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  • 2019-02-13 (xsd:date)
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  • Was Mickey Mouse Modeled After a Racist Caricature Named 'Jigaboo'? (en)
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  • In February 2019, an image showing Jigaboo, a racist caricature that supposedly served as the inspiration for Disney's Mickey Mouse character, began to spread via social media: The most popular posting of these images that we could find was accompanied by a caption stating: RACISM ... Mickey mouse was a remake of a character named jigaboo who was made to mock black people ... And I use to like Mickey Mouse smh ??‍♂️ This caricature was not the inspiration for Mickey Mouse, nor did it depict an early cartoon character known as Jigaboo. This image is a contemporary work of art by Michael Ray Charles that was created in 1994 (nearly 70 years after Mickey Mouse made his first appearance in 1928) entitled (Forever Free) BEWARE. The fact that the character in BEWARE resembles Mickey Mouse, however, is not a coincidence. Charles also created several other artworks which overlaid racial stereotypes onto modern characters and symbols such as the Pillsbury Dough Boy, Superman, and Elvis Presley: Art critic Rebecca Cohen explored Charles' work in a 1997 article published in the Austin Chronicle: Artist Michael Owen added more insight into Charles' work: While this viral image does not depict a character named Jigaboo which served as the inspiration for Mickey Mouse, Charles' painting does invoke the early history of the latter character. Many historians of the period believe that Mickey Mouse, like other early 20th century animated characters, was heavily influenced by blackface performers and minstrel shows of the time. A collection of essays entitled A Mickey Mouse Reader includes several mentions of Mickey's supposed minstrel show influences. Here's how M. Thomas Inge described Disney's famous character in his essay Mickey Mouse: Nicholas Sammond argued in his book Birth of an Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation that Mickey Mouse (and similar animated characters) wasn't just like a minstrel -- the premier Disney character, according to Sammond, was a cartoon minstrel: Either way, a character named Jigaboo did not serve as the main inspiration for Mickey Mouse. The Jigaboo racial caricature was a modern creation (from 1994) based upon the famous Disney character and his suspected connection to blackface minstrelsy, not the other way around. (en)
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