HANR: Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs
Opening theme "The Mandalorian Lo-fi" Rifti Beats
• The Mandalorian Theme (Hip Hop Remix)
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Script:
On December 27, 1938, Walt Disney releases Snow White and the seven dwarfs which becomes a success, bringing Walt new famed attention to his animation studio for the advancement of animation and movies. Many were inspired by Walts vision including Max Fleischer, who in a move to create an animated feature that compete with Disney’s Snow White, created the most racist and tone deaf piece of animation that could have destroyed Warner Brothers animation the second it was released.
Max Fleischer, inspired by the success of Snow White tasked director Bob Clampett to make a film similiar to Snow White, while not deliberately taking the format of the intellectual property of Disney themeselves. Clampett inspiration for the cartoon came from seeing Duke Ellington and was inspired by having an all black cast as well as using an all black band to accompany the cartoon.
Clampett once stated "In 1942, during the height of anti-Japanese sentiment during World War II, I was approached in Hollywood by the cast of an all-black musical off-broadway production called Jump For Joy while they were doing some special performances in Los Angeles. They asked me why there weren't any Warner's cartoons with black characters and I didn't have any good answer for that question. So we sat down together and came up with a parody of Disney's "Snow White" and "Coal Black" was the result. They did all the voices for that cartoon, even though Mel Blanc's contract with Warners gave him sole voice credit for all Warners cartoons by then. There was nothing racist or disrespectful toward blacks intended in that film at all, nor in Tin Pan Alley Cats which is just a parody of jazz piano great Fats Waller, who was always hamming into the camera during his musical films. Everybody, including blacks had a good time when these cartoons first came out. "
The original title, "So White and De Sebben Dwarfs had to be changed for fear of copyright so the title "Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs" became the name of the film.
The cartoon film opens up with the stereotypical mammie character, as seen with minstrel bandana tied around her head, beginning to tell the story of Coal Black.
As you see the Queen's layer, is it litered with gold, tires, sugar and coffee, all these items, which during world war 2 were items that were mostly commonly hoarded by americans during WW2, so the imagery of hoarding these specific items where a bad sign.
One note is two items in the queen intro scene.
Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin, which was a double entrendre on the hoarding of WW2 and well as Eli Whitney's cotton gin itself, which is a machine that separated cotton from the seeds, the very machine used during slavery rhat allowed cotton plantations to florish.
The razor blades bebind the queen is also a incredible piece of racial imagery as the idea that the most violent african americans would be armed with razor blades. That same fear of razor blades in the hands of african americans also gave birth to the growing and still very current fear of african americans with guns and weapons. There is alot more to this piece that will be covered in depth in a future vid.
During slavery, blacks would often cap broken and rotted teeth with gold teeth or gold fillings so after slavery was abolished, the gold teeth was a symbol of freedom for many in the black community. The dice in the front teeth also plays a part in exaggerating the stereotype of zip coon as protraying blacks as careless gamblers
So lets talk about Coal Black. Coal Black is a jezebel character, a hyper sexualized contrast to the mammy character. Seen by her deliberant drawn figure, this is to represent not only a idea that african americans had a heighted sex drive, but the jezebel was often used a a defense by white males when accused of rape towards black women.
In fact, in this scene with the Murder Inc, it is shown that she received her freedom using her sexuality, indicated by the kisses on the cheeks of the killers.
But lets go back to this scene. Murder Inc has two distinct slurs and doubles down on both if you look at the prices.
When Coal Black finds the dwarfs, they are miniature black men.
Remember the razor blades from earlier?
The evil queen uses poison on the apple and the worms leaves and note the “refugees” sign
Also quickly as it was aired, it was protested immediately by the NAACP and in 1968, during an attempt to re-air the cartoon, it was protested again, yet this time by fully armed Black Panthers.
Warner Brothers banned this cartoon completely from circulation and much like Song of the South, will never be aired on TV ever again.
Coal Black is a glimpse of how not only normal racism had become, but how radicalized the idea of racism became to allow blacks to have a shot in the mainstream.