The Censored Eleven

I am trying to think on how much times had changed, yet some aspects of the past are refused to be learned by generations that follow. I feel we have changed for good on some extent during the last sixty years but yet echoes of the past such as white supremacy refuse to die. The Censored Eleven are a series of eleven cartoons that are part of the Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes catalogue that had been out of circulation since 1968 due the extreme racist tones that are contained in each of the animated shorts.

The shorts which derive into a plethora of stereotypes against minorities, mostly aimed at African Americans and Aboriginal populations back in the early 1900's. The problematic of the censored Eleven comes from decades-old and current day incarnations of African American stereotypes which include mammy, Mandingo, Sapphire, Uncle Tom and watermelon, many of the stereotypes created during the height of the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade were used to help commodify black bodies and justify slavery as a business. One example an enslaved person, forced under violence to work from sunrise to sunset, could hardly be described as lazy, yet laziness and characteristics of submissiveness historically was assigned as a stereotype of African Americans.

Hittin' the Train for Halleluiah Land

Several stereotypes were developed as offensive caricatures constructed during slavery and were subsequently popularized by minstrel shows. One trope is the representation of the mammy archetype, where the trope pictured of black women working in the homes of white families and being the caretakers for the children, the trope painted of a domestic worker who had an undying loyalty to their slaveholders.

The image of mammy and Uncle Tom to name a few, were sought to legitimize the institution of slavery, which led the mammy archetype to increase popularity after the American Civil War and into the mid 1900's.

Mass media was attached to the likeness of mass produced consumers goods from flour to motor oil, which solidified the mammy archetype as a trusted figure in the white imaginations. We can see traces of what it was spoken in the last paragraph by mentioning the concept of discriminatory advertisement which is the practice of including African bodies that will please the white sensitivity.

The cartoon output of Warner Bros. during its most active period sometimes had censorship problems that were complex than those of movie features', as unlike films which they were censored in the script, the animated shorts were passed upon only when completed, which made producers cautious about the restrictions.

References:

1. Popular and Pervasive Sterotypes of African Americans: https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/popular-and-pervasive-stereotypes-african-americans
2. Wikipedia Censored Eleven: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censored_Eleven
3. Marketing has a Colorism Problem: https://hbr.org/2021/05/marketing-still-has-a-colorism-problem