Un-PC Cartoons at the Grand Illusion

Years ago, back when Cartoon Network was still part of the dumping ground of basic cable and network programming was still good, there used to be a great show called ToonHeads that was sort of like a Pop-Up Video for old MGM and Warner Bros. cartoons, except it was actually intelligent. Each episode, it would exhaustively cover the references to GI slang during World War II or near-forgotten radio personalities, things like that. ToonHeads was my first introduction to the magical world of banned cartoons.

I'm a little late to this party, I admit, but the Grand Illusion in the U District is in the midst of a series of screenings of cartoon shorts that for one reason or another now fall well outside the bounds of politically acceptable. Hosted by historian and curator Dennis Nyback, tonight through Thursday is "Bad Bugs Bunny," featuring a variety of shorts in which the iconic American hare does some, well, iconically American things of the sort we'd rather forget. Next week is "Compare to Disney (a.k.a. Fuck Mickey Mouse)" and then finally "The Dark Side of Dr. Seuss," a series of Army films animated by Theodore Geisel during the Second World War.

For my money, that's a bit misleading--anyone who's seen the excellent book Dr. Seuss Goes to War, a collection of Geisel's political cartoons from the awesome lefty evening paper PM, knows that the story is a bit more complicated. Yes, the racial caricatures can be shocking, but as Art Spiegelman notes in his introduction, for adults it's nice to be reminded that the good doctor was so good. Geisel's vicious attacks on fascism, Lindbergh, and the America Firsters are a fascinating read. (And for what it's worth, if you don't know all about PM, that's worth checking out, too. The story of how Stetson Kennedy infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan while on assignment for them, and then forwarded internal Klan info to the producers of the Superman radio show for use in their famous take-down "The Clan of the Fiery Cross," is journalistic legend.)

That said, I've included my personal favorite most offensive Warner Bros. cartoon. I don't know if it features in Nyback's series, but I think it speaks to the complex relationship we have with these today. Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs, a minstrel-style retelling of Snow White, plays on a bunch of grotesque racial stereotypes. It also features a phenomenal score by a number of LA jazz artists with whom director Bob Clampett was friends. In fact, despite the racial imagery, it was at least partly envisioned in collusion with Duke Ellington, who suggested that Clampett create a cartoon musical revue similar to the ones that were popular at the time among accomplished jazz musicians. And racial stereotyping notwithstanding, Clampett's robust sexuality in the cartoon is deeply subversive seen in the light of how fairy tales are treated today. Compare this to toothless fairy tale send-ups of the current era, like Enchanted, and it's amazing to see the freedom popular artists once had.