Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics (4 points)

When seeing the ethnic and racial stereotyping warning at the top of this week, I felt challenged to only read the racist ones. I wanted to see the darkside of popular comic artists as well as comparing how far we have as a society in recognizing what is wrong with these comics statements/jokes. Will it be fun to read things targeting my race or other colors races, no. but i think it will be important not to just ignore just because it might hurt me or anyone i care about a bit. There are always exceptions to the rule but I know the majority of people in this school and the world will not believe in the racism in the comics I pick.

I'll start with Katzenjammer’s revenge since it starts with extremely racist depictions of the caribbean peoples. It's interesting to see that these people are seen as “cannibals” for wearing clothes that are more comfortable or a part of a different religious culture. 

Of course this depiction is blown out of proportion to create a laugh at the uncultured cannibals who live elsewhere. The most people will do today is insult people about what they wear not because of their culture, beliefs or race but because it just doesn't match well. To get more indepts about what this comic is trying to insult we start with how they are dressed. The islanders have no shoes compared to the main characters who have boots that help them while on the ocean stay warm/have better traction. That was seen as very strange to people who grew up in places where snow and cold weather could affect any skin that's exposed to the cold. So if you put yourself in their “shoes,” no pun intended, coming to a new land and seeing people where sandals or no shoes all together must be extremely confusing. Moving on to the clothes and jewelry. The man is seen wearing jewelry which is something that only women stereotypically would wear. So another reason to think that these people are below you. Women are already “below” men in this time period of 1911. So a MAN wearing something that's for women? Oh no they must be stupid, not just looking way more stylish than you. Also another woman comparing things is that the black man is wearing a dress. Again women only were wearing dresses in this time period. Lastly I'll talk about the pet and the baby. The baby's stroller is a turtle, which on a side note would be kinda cool to have but not so fun for the turtle. But the most important thing about the baby is that he looks like a flat out monkey. It's most likely the print quality that makes me think this way but the baby doesn't look like it has clothes and looks a lot darker than the parents. I think its a subtle hint that the “stupid only produce more stupid.” There is even some insults thrown towards the Dutch captain. Even though he is the captain of the ship and dressed the most “proper” out of the bunch he too gets laughed at for getting caught in the scheme of the two little ones.

The name of the whole comic has several meanings to it. Katzenjammer means confusion, sadness or a hangover. Which explains why the kids are causing so much uproar to the adults as well as why they are always on the ground or the bunt of the joke. The white people on the ship are confused about the natives while being stupid or hungover enought to do even more stupider things than they are insulting the natives for. If you spin this story hard enough you could say it's a statement on the white sailors stupidity and ignorance. But that's a really far stretch and 99.9% most likely not true. 

I'll also talk about one more strip.

Starting with Little Nemo in Slumberland. A uniformed Police/military officer, another person who might be of irish descent (because of the large beard and still monkey-like features) who is also in uniform and a black person who is depicted as a monkey with a tutu on are the main characters. They are traveling through a little kid's or “nemos” dreams. There is a panel in this one that flat out calls out the black officer a “imp.” even the irish man who is insulted for his looks right after laughs at the black officer. Also this black officer is seen not being able to talk normal english and only follow commands or the other officers. This is a little kid's dream. I want to repeat a little kid's dream. I can guarantee you that no one thinks like this anymore. No one dreams of black or irish as racist depictions of bad race stereotypes. If they really do, they must be out of their mind. Most people get called dumb or even a monkey not because of your races but because of how STUPID you just acted. Not race based at all. 

Both of these comic series continued for another good while. 

Little Nemo in the Slumberland comic ended after 20ish years (around 1927). But it does not end there for its legacy. A film adaptation was made in 1989 about little nemo that had Hayao Miyazaki, Gary Kurtz, the Sherman Brothers and many notable figures in tv and film today. Also a 1990 Capcom game was made about it as well. 

Now for The Katzenjammer Kids. The comics apparently ended in 2006. It is deemed as one of the longest running newspaper comics. It had a legal battle with the original author Rudolph Dirks. Rudolph made his own (The Captain and Kids) that ended before katzenjammer ended. It been really popular in scandinavia since it talks more about dutch and other scandinacian jokes now of days. 

Seeing how these stories were long running comics are two different things to me. One, the artist of the paneling and drawings and two how fast meanings can change within the media. Within almost a decade the once extremely degreating comic has turned into a light hearted film about a kid getting lost in his dreams. Or into a fun video game about the same thing. Thus showing that things that have originally horrible meanings can turn into something nice and not racist.

Time can fix things, if we let it fix it.