I’ve heard a lot of arguments for giving classic cartoons and comics a break for their odd bouts of rather extreme racism. “It was a different era, back then! That was the popular taste, the style of the day! We were at war!” The last is a reference to the buck toothed, bespectacled image of the Japanese in WWII era toons. This last argument falls flat when you realize the Chinese weren’t treated any differently and the caricature existed from the birth of the animated medium until as late as the 1960s (Johnny Quest comes to mind, IYYYEEEEEEE!). The other arguments ring equally hollow.

It simply baffles me as to why talented artists like Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, and Friz Freleng would fall so easily into stereotypical imagery. These were brilliant masters of observation, mimicking and a elaborating or the movements of the natural world as well as the features of the characters that inhabited it. One look at any of Warner Brother’s celebrity spoofs could tell you these guys could capture an individual and completely recognizable personality. So why then resort to racist stereotypes? A character like Chuck Jones’ Inki didn’t have to be a black face with a bone tied to his head. It in no way helps the story. Obviously blacks are as prone to being hapless and moronic as anyone else, but why that image? Wouldn’t this kind of disregard for realism fly in the face of an artist’s integrity? Saying that all animators working for a major studio at the time were living in Los Angeles it would be impossible for them to not have seen a Black or Asian person, so ignorance is an impossible excuse.

I’m not sure if any of these guys ever apologized for the the racism in their work. One thing is for sure, their talent has left them nearly beyond examination and criticism. Scholarly work often touches on the topic of racism but never attempts to lay the blame for it. I’m not sure little old me could label a man like Chuck Jones a racist, after all I’m not entirely convinced he was. But I’d still love to know what would make an artist ignore his eyes and resort to the laziness of racism.