Golliwogg

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 History
2 Miscellaneous uses of the term
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

Upton's Golliwogg and friends in The Adventures of two Dutch Dolls And A Golliwogg, published in 1895. Most often shown in children's books, it was often described as "a horrid sight, the blackest gnome,"

The "Golliwogg" (later "Golliwog") is a rag doll-like, children's literary character created by Florence Kate Upton in the late 19th century. The Golliwogg was inspired by a blackface minstrel doll Upton had as a child in America. At one point was very popular in Europe and as a result has become a collectors item. However, the image of the doll has become the subject of a great deal of heated debate. One aspect of the debate in its favour argues that it should be preserved and passed on as a cherished cultural artifact and childhood tradition, while opponents argue it should be retired as a relic of an earlier time when anti-black racism was as casual as it was blatant.

[edit] History

Cover of The Three Golliwogs, by Enid Blyton.

The child of English parents, Upton and her family moved to England when she was fourteen. There she spent several years drawing and developing her artistic skills. In order to afford tuition to art school, she illustrated a children's book entitled The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg. The 1895 book included a character named the "Golliwogg", who was first described as "a horrid sight, the blackest gnome", but who quickly turned out to be a friendly character, and is later attributed with a "kind face". A product of the blackface minstrel tradition, the character was classic "darkie" iconography. The Golliwogg had jet black skin; bright, red lips; and wild, woolly hair. He sported red trousers, a shirt with a stiff collar, red bow-tie, and a blue jacket with tails — all traditional formal minstrel attire.

Upton's book and its many sequels were extremely successful in England, largely because of the popularity of the Golliwogg, which became the generic name for dolls and images of a similar type, spelt "golliwog". The golliwog doll became a popular children's toy throughout most of the 20th century, and was incorporated into many aspects of British commerce and culture; for instance, some of Enid Blyton's books feature them, once as a villain and at other times as heroes. Upton's Golliwogg was jovial and friendly, but some later golliwogs would be sinister or menacing characters. However, small boys in the 1950s, who would never dream of playing with sissy dolls, had no qualms about a big rag golly and as many golly badges as possible, so that actually meeting a real black man was cause for excitement rather than fear. "The Black and White Minstrel Show", a blackface musical show which ran for many seasons on UK television and stage, had performers of all races blacked up more as golliwogs, with white-ringed eyes, than in the original Minstrel show tradition.

The golliwog contributed enormously to the spread of darky iconography in Europe. It also made its way back across the Atlantic in the form of children's literature, dolls, children's china and other toys, ladies' perfume, and jewellery.

Florence Kate Upton's Golliwogg in formal minstrel attire in Golliwogg and friends in 1895.

British jam manufacturer James Robertson & Sons used a golliwog called Golly as its mascot from 1910, after John Robertson apparently saw children playing with golliwog dolls in America. Robertson's started producing promotional Golliwog badges in the 1920s, which could be obtained in exchange for tokens gained from their products. In 1983, the company's products were boycotted by the Greater London Council as offensive, and in 1988 the character ceased to be used in television advertising. The company used to give away golliwog badges making up different sets, such as playing jazz instruments, or with sports equipment, or other such themes.

Robertson denied any link between Golliwoggs and black people — in a statement reported by the BBC. Virginia (Ginny) C Knox, previously brand director for Robertson's and now Chief Operating Officer of the Culinary Brands Division of RHM, told the Herald Newspaper in Scotland in 2001 that the decision to remove the Golly (Golliwogg) symbol from Robertson's jam and marmalade jars was taken after research found that children were not familiar with the character, although it still appealed to the older generations. "We sell 45 million jars of jam and marmalade each year and they have pretty much all got Golly on them," said Ms Knox. "We also sell 250,000 Golly badges to collectors and only get 10 letters a year from people who don't like the Golliwogg image".^[1]. Today, Robertson's Golliwog badges remain highly collectible, with the very rarest sometimes selling for more than £1,000, and even comparatively common and recent badges being worth £2.00–£3.00.

In his 1947 novel, The Chequer Board, British novelist Nevil Shute depicted the children's doll as an influence on adult behavior:

Because he was uncertain what to do, he put his arms round her and kissed her... For a moment she yielded... then fear came to her, irrational, stark fear. When she was a little child, somebody had given her a golliwog, a black doll with staring white eyes and black curly hair, dressed in a blue coat with red trousers. It had terrified her; whenever she saw it she had screamed with fright so that it had been given to a less sensitive child. Now at the age of seventeen the same stark fear came back to her. What she had been subconsciously afraid of all her life had happened. The golliwog had got her.

After the publication of Upton's first book, the term "golliwogg" was used both as a reference to the children's toy and as a generic, racist term for blacks. In Britain and its colonies, the word "wog" became an ethnic slur applied to dark-skinned peoples worldwide, including Africans, Italians and other Mediterranean people, Native Americans, Middle Easterners, Hispanics, Aborigines, and Indians. ^[2]

In the 1950s, issues of Rainbow (and it's spin-off, Tiger Tim) featured short strips of a venue called "Darkie-town". Although the strips had black police officers and interacted with white characters with little to no offensive language from either party, speech bubbles did show the "Darkie-town" natives talk in stereotypical Caribbean-like accents.

In the early 1980s, revised editions of Enid Blyton's Noddy books replaced Mr. Golly, the amiable golliwogg proprietor of the Toytown garage, with Mr. Sparks, to the outrage of many parents of a generation who thought that was retrograde iconoclasm.

[edit] Miscellaneous uses of the term

Golliwog' was also World War II British naval slang for a Gauloise cigarette, which had tobacco which was nearly black in colour.^[3]

The American rock group Creedence Clearwater Revival was known as "The Golliwogs" and under this name they released a number of singles on the Fantasy label before they rose to prominence. Golliwog is also a Slovenian punkrock/hardcore band.

In unofficial Military Parlance, less so nowadays for Political Correctness, the term was used to indicate a piece of equipment that has been tuned, upgraded, and possibly customised to the point where it is no longer similar to the stock item it started as. The term stems from the fact that the Goliwog was black, ie. largely monotone, or featureless in a sense,(standard, as it were) but was always represented as decorated smartly with ribbons and bows, etc, which is to say, dressed up in finery. (No Golliwog was ever seen dressed conservatively). In Rainbow Six, Tom Clancy has the title character consider one of his Special Force Snipers, and his "Golliwog Walther Rifle". Both man and weapon are fine-tuned to the Nth degree.

The sixth movement of Claude Debussy's Children's Corner is titled "Golliwogg's Cakewalk", inspired by the American dance.

A Golliwog doll was used in the BBC/HBO show Extras when Maggie Jacobs, the co-star, finds herself in the awkward situation of her new boyfriend (a black man) seeing it. He leaves after she puts on a show of the Golliwog and another doll (resembling Barbie) making out.

Golliwog is also the former name of a popular line of cocoa biscuits in Australia. First released in the 1960's, they were renamed by manufacturer Arnott's in the mid-1990's and are now sold under the name of "Scalliwag".

[edit] See also

[edit] References

^ "'Controversial' golly to be shelved" BBC News 23 August 2001
^ Wog American Heritage Dictionary etymology, "Probably short for golliwog".
^ Furst, Alan (2004) Dark Voyage, Random House, Random House, ISBN 1-4000-6018-4: "It was a Gauloise — what British seamen called a golliwog...".