Cartoons like these weren't censored until the late '50s, well after the 'toon cleansing had begun in earnest (Elmer Fudd was born in 1940). Though this most perverse white fear-that people will cook you alive and eat you if you stumble upon their society-has persisted throughout cartoon history, it, too, has been deracialized, even dehumanized: the man-eaters have become Tasmanian devils and big orange fur balls named "Gossamer."Īs bleak a picture as these cartoons paint, it's notable that the animators weren't necessarily forced to clean up their acts. A similar fate has befallen the far more disturbing and recurring caricature of blacks as plate-lipped cannibals. The hapless hunter has been deracialized-not so much "turned white" as neutralized, distilled to a Bugs Bunny gray. In fact, the black character in this cartoon has many of the same mannerisms as Fudd, gets suckered in the same way Fudd does (by being literally turned into a lollipop), and even has the same body type. In one short, a dopey black hunter tries to shoot Bugs Bunny, and the wily rabbit outwits him time after time. Many of the cartoons are not as outré as you might think. ![]() White audiences used to guffaw at the "other" in these cartoons now they get to laugh nervously at the "self."ĭennis Nyback's Bad Bugs Bunny revue is back, unearthing once again rare prints of the racist and sexist cartoons that reveal America's bigoted roots. Now, whites resurrect these embarrassingly obsolete grotesques because we're squeamish about the past. White animators in the early part of the 20th century drew exaggerated racial caricatures because they were squeamish about other races.
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