Mickey's Mellerdrammer
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| Mickey's Mellerdrammer | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Wilfred Jackson |
| Produced by | Joseph Schenck |
| Starring | Pinto Colvig Walt Disney Marcellite Garner |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | 18 March 1933 USA |
| Running time | 8 Minutes |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Mickey's Mellerdrammer is a United Artists film released in 1933. The title is a corruption of "melodrama", thought to harken back to the earliest minstrel shows, as a film short based on a production of Uncle Tom's Cabin by the Disney characters.
In Mickey's Mellerdrammer Mickey Mouse and friends stage their own production of Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.
During the 19th century Uncle Tom's Cabin was a best selling novel, but most Americans became familiar with the story through stage plays or musicals known as Tom Shows. Mickey's Mellerdrammer is an early 20th century animated version of the 19th century Tom Shows.
Mickey Mouse, of course, was already black, but the advertising poster for the film shows Mickey dressed in blackface with exaggerated, orange lips; bushy, white sidewhiskers made out of cotton; and his now trademark white gloves.
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[edit] Plot Synopsis
In Mickey's Mellerdrammer Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Goofy (known then as Dippy Dawg), and the rest of the gang present their own low budget light hearted rendition of the 19 century Tom Shows for a crowd in a barn converted into a theater for the occasion.
Horace Horsecollar plays the white slave owner Simon Legree, whip and all. Minnie plays the young white girl Eva. Mickey plays old Uncle Tom with cotton around his ears and chin, and the young slave girl Topsy. Clarabelle Cow plays the slave woman Eliza. Goofy plays the production stage hand.
The cartoon opens with Mickey and Clarabelle Cow in their dressing rooms applying blackface makeup for their roles.
The cartoon is much more focused on the Disney characters efforts to put on the play, than an animated version of Uncle Tom's Cabin. The cartoon contains many images of Mickey and his gang using makeshift props, as light hearted sight gags.
The Cartoon closes with the characters coming out for a bow, and Horace Horsecollar's character being pelted with rotten tomatoes. When Goofy shows his face from behind the stage he his hit with what appears to be a chocolate pie, leaving him with in what appears to be blackface.
[edit] Images
Orginal Movie Poster from 1933 Hake's American Collectibles Site.
YouTube Video of Mickey's Mellerdrammer
[edit] Controversy
Over the years many scholars, film critics, parents, and the socially conscious have been critical of Disney for the portrayal of non-whites, non-males in a negative image. Mickey's Mellerdrammer and it's use of blackface was one of several Disney films to use ethnic and gender stereotypes .
[edit] Examples of Disney nonwhites, non-males portrayed in a negative image
- Aladdin and the Princess in Disney's Aladdin
- In the Little Mermaid, Sebastian the Jamaican-sounding crab, teaches Ariel that life is better "Under the Sea," because underwater you don't have to get a job.
- In Dumbo the Crows are portrayed in African-American stereotypes.
- The Orangutan King Louie in Disney's The Jungle Book.
- The Indians in Peter Pan and Pocahontas
- Pocahontas
- Uncle Remus in Song of the south.
- Use of Blackface in Mickey's Mellerdarmmer.
- The king and princess in Disney's Atlantis: the Lost Empire.
According to the Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), children between 2 and 5 years of age start to become aware of race, ethnicity, gender and disabilities. They can accurately identity “Black” and “White” when labeling pictures, dolls and people. Therefore the Disney films mentioned above and others, contribute towards and reinforce a childs early formation of race and gender stereotypes.
Several critics including Dr. Henry A. Giroux an, expert in Education and Cultural Studies, has questioned whether or not Disney films are actually good for children or not.
Dr. Giroux concludes in his Animating Youth: the Disnification of Children's Culture [1]
"Disney needs to be held accountable not just at the box office, but also in political and ethical terms. And if such accountability is to be impressed upon the "magic kingdom" then parents, cultural workers, and others will have to challenge and disrupt both the institutional power and the images, representations, and values offered by Disney's teaching machine. The stakes are too high to ignore such a challenge and struggle, even if it means reading Disney's animated films critically."
Marc Eliot in his 1994 Biography Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince[2] made several claims Walt Disney was Antisemitic and that many of this films held racist and antisemitic undertones. Eliot claims Disney was a life-long anti-semite and cites a deleted scene from the 1933 Silly Symphony Three Little Pigs in which the Big Bad Wolf dresses as a Jewish peddler.
[edit] References
- ^ Animating Youth: the Disnification of Children's Culture
- ^ Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince Marc Eliot 1994
