“Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs” (1943) is an American cartoon, Warner Brothers’ answer to Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937). It is seven-minute long comedy set to jazz music and has an all-black cast.
Some say it is one of the best cartoons ever made, yet Cartoon Network, which owns the rights, never shows it. It was pulled from American television in 1968 and became one of the “Censored 11” – cartoons that are so thoroughly racist that editing out a racist joke here or a blackface character there could not save them.
While it is clear that it is well made and that you are supposed to be laughing your head off, it keeps hitting you over the head with image after image of blacks as being little better than monkey men, as creatures with huge lips and big eyes.
The only character who looks like a black person in a cartoon and not some creature is So White, the main character (called Coal Black in the title to avoid trouble with Disney). But even she is a stereotype: she shows way more flesh than Snow White, a sort of early video vixen.
The evil queen is a big, ugly black woman who sounds like a man.
Prince Chawmin wears a zoot suit, drives a big car and has gold teeth.
The cartoon was directed by Bob Clampett, who gave the world Porky Pig, Tweety Bird and Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent. He was white. He loved jazz and got the idea for doing a black cartoon set to jazz from talking to Duke Ellington two years before.
Clampett took great pains to make the cartoon as true to black life as possible:
- He went with his men to Club Alabam in Los Angeles to get a feel for black music and dance.
- Clampett hired as many black musicians as the company would allow.
- He used only black voice actors, like Dorothy Dandridge’s sister, Vivian (she plays So White).
Herb Jeffries, one of the black musicians, was proud of the cartoon. In fact, for its time it was one of the better cartoons featuring blacks!
Yet except for So White, all the black characters are drawn in blackface. Since when do black people have big white lips? But for over a hundred years whites had been watching blackface entertainers – white men with black faces who “acted black” to get laughs. It became how whites saw blacks. So much so that Clampett could not see the difference between black and blackface (neither could Mark Twain).
Even in the 1970s and 1980s Clampett still defended the cartoon:
There was nothing racist or disrespectful toward blacks intended in that film at all… Everybody, including blacks had a good time when these cartoons first came out. All the controversy … has developed in later years merely because of changing attitudes toward black civil rights that have happened since then.
See also:
- blackface
- The Jezebel stereotype – what So White is an example of
- Jim Crow
- Dorothy Dandridge
Juan over at Highbrid Nation did a nice piece on these racist cartoon showing up on the net. My opinion on the whole thing is that these cartoons need to be soon and should not be sweeped under a rug or locked in a vault. They are part of our history. Our society (Whites and blacks alike) seem to want to hide or “ban” anything viewed as racist. Whats the end goal? To say “look. no racism”. We need to look at things such as these cartoons so we can understand how deep rooted racism is and was. Only then can we move forward. Pretending like they don’t exist doesn’t help.
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Everyone in America should see it in school. People need to know the history of the country and, like you said, not sweep it under the rug.
Thanks for the link.
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I agree wholeheartedly! These things should not be swept under the rug as they are a part of history. Many young people today are unaware of these forms of ‘entertainment’ and as a result are ignorant of how these images have impacted racism today. In the scheme of history, these cartoons are fairly recent. There is a Jim Crow museum which collects similar artifacts like ads, posters, figurines et.; http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/index.htm
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The Jim Crow Museum is great!!! You would never know this stuff through the Official Sanitized Version of American history.
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Y’know, I hear what people are saying, but screw this “it’s part of our history” crap.
It’s a part of white American history, and I wish it would be taught as such. This is the ugly side— the only side, in my opinion— of white history. I say “only” because there’s a difference between “European” or “American” history, which is generally what we’re taught, and “white” history, which is generally denied to exist— and which I personally feel is predicated entirely on assumed superiority to (and resultant oppression of) non-white people. How many Americans are even aware that “whiteness” DID NOT EXIST until a few hundred years ago? How many know why it came to be? There’s a great big whistling hole in social studies curricula. Why is slavery taught as a black history when it’s primarily white history? (And not quite history, even.) It’s bullshit.
Everyone in America should see this horror (and others like it) in school? Oh hell yes. But in the interest of triage, I’m mostly concerned about the white kids’ education. “Coal Black & De Sebben Dwarfs” is a part of the definition (verb) of whiteness. Teach that!
Then we can work on the non-black kids of color, and the job will be easier. (It’s easier to dig a hole when someone else isn’t constantly filling it in.) And then, the black kids. Because let’s face it, most of the black kids are eventually going to learn this isht on their own.
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I don’t get it.
Why is so bad this cartoon? i found it hilarious, it had some amazing animation, timing, blending with the music, it’s f*cking fast paced, and drops a gag one after another without missing a beat. Just perfect!
Racist? again, i don’t get it.
No one complains if a white man is portrayed as white trash? no one says it’s racist, right?
No mexican ever complained of the despiction of the other mices in the speedy gonzales series…
You american are so afraid of being P.I. so you try to hide those kind of things to the world. Pure Art!
jesus surely looked less blond and blue eyed than in most of their depictions, and no one ever complain about it….
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Ok, let me see. So White (Coal Black) is the only person here who looks human. Not sure about the prince, but the evil witch and especially dwarfs don’t look human. Dwarfs look like animals.
So White has a beautiful face (what’s wrong with big eyes? Most of the cartoons have them) but her skirt is way too short and mannerism is obviously oversexed.
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Abagond you stated in the post
“It was pulled from American television in 1968 and became one of the “Censored 11″ – cartoons that are so thoroughly racist that editing out a racist joke here or a blackface character there could not save them”
I remember reading something similar about Dumbo. The writer of the piece stated the scenes with the stepin fetchit crows are too pivotal to the plot to explain how Dumbo gets to the next portion of the story without it & as such Disney opts to not air it anymore. White Supremacy shoots itself in the foot from finances to entertainment all-around. Think of how much residual money could be made from repeats, an animated adaption or remake? Think of how many kids never get to see an otherwise good film due to parents of all races believing the depiction of the crows was in poor taste? I can only smh at the madness.
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^^^
Disney Dumbo I’ve seen maybe a year ago still had the crows in blackface doing their spiel. The story is still such a sweet one, minus those two particular scenes. Though my kiddos didn’t pick up on the racist theme, thought the crows were just plain silly.
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I kind of remember this all those animated films from Disney to Looney Tunes and The Tom and Jerry shows were racially offensive this was and is the mindset of white America. Even with editorials today depict the POTUS as a primate or some offensive watermelon joke. America is a racist country.
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So Warner Brothers is responsible for this disgusting tripe. I am not surprised.
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A post on “Song of the South” or Uncle Remus would be good.
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Reblogged this on Wrapped in Rainbows and commented:
While researching Jim Crow I discovered this and other interesting posts by blogger Abagond. I am very impressed.
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