"Little Nemo in Slumberland" dated May 12, 1907:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (AUGUST 18, 2020):
Unsurprisingly, I find the second strip in the Candy Island series even more offensive than the first as it leans heavily into the post-emancipation stereotypical depictions of Blacks meant to promote the "pro-white" political system of the time (Riggs, 1987). - 1/21
I'm going to rely on some of the discussions surrounding post-emancipation caricature from Marlon Riggs' (1987) haunting documentary, #EthnicNotions, for guidance in this thread. I'm grateful to @pfxbryan for guiding me to the documentary early in the project! - 2/21
The narrative thrust of this strip is a juxtaposition between the linguistic assurances that the Chief are providing to Nemo and the Princess and the visual depictions of Flip being swarmed, hefted into a pot and nearly boiled for dinner by the other imps. - 3/21
Though I do find it interesting how McCay uses both modes in parallel, yet contradictory, ways (especially as a multimodal researcher), the underlying political ideology that it promotes is impossible to justify. - 4/21
Though I mentioned yesterday how the jungle imps visual depictions demonstrated their link to blackface minstrelsy, what I didn't discuss was how that caricature played out within the American political context. - 5/21
As #EthnicNotions discusses, pre-emancipation caricature of Black Americans would never risk depicting them as anything other than: a) incapable of adapting to freedom; the Zipcoon caricature, or b) "happy darkies in their proper place" (Riggs, 1987); the Sambo caricature. - 6/21
To suggest otherwise, would insinuate that Blacks were unhappy being slaves (fueling the call for emancipation), which most assuredly worked against the primary interests of the pro-white/white supremacist political system. - 7/21
It makes sense then that after Emancipation in 1863, Black stereotype and caricature changed to accommodate the shift in political necessity. Increasingly, Blacks were represented as "brutes", "beasts", or a "menace" (Riggs, 1987) in an attempt to maintain white supremacy - 8/21
George Frederickson says, "Those who wanted to re-establish firm white control… used the argument that… Blacks no longer under the benign or beneficent or kindly guidance of whites were reverting to savagery" (Riggs, 1987). - 9/21
A bit later, Erskine Peters suggests that this allowed pro-white politics to justify not only a reason for the potential return to slavery, but also the killing of Black Americans as "an offense to civilization" (Riggs, 1987). - 10/21
Undeniably, it is this abhorrent Post-Emancipation/Reconstruction Era image of Black Americans that McCay's jungle imps suggest through their representation. - 11/21
That the narrative of this strip hinges on the imps' intentions to consume Flip promotes the harmful insinuation of Black American "savagery" or "bestial nature" hidden under the guise of a comic strip gag. It's very hard to read (and maybe even more so to discuss) today. - 12/21
That said, this is undercut by the Chief's stepping in & rescuing Flip at the last minute. He demonstrates an ability to maintain civility & control that the other imps don't; something wholly antithetical to the political system the imps depiction seems to be rooted in. - 13/21
Furthermore, as @pfxbryan pointed out last strip, both the Chief and the other imps display a solid grasp of the English language, revealing no slang or racialized accents that dominated much caricature of the time, furthering the suggestion of their uncivilized natures. - 14/21
I'm honestly not sure what to make of these contradictions… and we can't look to McCay's own politics for support here because there is much uncertainty about his personal political views. - 15/21
Shannon (2010) had the following to say in his article, "Something Black in the American Psyche: Formal Innovation and Freudian Imagery in the Comics of Winsor McCay and Robert Crumb (p. 197): - 16/21 [INSERT IMAGE]
Clearly, Shannon believes it would be "erroneous to suggest that McCay was promoting a particular political agenda in #LittleNemo" (2010, p. 197). But I think it unwise to leave it at that. - 17/21
For my part, I don't entirely disagree with Shannon or the others who can't imagine McCay intentionally promoting a particular political agenda, I just feel as though his intentions matter very little in the end. - 18/21
These strips, simply by the nature of representation, promoted a harmful stereotype of Black Americans. Therefore, I feel as though the desire to absolve McCay of wrongdoing is misguided; his legacy must grapple with the harms that his work did whether intentional or not. - 19/21
And, as 21st Century readers return to his work to admire all of the formal innovation and inspiration he provided to countless cartoonists over the years, we too must come to terms with the more unflattering side of what McCay's work offered readers in the early 1900s. - 20/21
This is my reading of "Little Nemo in Slumberland" #83. What's yours? - 21/21