Forbidden Animation
Tweety Bird is yellow because censors felt the original pink made the bird look nude. Betty Boop's dress was lengthened so that her garter didn't show. A segment of Mighty Mouse was dropped after protest groups claimed the mouse was actually sniffing cocaine, not flower petals. These changes and many others like them have been demanded by official censors or special interest groups. How the slightly risque gags in some silent cartoons were replaced by rigid standards in the sound film era is...
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Cohen (an independent film distributor who also teaches animation history at San Francisco State U.) explores the history of censorship in American animation from the early 1920s to the present time. He comes at the topic from a number of thematic viewpoints, discussing racial stereotypes in animation, differences in standards between television and film animation, reactions to "uncensored" films such as Fritz the Cat and Lenny Bruce's Thank You Mask Man, the issue of self-censorship, and animators blacklisted during the 1950s Red Scare. The presentation is marred by low quality reproduction of photos, but other illustrations are relatively clear. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Preface1Introduction51.Censorship of Theatrical Animation92.Racism and Resistance: Stereotypes in Animation493.Uncensored Animation774.Censoring Animation on Television1215.Blacklisted Animators1556.Conclusion193Notes197Bibliography215Index221
