The Cat, The Goof and Musical Mose – Some Notes

I’ve been meaning to write something about Philip Nel’s new book, Was the Cat in the Hat Black?: The Hidden Racism of Children’s Literature, and the Need for Diverse Books [amazon]. It’s caused some fuss. But I was already a Nel reader because, as a sometime Seussian myself, I read and enjoyed and learned a lot from his earlier book Dr. Seuss: American Icon.

There is an inherent risk that any degree of analytic subtly and investigative archaeology breeds ethical over-sensitivity, in a case like this. It isn’t scholarship if it doesn’t bring to light something a reasonably intelligent, moderately informed reader might miss. It isn’t dangerous to tender young minds if it sails over their heads. No 5-year old is going to notice the Cat owes a visual debt to minstrelsy, much less that Dr. Seuss apparently took some visual inspiration from a white-gloved African-American elevator operator named Annie Williams. Who knew? If that’s the concern, maybe it’s not much of one. (Not in the same league as giving a slightly older kid an original edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with the original, racist Oompa-Loompa illustrations. Here is Nel on the subject, some years ago.)

Since conservatives are super-hyper-sensitive to the risk that someone besides their snowflake-y selves might be even slightly over-sensitive, it’s pretty much impossible for Nel to broach his whole topic without ‘triggering’ the fainting couch set, be he ever so mild about minatory whispers in your shell-like.

But fair is fair: let me give an example of analysis and plausible harm wires maybe getting crossed.

On the one hand, the Cat looks like a blackface minstrel figure. Lots of visual tells, including some I never would have noticed: how much he is portrayed with his mouth wide open. Even the way he has so many kids – Little Cats – in The Cat And The Hat Comes Back. On the other hand, its anti-blackface insofar as instead of a black face, white body, we have a black body and white face. That does interfere with the reading, visually. Also:

People don’t see the blackface ancestry of the Cat for the same reason that they don’t see the blackface ancestry of Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, or the Scarecrow. These images are so embedded in the culture that their racialized origins have become invisible. As Robin Bernstein says, “when a racial argument is effectively countered in adult culture, the argument often flows stealthily into children’s culture [where] the argument appears racially innocent. This appearance of innocence provides a cover under which otherwise discredited racial ideology survives and continues, covertly, to influence culture.” This is why contemporary readers don’t see the Cat in the Hat’s racialized ancestry, and why he is able to be read as White.

The problem: what’s ‘the argument’ that is alleged to flow, in its original course, but now underground? The Cat is transgressive and foolish-wise, promising mother won’t mind stuff she will, in fact, mind. If the argument is just there’s something attractive about transgression, that argument actually is racially innocent. If the argument is still racist – African-Americans are by nature threats to social order – that does depend on the Cat reading as black.

But I don’t come here today to complain. Thing is: all the history and visual culture stuff here is deeply fascinating to me. Were it my book, I would spin the ethical upshot more like so. There is a need for more diversity in children’s books, but this point doesn’t follow from any secret Cat facts. It’s separate, although associated when the time to add and subtract from the shelf. As to Cat facts: we are rightfully – if on a case-by-case basis confusedly – concerned about how old stuff is racist, or has unsavory associations with racist stuff. If you are trying to pick between a racist book and a non-racist book for your kid maybe go with: non-racist?

This means, in truly toxic cases, stuff goes down the memory hole, at least as far as the children’s section goes. In a lot of borderline cases, what we do, in practice, is bowdlerize or nudge in what is deemed a healthier direction. New illustrations, lose the egregiously offensive volume in the series, clean up the originally slightly offensive but basically lovable character in any future additions to the franchise, rather than deprive future generations of some enjoyment. That seems the least bad option, mostly, but there’s a reason ‘bowdlerize’ isn’t exactly our proudest editorial mode. Also, I get why Disney doesn’t want Song of the South out there, but you don’t want Disney to lie about it, pretending it never was out there.

The kludge, it seems to me, is writing books like this (and not whining about it, when people write books like this.) You can’t read Philip Nel to a 5-year old. It isn’t practical to do much cultural and media criticism with very young kids (although feel free to try your best.) Let the kid read The Cat In The Hat. But kids should have every opportunity to learn unsavory facts about literary heroes, like Seuss, when they grow. When you know people are going to bowdlerize and memory-hole, even for reasonable reasons, make sure someone is making a record.

In that spirit, here are two things I’ve been thinking about. First, I only recently learned that George Herriman, author and artist of Krazy Kat fame, was of African-American descent, passing as white. Nel talks about this a bit in his book, since Krazy is an ancestor of the Cat. I also learned something else, which I assume Nel also knows but doesn’t discuss. Before the mature genius of Krazy, Herriman had a short-lived series that is about the saddest damn thing I’ve ever seen. The strip is “Musical Mose”, about a stock minstrel clown-type: black traveling musician who is always getting in trouble. Specifically, he is always trying to pass as Irish, as Italian, as what he obviously is not, and getting beat up. And it’s all for love of the music, apparently. It’s weirdly anticipatory of the perverse pleasure Krazy gets from the brick. You do the math.

Second, I’ve been writing about the history of animation – all that ‘shadow of a mouse stuff’ I got into few weeks back. At the very back of Thomas and Johnston, The Illusion of Life, Disney Animation – great, classic book! – there’s “Analysis of the Goof”, by Art Babbitt. Babbitt was an amazing guy, a pioneer, the main instigator of the Disney strike in 1942, and I was having some trouble laying hands on a profile of him from Sight and Sound, in 1974. But here it is. And now I realize that “Analysis of the Goof” was bowdlerized, in the Thomas and Johnston version. “Think of the Goof as a composite of an everlasting optimist, a gullible Good Samaritan, a half-wit, a shiftless, good-natured coloured boy and a hick.” Spoorn – that link goes to his blog – says he substituted ‘coloured boy’ for the n-word in the Sight and Sound original. It’s just dropped completely in Illusion of Life. I get why they edited it. But facts is facts.

Life’s messed up, man.