Estereótipos raciais nas animações estadunidenses e as Leis Jim Crow (1932-1941)

Abstract

This research aims to dissect some stereotypes in the representation of African-American people in American animations from the first half of the 20th century. The central issue of this work is to understand how these stereotypes dialogued with the segregation laws, also known as "Jim Crow Laws" that were in force in the United States from the end of the 19th century until after the first half of the 20th century. The time frame chosen (1932-1941) corresponds to the years in which the animations that will be analyzed are inserted. A database was created with some American animations from the beginning of the 20th century in which there were representations of African-American people. The selection of 3 of these animations was carried out to allow greater detail in the analysis and the criterion for choosing the animations was to choose precisely those that had the most screen time where black characters appeared. The selected animations were: “Trader Mickey” (1932), distributed by Disney; “Jungle Jitters” (1938), distributed by Warner Bros. and “Scrub me Mama With a Boogie Beat” (1941), distributed by Universal Pictures. Furthermore, in order to contextualize the work in a segregated society, some clippings from American periodicals were selected within the time frame in question (1932-1941), which will help us to better elucidate the period of racial segregation. The research aims to articulate racial stereotypes and segregation laws with studies carried out by black thinkers who reflect on the slave heritages in American society, so that we can unravel various recurring racist ideas. In addition, it is intended to understand the damage that these ideas caused and continue to cause to people of African descent, elucidating the role of cinema and major studios of the time in maintaining a racist ideology.