The Censored Eleven
Nothing shows its age faster than humor. In 1968, having deemed 11 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons — popular in their own time two decades prior — too politically incorrect to air, United Artists withheld them from syndication. The “Censored 11″ haven’t aired on TV since, but clips have crept online, giving today’s audiences a window into cringeworthy racist stereotypes once considered fit for Saturday-morning fun. A 1941 episode called “All this and Rabbit Stew” showed Bugs Bunny hunted by a dim-witted, black gambler (later reimagined as Elmer Fudd). In 1943, “Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs” parodied Disney’s Snow White with an all-black cast. (Innovative despite its dubious content, the cartoon was named one of the 50 Greatest of All Time in 1994 based on votes from more than 1000 animation-industry professionals.) And 1944′s “Goldilocks and the Jivin’ Bears” likewise repopulates the popular story with an all-black cast, turning the Three Bears into jazz musicians, with many characters drawn in blackface style. It makes South Park look positively sensitive.
Song of the South
You probably haven’t seen Disney’s 1946 film Song of the South, but you’ve definitely heard it. Its signature song, “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” won a 1947 Academy Award, and the Br’er Rabbit animation sequences have been used in several TV spots and Disney specials over the years. But there’s no denying the fact that by today’s standards, the film is rather racist. Set in the post–Civil War South, the movie — in which a former slave named Uncle Remus regales children with amusing stories — depicts an offensively “idyllic” master-slave relationship, as the NAACP once described it. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. considered the feature’s depictions of happy slaves an “insult to American minorities.” Disney has declined to release the film on video in the U.S., fearing an outcry over the crude stereotypes.
