Of course, many early American cartoons contained such imagery; the origins of American animation, as several film critics have noted, are tied to blackface minstrelsy and vaudeville. The critic Nicholas Sammond takes it a step further, arguing that characters like Mickey Mouse, Bimbo, and Koko actually are minstrels.
Her character itself is obviously white, yet would be inconceivable without black artistic tradition — and the same is true of America as a whole. Betty Boop is an indelible icon of the Jazz Age; jazz, which developed partly out of classical music, was created by African-American artists.
In in Time magazine, responding to a peculiarly tone-deaf question from a reader who wanted to know what America would look like without black people, Ralph Ellison, the author of Invisible Man , argued that America would not, could not, be America without black people.
Silly as she can be, I love Betty Boop. In her way, after all, Betty Boop — with her confident sexuality, her innocence and experience, her contradictions, her interweaving racial history — is a symbol of America. I want to believe in an America where we can acknowledge our fraught racial pasts and still influence each other to create beautiful, disquieting art, no matter who we may be — a world where we never forget our phantoms, but learn from them, all the same. The next time she sings, we should listen not just for Kane, but for the ghost behind her, who should never have been a ghost in the first place.
Already a subscriber? Log in or link your magazine subscription. Account Profile. Even though she was given a more modest makeover after the passage of the Hays Code in , she stayed popular until she was discontinued in Though the flapper age was over by the time Betty Boop took to the screen, she was beloved by Depression-era audiences.
And as the most unique human woman cartoon character of her day, she became a fan favorite. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Recommended for you. How the Troubles Began in Northern Ireland. How Dolls Helped Win Brown v. According to Little Ann Little who dubbed herself the original Betty Boop girl, she didn't enter an amateur Helen Kane contest and had been singing baby songs since The Helen Kane contests are a vital part of "Boop" history, because most of the women who entered became the official voice of Betty Boop.
Melissa Fahn was initially the modern day voice of Betty Boop, but later retired from the role. Today Betty Boop is officially voiced by voice actress Cindy Robinson , who states that her Betty Boop voice is sultry and sexy. Above you can hear how Cindy brings Betty Boop to life today. Apart from voicing Betty Boop, she also does the singing for Betty Boop, which is what Melissa Fahn did prior to her retirement.
Betty Boop has appeared in person in two official live-action shorts by Paramount Pictures. Betty is portrayed by Mae Questel in Musical Justice. A-8 , alongside Bela Lugosi. Bonnie Poe performs " My Silent Love " in a live-action sequence. Helen Kane made a small cameo appearance a year before Betty's live-action appearance in Hollywood on Parade No.
A-2 , and two years prior Kane was featured in Paramount on Parade in her own skit performing a "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" number. While Kane had risen to fame in the late s as "The Boop-Oop-A-Doop Girl," a star of stage, recordings, and films for Paramount, her career was nearing its end by Paramount promoted the development of Betty Boop following Kane's decline. The case was brought in New York in Although Kane's claims seemed to be valid on the surface, it was proven that her appearance was not unique.
The most significant evidence against Kane's case was her claim as to the uniqueness of her scat singing style in which she had adapted from an African-American child performer from Chicago who went by the name of Baby Esther , but was better known as Little Esther. Testimony revealed that Kane had witnessed the seven-year-old " Florence Mills " impersonator Little Esther Lee Jones , using a similar scat singing style in her act at the Everglades Nite Club.
An early test sound film was also discovered which featured Esther Jones performing in this style disproving Kane's claims that she was the first to "Boop-a-Doop" in song. It later came out that Kane's style was not unique, and other performers had done it before her. Kane is said to have adapted the scat singing style she heard as performed by Esther and had made it famous.
The origination of the style points to Baby Esther's predecessors Florence Mills and Gertrude Saunders , and general African-American night clubs where the scat singing technique is said to have originated.
The only claim Kane had that was valid in court was that her "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" routine had antecedent Betty Boop's, as her look was not unique and the baby singing style was quite common among a number of singers. Grim Natwick who created Betty Boop, admitted that he had used a photograph of Helen Kane to create Betty Boop for the Talkartoon short Dizzy Dishes , but in court Helen couldn't prove this, with most of her claims being thrown out by the judge.
The verdict was basically that Helen Kane was not the "first" Boop-Oop-a-Doop singer in the business. And it was found that Kane's singing techniques of the " baby-talk " and " scat singing " were common to a number of "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" performers, even before Helen had claimed she invented the idea and mannerisms. Number as in multiple people, not just one. In other words an imitation of an imitation. Max Fleischer responded to the Helen Kane by releasing a Fleischer Victory Newsreel , which featured five of the women who provided the voice for Betty Boop.
Max Fleischer stated that the women all had a "certain something" in their voices. But don't take our 'Boop-Oop-a-Doop' away! Helen Kane later told the press that she was shocked and disappointed, adding that both she and her friends felt that Betty Boop was a deliberate caricature of her. Kane went on to tell the newspapers that it wasn't the money, it was the fact that they had stolen her idea.
I am so mad! I am going to spend a lot of money appealing this case. They have stolen my idea! I don't need money. All I want is vindication.
It has broken my heart. Helen Kane never provided the voice the animated character Betty Boop, but is often mistaken for the voice of Betty Boop. Helen later went on to use Betty Boop for her posters, two years later in for her Fox Brooklyn shows. The show even featured a Betty Boop cartoon. Max Fleischer was told by one of the newspapers at the time to sue Kane, but he didn't and let her use Betty Boop without permission, even though Helen Kane initially had wanted Betty Boop stopped by an injunction.
Helen Kane was originally flattered by the character Betty Boop, until she got mixed up for being the voice of Betty Boop and also being dubbed a Betty Boop impersonator. Helen stated the following: "I have become a ghost Recently in Hollywood when some children ran to open the door of my car they greeted me as Betty Boop. Betty is just one stroke removed from Mickey Mouse. After Kane had attempted to sue the Fleischer Studios, from there on Max Fleischer had no nice words to describe the actress.
A Brooklyn newspaper that Max Fleischer read regularly, stated that they were not supposed to mention Helen in favor of Mr. Max Fleischer had started his career as a newspaper cartoonist, and after the Fleischer Studios had became a famous studio, he was very well known in Brooklyn. In Betty Boop's comic strip was launched. Betty made appearances on the front cover of the Fleischer's Animated News , where she appeared in some of her own skits with Grampy , her nephew Junior , Popeye and Olive Oyl.
Betty Boop is a girl adored by her neighbors and a hard worker. She sells shoes in a shoe store along the day, and sings at the Club Bubbles at night. Betty Boop changes her outfit several times and has a pet parrot called Polly instead of her regular pet pooch Pudgy the dog.
Betty doesn't wear her garter belt throughout whole film even though the hays code rules are long gone and the garter is one of Betty's main trademarks, Betty's garter re-appears in the next film Betty appears in Who Framed Roger Rabbit , which was made 3 years after The Romance of Betty Boop.
According to information given, the people who worked on the film were thinking of Marilyn Monroe and her appearance in Some Like It Hot , when they added the musical sequence to the film. Betty Boop works as a waitress in a diner with her friends Bimbo and Koko the Clown. This is the first appearance of Bimbo since , who appears the color blue instead of black. Betty's outfit has been changed to purple instead of the usual red and her jewelry is silver instead of gold, with her garter being visible.
In , Richard Fleischer who was the son of Max Fleischer of the Fleischer Studios wanted to make a feature out of his father's star character "Betty Boop" but those plans were later scrapped. Jazz was a major part of most of the old Betty Boop cartoon shorts. Bernadette Peters was to have voiced Betty in the actual movie which would make the storyboard a pilot but before the recording sessions started the film was abandoned.
According to Mary Kay Bergman she had auditioned for the role and had been given the part, until it was abandoned. Richard Fleischer was shopping around for a Betty Boop TV series where Betty would be a intergalactic flight attendant, but plans for this were later scrapped. Betty Boop's Misguided Tours was a TV show about Betty Boop as a tour guide on a bus that travelled to various places around the world.
The show was supposed to have been hip and edgy. The project was scrapped. The concept would have had Betty as a leader of her own band, traveling from gig to gig. In a pilot for the upcoming Drawn Together series in Adobe Flash was pitched to several networks, including Adult Swim. The series was set as a parody of Big Brother and or The Real World , game shows in which contestants, referred to as housemates who live in isolation from the outside world. The series debuted in and featured a parody of Betty Boop called Toot Braunstein.
Braunstein being a typical Jewish name indicates that Toot is Jewish but she does not follow the Jewish religion and eats pork. Toot is the opposite of Betty Boop, she is deemed a repulsive outdated sex symbol, who is only seen as "sexy" in her s cartoons. Toot's background in her s cartoons is never quite explained in the series, though they say she is partially based on Amy Crews from Big Brother 3.
Drawn Together also in the s made fun of Betty's Boop's "Hooters" mascot campaign by making Toot the "Tooters" girl. For the series final Toot reveals that she is nothing like Betty Boop, and admits that Betty Boop wouldn't do the stuff that she does which is taboo. Toot was voiced by Tara Strong. Toot is the only Betty Boop parody to obtain a huge fanbase of her own. Toot made her last appearance in a DVD movie special, after the series was axed in for vulgar and offensive content.
Patricia Heaton also made a complaint against the series for being offensive when she and her daughter went out and came across a Drawn Together billboard promoting a same-sex kiss between a Disney Princess, known as Princess Clara who also was voiced by Strong. In the pilot episode Toot wore a black dress with straps in comparison to Betty's strapless dress. Toot's official outfit is based on Betty's dress from Sally Swing , only sleeveless.
Betty made cameo appearances in television commercials and the feature film Who Framed Roger Rabbit While television revivals were conceived, nothing has materialized from the plans. In there were plans for an animated feature film of Betty Boop but those plans were later canceled.
0コメント