Censored 11
The Censored 11 are eleven animated films made by the Warner Bros. that were made in the 1930s and 40s . -Series Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies , which were withdrawn from the program by United Artists in 1968 due to self-censorship and no longer shown. The reason for this was latent racist content, which in the late 1960s was no longer seen as politically correct to show (see also civil rights movement ).
background
Many films from the early days of animation development, where racism in any form appeared (eg. B. that the face of a figure after a explosion black colored , sometimes with swollen lip) were simply these short scenes cut . With Censored 11, however, racism forms the basis of the respective cartoons, so that it would have been impossible to cut them.
The Censored 11 are the following films:
- Hittin 'the Trail for Hallelujah Land (1931)
- Sunday Go to Meetin 'Time (1936)
- Clean Pastures (1937)
- Uncle Tom's Bungalow (1937)
- Jungle Jitters (1938)
- The Isle of Pingo Pongo (1938)
- All This and Rabbit Stew (1941)
- Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs (1943)
- Tin Pan Alley Cats (1943)
- Angel Puss (1944)
- Goldilocks and the Jivin 'Bears (1944)
However, some doubts have arisen about the racism of some of these cartoons, such as Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs . Director Bob Clampett allegedly only caricatured a few jazz musicians he was friends with in real life.
At least some of the Censored 11 were still broadcast on German television in the 1990s. a. Goldilocks and the Jivin 'Bears and Jungle Jitters in the children's program on ARD and Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land on ARTE .
The film rights
The rights to the animated films were sold by the producing Warner Bros. in 1956 to the Associated Artists Productions and in 1958 passed into the possession of the United Artists subsidiary United Artists Television . After the acquisition of United Artists in 1981 by Kirk Kerkorians Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , the latter owned the rights to the cartoons.
When Ted Turner secured the rights to all Warner Bros. cartoons from before 1948 by purchasing Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1986, he promised that he would never show or publish any of the Censored 11s. He kept this promise. When Time Warner merged with Turner's Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) in 1996 and Warner Bros. effectively took back the rights, they had still been officially undisplayed since 1968.
However, three of the eleven films ( Hittin 'the Trail to Hallelujah Land , Jungle Jitters and the Bugs Bunny cartoon All This and Rabbit Stew ) are public domain under American law and have therefore often been legally unlicensed by smaller companies on video and DVD. There are also illegal bootlegs of the remaining Censored 11 .
Other "censored" films
Meanwhile, several other Warner Bros. cartoons that could be suspected of being racist have also disappeared from American television . For example, the "Inki" cartoons by Chuck Jones and some cartoons from the Second World War , in which Germans (Mr. Meets Hare) or Japanese (Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips) are portrayed negatively.
Other animation studios have blacklisted some of their animated films too, MGM for example two animated films by Tex Avery ( Uncle Tom's Cabana and Little Pygmy ).
Web links
- Ghosts from the poison closet - report on one day , Spiegel-online