When does a caricature become racist?

"Why, Papa, yo' lips are so big!"

As anyone who has read this site would know, I'm not much for political correctness. I recently made a joke about suicide, for God's sake. The other day I posted a link to an article that outlined (jokingly) the nine most racist Disney cartoons. The website that first posted a link to the article, Cartoon Brew, has been overwhelmed by comments, most arguing that Disney wasn't being racist, they were just using ethnic caricatures. You know, caricatures like the picture above*. Nothing racist about that.

Some comments:

"The fact that they keep bringing this up, and going after relatively harmless stereotypes makes the people who wrote this the real racists, as well as people like Spike Lee who are constantly finding racism where it doesn’t exist."

"I think these people are looking way too much into these cartoons. Walt just wanted to show the streotypes. There are SOME people that are like this in the world. It`s true. If we`re going to get offended because of every little thing, then we’ll spend our whole lives whining."

"Even as a “joke” this annoys me. It’s more PC censorship bullshit. If they don’t like it, they shouldn’t see the movies. Whining pussies. FYI They left a major one out, The big bad wolf in “the 3 little pigs” dressed as a very stereotypical Jewish peddler in one scene to try to get in to the pig’s house. ALSO King Louis wasn’t supposed to be “black”. He was voiced by Louis Prima an Italian-American from New Orleans. How racist of them to assume."

So, as the title of this post asks, when does a caricature become racist?

First, it must be pointed out that these "caricatures" stem from the white media's view of different races at the time. Blacks, right up until the 50's were portrayed as bug-eyed, prat-falling idiots, so the animation is merely caricaturing the caricature! I think one of the commenters got it pretty right when he said:

"I think there’s a lot less basis than we imagine. What do most of us really know about black people in the 1930’s that isn’t originated from white media?

If you take a look at the genuinely black-written, black-produced, black-directed and black-acted cinema of the 1930’s and 40’s (there was such a thing) you won’t see much like the hollywood film stereotypes. They appear as regular human beings, who neither slur their speech nor shuffle their walk. They don’t bulge their eyes out and say things like “Feet don’t fail me now!”. Neither do they braid their hair into spikes that stick straight out of their head. It’s a world completely unlike what Hollywood would show you.

And yet the Hollywood version won, positioning itself as a caricature of reality when it’s really just lame, recycled gags from 100 year old minstrel shows."

That said, I am a proud owner and Fritz The Cat, so who am I to talk?

Here is the Warner Bros. cartoon Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarves. Make of it what you will. It has a swingin' soundtrack. There are a whole leigon of people who'll tell you that this cartoon isn't racist. But imagine if it had been made today? Of course it's racist, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be shown. At the very least cartoons like these are a part of history, and show how far we've come. We still have a long way to go, mind you.