Analyzing the Cartoons
Cartoons were really made to be seen by both children and adults. At their worst, they were simply reinforcment and confirmation of social stereotypes or pure propaganda.
Here's a video that really gives you an idea just how pervasive racism was in cartoons, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s. It's pretty tough to watch. Consider yourself warned, but please do watch it. As you do so, consider the implications of kids being raised on a fairly continuous diet of images such as these. Keep in mind that the examples here are exemplary, not exhaustive. That's to say that if you were to compile all the racist moments of cartoons, you'd probably have many, many hours of video.
Here's a WWII propaganda cartoon. It's a bit easier to watch than the racist moments video (imho, there are a couple genuinely funny seconds), but it's also larded with racist caricatures.
However, at their best, cartoons were imaginative, challenging, anti-structural, and profoundly anti authoritarian. They played creatively with issues of power, gender, the nature of reality, the nature of film, and sometimes current events. And, they also exposed people to music, art, and other aspects of culture.
On the one hand, its easy to see why the anti-authoritarianism of a character like Bugs Bunny would appeal to any kid who has ever been told by a parent or teacher that they have to do something they don't want to do. On the other, the social critique of Bugs and the other cartoons goes well beyond the simple pleasure of making fun of the powerful and seeing them get what they deserve. Below, I provide some brief commentary on each of the cartoons shown in class. As you read it, keep in mind that, above all, cartoons are meant to entertain. Here, slender stalks are carrying a heavy burden of interpretation.
What's Opera Doc (1957): This may currently be the best known single Bugs Bunny cartoon. It performs interesting cultural work on many different levels. First, it introduces kids to the styles, themes, and stock characters of opera (something they're almost certainly unfamiliar with). All of the music is actually from various Wagner operas. You can listen to the Oveture to Tannhauser here and Siegfried's horn call from Act 2 of Siegfried here. Feel free to sing along with both (you don't have to go far in the comments to find references to the cartoons). Second, this is a classic example of Bugs as karmic trickster. He is doing nothing, minding his own business and Elmer Fudd as Siegfried happens to him. Third, the styles of Wagnerian opera, over the top staging, characters like Brunhilde are both introduced and held up to ridicule. This is done partially through the fluidity of gender. Bugs appears in drag. Gender fluidity is a frequent part of Bugs cartoons...but note that it goes in different directions in different cartoons. Here, Bugs appears in drag but in Rabbit of Seville it's Elmer Fudd who appears (happily) in drag. Fourth, note a little bit of current events as Elmer Fudd invokes SMOG to kill the rabbit. Finally, the cartoon also answers the question: what does the dog do after he catches the car? Bugs is chaos, creativity, craziness. Elmer mourns Bugs' seeming death "poor little bunny poor little rabbit." Why does Elmer mourn? Well, there are lots of answers to that question. The great anthropologist Victor Turner argued that all structure was dependent on anti-structure. All societies need both. Bugs is one of the most anti-structural characters ever created. Elmer knows he cannot ever kill Bugs. A society of Elmer Fudds would be intolerable. And we, the audience known that Bugs can never be killed (and Bugs reassures us that he is not really dead before the ending).
Duck Amuck (1953): Years before the French New Wave filmmakers attempted to break up Hollywood's continuity style, Chuck Jones and Warner Brothers were playing with the artificiality of film. All fiction is based around suspension of disbelief. We agree that we will pretend that the characters and the story are real even though we know that they aren't. This is as true of cartoons as of anything else. We know that Bugs isn't "real" but if we didn't also believe that he was in some way real (at least for the duration of a cartoon) we wouldn't care if Elmer Fudd killed and ate him. Duck Amuck plays with this in fascinating ways and invites us (or requires us) to ask interesting questions about ourselves. On the one hand, it's a long series of challenges to the "reality" of the cartoon. In constantly painting and repainting the scene, and in Daffy's constant dialogue with both the unseen artists, the audience, and himself, Duck Amuck forces us to think about the artificiality of movies. On the other hand, the character of Daffy Duck transcends the different scene changes. He is somehow still present, talking to us, even when he is erased entirely. So, where is, who is, what is Daffy Duck? There's a basic lesson in mind/body dualism behind the silliness, and maybe a reminder that our situations are changing and appearances don't matter so much. This is also, BTW, one of the only times I know where Bugs appears as an instigator rather than an agent of karma. But that too encourages disturbing reflections: Daffy is being drawn by Bugs. Who's Bugs being drawn by...and who is that person being drawn by...?
One Froggy Evening (1955): This is probably my personal favorite. It works on so many levels and is, I think, deeply counter-cultural. First, there is a direct appeal to the world of childhood. Children's worlds are full of silent (sometimes inanimate) things that take on personalities and voices that only they hear. Everyone, in a sense, has or had a singing frog. But, that's very superficial. At a deeper level, the film carries the rather simple lesson that some things just can't be turned into money. The frog only performs for the man who found him. The man should just enjoy this wonderous new thing he's found and not try to profit from it. But that's too simple a reading too. After all, here in 'merica we do believe in making money. And, even beyond that, it's also clear that the man who's found the frog wants to share his discovery with the world; for money, but also for others' entertainment and pleasure. When you think about it, the man hasn't really done anything wrong. He's shown sneaking off when he finds the frog but the frog doesn't belong to anyone in particular. The man tries over and over again to succeed, investing and losing his money, and sinking into poverty, insanity, and despair. Eventually, he seals the frog back up again. In a sense, the man's done everything right: he's worked hard, taken risks, put his money where his mouth is... all classic American virtues, and still he fails. This, I think, is a profoundly counter-cultural message. We're told over and over again, especially as children, that if we work hard, we will be rewarded. We're given this message in school, in movies... all over the place. This cartoon, on the other hand, teaches something just as important: sometimes, the frog won't sing. Sometimes, even though we do everything right, we're gonna fail. Or as I like to say: "They said it couldn't be done/ And so he got right too it, / And you know that thing that couldn't be done/ He found he couldn't do it.
Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century (1952): This is perhaps the simplest of these four. Of course, on one level it's just a send-up of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Buck Rogers was a comic strip character created in the late 1920s and published in Amazing Stories. It was one of the first American stories to talk about space exploration. It was extraordinarily popular and spun off a daily comic strip and a radio series in the 1930s, 12 movies in the 40s, and TV shows in the 50s (and both a movie and TV show in the late 1970s and 1980s, long after the cartoon was produced). On a second level, it's about the overblown Duck Dodgers being consistently outwitted by his childlike cadet (Porky Pig). Chuck Jones said: "The Porky character was kind of a square, I suppose, but you always felt, in a cartoon like Duck Dodgers that he had his tongue-in-cheek. There was always some sly awareness there." But, the real story here is a very direct commentary on nuclear proliferation and the Cold War. It's clear that Duck Dodgers and Marvin the Martian represent the US and the USSR respectively, though this doesn't really matter. What matters is that they escalate their war until they blow up planet X. Daffy succeeds in claiming it for Earth but Porky says, correctly: "Big deal." There's nothing left. The message is pretty clear.
For diehard fans: There were two series of classic WB cartoons: Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. Looney Tunes was first (and the name pretty much ripped-off a Disney cartoon product called Silly Symphonies) . Its films were black and white and they were designed to promote Warners musical films. It was successful so Warners set up a second production unit a year later to make Merrie Melodies, which were to be in color. In theory, LTs had continuing characters and MMs did not. However, over time LTs and MMs merged so that, by the 50s, there was really no difference between the two. The names reflected historical origins only.