Friday, November 30, 2007

Coonie Tunes

This is another of the infamous Censored Eleven cartoons. 1936's "Sunday Go to Meetin' Time" and from the wikipedia description you can learn that

The plot follows the misadventures of a black man in the stereotypical minstrel show and coon song mold...Sunday Go to Meetin' Time has a religious and racist theme. This is because "churches were more easily portrayed in predominantly black settings due to the vivacity of their worship rituals." Instead of celebrating these customs, however, the film ridicules them. Ringing bells in a lazy town announce that it is time to go to church. A black preacher with caricatured enormous lips greets his parisioners as he sings the song for which the short is named. A minstrel show dandy and his gal jazz up the song as they dance their way to church. A succession of gags featuring stereotyped black characters follows: A mammy and old uncle shine the heads of pickanniny children; a woman steals a bra off a clothesline to use as a bonnet for her twin children. Lindvall notes that mammies were "ubiquitous in films dealing with black culture"


Yeah it is pretty offensive but, saldy over the course of this "series" I think I'm getting a little immune to the racism of back then. I mean all the stereotypes that are seen are the same- dice playing, southern dialect, black skin, big white lips, dumb and lazy. But of course I have a higher threshold. See if this gets your goat

From 1936, "Sunday Go To Meetin' Time"



ah I do love fear based theology

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