Racism in Animation 3 - Mickey Mouse in Pluto's Dream House (1940)

This is more about Censorship in animation, since Disney specifically doesn't show all or parts of films that are considered "racist" today. They show everything else, though, so that is why it is "censorship."

-------------

Apparently Genie's are black. Check out the black man's voice that sounds an awful lot like a black slave.

To be fair, some black people actually still spoke like this back then.

03:44 - This was a common animated look called "blackface."





http://www.disneyshorts.org/years/1940/plutosdreamhouse.html

It was unshown in the 1980s, because Disney didn’t want people to see it. However, they realized that they could get away with showing it (it’s difficult to hide a whole Mickey Mouse cartoon) if they just removed the shot of Pluto that I mentioned above at 03:44. So it is shown today in various collections, but the shot where Pluto “appears in blackface” is removed from current versions.

So this is another case of Disney censorship, but I’d much rather that they censor the short than to avoid showing it.


Off topic:
I can see how Mickey's cartoons were losing popularity by 1940. His animations were getting boring! Compare this cartoon to Disney's 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon from 1928 (made 2nd, before Steamboat Willie, but released after it), The Gallopin' Gaucho:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zh43KKl17Y


Disney tried (unsuccessfully) revitalizing Mickey shorts, most notably with Mickey’s Runaway Brain in 1995:

http://www.disneyshorts.org/years/1995/runawaybrain.html

It got the Academy nomination, but it failed to bring Mickey cartoons back to the theaters. Although, it did its part in helping spawn two TV shows, Mouse Works, and then House of Mouse, that were compilations of new Disney shorts. Some of those should have been improved (in animation quality), and then shown first before movies (note: this didn’t happen). But if they did it that way, they could have gotten more distribution out of them, and they would have qualified for academy awards that way.




More Racism in Animation...

Racism in Animation 3 - Pluto's Dream House (1940): http://theanimationempire.blogspot.com/2008/01/racism-in-animation-3-mickey-mouse-in.html

Racism in Animation 2 - Santa's Surprise (1940): http://theanimationempire.blogspot.com/2007/12/racism-in-animation-2-christmas-cartoon.html

Racism in Animation 1 - Fantasia (1940): http://theanimationempire.blogspot.com/2007/12/racism-in-animation-1-fantasia-bans.html



-------------------------

Happy new year!

Disney posts every day in January!!! Here is our first Disney post of January. Come back each day to get some more Disney goodness!

- TAE