a figure who wopuld have been known as a "hep cat" back then. The cartoon had quite a few of the popular black artists as characters in the film, including Stephin Crechit.
" I wants you to black out So White "
This backlash took out another classic film, one of the classic MGM "Red Riding Hood" cartoons, "Uncle Tom's Cabana" where "Red" is a Southern Belle.
The cartoons of our history actually accurately show the change in tastes and the emerging of PC. You rarely see a lot of black stereotype or other racial characters after the war year.
The fdirst to disappear were black Characters, but interestingly, the one group where, to this very day, you see PC accepted stereotyping is the Irish.
They are always cops
They are always hard drinkers.
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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