I am reminded of the story about Al Capp's extremely popular "Li'l Abner" newspaper comic strip of the 1930s on for about fifty years. "Li'l Abner" was an exaggerated comedy set in the mythical hillbilly community of Dogpatch, U.S.A., where everyone was a grotesque idiot. Li'l Abner himself shambled about like a gorilla, and often expressed bewilderment by scratching his head and saying, "Mah brain -- hit's strained!" All the hillbillies were "white men".
Around the 1950s when black protest movements got started, there were some complaints that everyone in "Li'l Abner" was a white man. Capp added some black Dogpatchers, who were drawn as monkeylike as the white Dogpatchers. There were promptly screams of outrage for drawing insulting caricatures of blacks. Interestingly, those complaints came from new protesters, while some of the original protesters pointed out that at least Capp was treating everyone equally now.
The new complaints were so loud that Capp switched to drawing the black Dogpatchers as realistic black men (and women?) This drew still more complaints that Capp was implying that a realistic black man was no better than a caricature of a white man. At that point Capp gave up and returned to drawing everyone in Dogpatch as white.
Capp had other p.r. troubles by the 1960s, including accusations of using his prestige as a popular cartoonist on college lectures to demand sexual favors from coeds, and outright rapes, which were pretty much proven. But if the above was true, he seems to have been unfairly accused of racism.
I am reminded of the story about Al Capp's extremely popular "Li'l Abner" newspaper comic strip of the 1930s on for about fifty years. "Li'l Abner" was an exaggerated comedy set in the mythical hillbilly community of Dogpatch, U.S.A., where everyone was a grotesque idiot. Li'l Abner himself shambled about like a gorilla, and often expressed bewilderment by scratching his head and saying, "Mah brain -- hit's strained!" All the hillbillies were "white men".
Around the 1950s when black protest movements got started, there were some complaints that everyone in "Li'l Abner" was a white man. Capp added some black Dogpatchers, who were drawn as monkeylike as the white Dogpatchers. There were promptly screams of outrage for drawing insulting caricatures of blacks. Interestingly, those complaints came from new protesters, while some of the original protesters pointed out that at least Capp was treating everyone equally now.
The new complaints were so loud that Capp switched to drawing the black Dogpatchers as realistic black men (and women?) This drew still more complaints that Capp was implying that a realistic black man was no better than a caricature of a white man. At that point Capp gave up and returned to drawing everyone in Dogpatch as white.
Capp had other p.r. troubles by the 1960s, including accusations of using his prestige as a popular cartoonist on college lectures to demand sexual favors from coeds, and outright rapes, which were pretty much proven. But if the above was true, he seems to have been unfairly accused of racism.
Fred Patten