Every race, ethnicity, creed, gender, lifestyle, etc has it's stereotypes.
Gay interior decorators, Chinese laundry, Hispanic gardeners, Irish cops, Italian gangsters, etc...
This film merely provides a brief look at how blacks have been portrayed in the past.
These images are just a small sampling of how black people have been portrayed on a daily basis for many, many years.
All of the clips used in this film were shown on television up until the 1980's.
Many episodes of the Little Rascals have been "ethnically cleansed" over the years.
Some 20 minute episodes were edited down to a mere 8 after removing all racial images/slurs.
Several episodes were removed completely from the series.
All of the major studios, produced both live-action films and cartoons portraying blacks in this manner. Stereotypes thrived on film as comic relief.
These films are a product of their times and while certainly not suitable for children, they are important historical documents.
They represent a period of American history where views were very different than they are now.
It is also important to remember that they were intended to be funny, not hurtful.
One does not have to look far to find many other examples of racial stereotyping in popular media in the first half of the 20th century.
Radio shows, movies, and comic strips were filled with caricatures of Blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Jews, and every other minority.
It is to our great credit that we have evolved as far as we have since then, but we should preserve our history and not try to rewrite it in some Orwellian attempt to excise those parts of it that we now find abhorrent.
As for the music, it is a modified version of Cab Calloway singing "Some of These Days" from the film soundtrack, "Forbidden Zone"
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Tags: 16mm stereotypes race banned images cartoons buckwheat stymie farina rascals jungle jitters sambo
