Diversity in Animation
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2009 is a big year for diversity in animation:
The Black Panther animated series.
The Cleveland Show.
Astro Boy Movie.
The Princess and the Frog – the new Disney movie where the lead princess is a black character.
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2008: The Boondocks banned episode.
No token hero: Static Shock. Napolitano says that the character of Virgil defies tokenism and reminds us that the black lead’s white friend acts “even blacker.”
In 2000, Dora the Explorer hits Nickelodeon, one of the very few attempts to seriously represent the Latino community in children’s television.
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Simpsons becomes the first cartoon to lend a serious ear to gay issues with its “Homerphobia” episode.
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1969 Fat Albert appears on screen – Bill Cosby turns his childhood experiences into a cartoon. The cartoon addresses topics such as drugs, racism, peer pressure and the strains of urban life.
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In 1963, Astroboy is born – the first anime. Animation took a huge step from vilifying the Japanese in comics to becoming voracious anime consumers.
All Negro Comics comes into being in 1947s during a brief spurt of the segregation gap breach with Jackie Robinson and Orrin C. Evans.
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Something happens with the Napolitano’s mouth and he starts to lisp noticeably.
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Walt Disney sent by USA to South America to try and reclaim America’s image against German propaganda. Saludos Amigos produced – the prototype for all the “Speedy Gonzalez” and “Chiquita Banana” characters.
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Napolitano told three stories about Aunt Jemima, Uncle Remus and The Yellow Kid – fiction and cartoons representing blacks and immigrants respectively. Back then, animation companies liked to present different ethnicities as parodies of themselves.
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The main speaker, Dan Napolitano opened the panel. A multicultural director at Alfred University introduced the “Art Force Five” – five young people representing the different art forms. They go into schools where some students may have been formerly incarcerated to talk about art.
Friday found me at the New York City Comic Con. The main space at the Javits Center dazzled with its array of colorful fiction but once you’ve seen one con, you have seen them all. What really interested me were the panels. I found one called “From panthers to princesses: diveristy in animation.” Intrigued, I came in just as the panel was about to start.