children cartoons,

7/26/2019 CHILDREN CARTOONS,

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CARTOONS FOR CHILDREN

The idea that cartoons were born for children is pretty common. However, as far

away from the reality. Since Disney became the king of the land, turninganimation part of the lm industry, his philosophy had been dominating the

market until the end of the century. But, animation, not even in alt Disney

intentions, was never only for kids. e must not forget that Disney is more

interested in bewaring with the moral of the times than in understanding the

child!s mind. "or more painful it could be, Disney himself, barely before to die,

said that it was never an artistic point, it was always a business, and while the

bo# o$ce worker that meant the people wanted it because that is what all is

about and it was always%

Then, everything started with Disney?

&es and not. Better start from the beginning.

'n the early ()th century **++ was inside of a thick and speed industrialiation

process. The modern -merica was born during the socalled /-merica!s formative

period0, between the late 12th and the early ()th centuries when an agrarian

society of small producers was transformed into an urban society dominated by

industrial corporations. -nd, a little place called Hollywood was a good e#ample

of that. -t the beginning of the ()th century, Hollywood was anything else than

an orange plantation. 3ne day, /D. .0 4ri$th passed for there and thought that

it was a perfect place for shooting, full of wonderful opened landscapes, peaceful

people, and sun. 't was 121) when he shot /'n 3ld 5alifornia0 the very rst lm

ever lming in Hollywood. Three years later, 5.5. B. Demille arrived to shoot

/The S6uaw 7an0, the very rst production lming.

The largest production company, at late 12th and early ()th centuries, was the

"rench 8athe, until the ' orld ar arrival. 't was in 1219. "our years later, 121:

the world had changed and Hollywood was about to become a new power in a

new era without any barrier in front of it. ;ike a volcanic e#plosion, the

development of the new industry was a phenomenon that

seemed to have own life, and this was unstoppable.

'n 12)2, the Selig 8olyscope 5ompany established the rst

permanent studio in the ;os -ngeles area. 'n 121), the

/Star System0 knew his very rst -merican namee#t year, the company signed a new millionaire

contract with 7ary 8ickford. But, no one was better to

pay than oscoe /"atty0 -rbuckle, who was lured in

121: by the rst multiplier, multimillion dollar a year

deal to make si# feature lms within three years with

8aramount. -nd, remember, one million dollars in

12() had not the same value than now. ;ife smiled to Hollywood, and nothing

and nobody seemed able to stop it.

-nimation was in his way, but that was a bit slower than real action lms.

*verything looked to be smooth, perfect and millionaire for Hollywood business.

But, there is always a /but0.

The happy 20s

"rom the late 12th century everything had changed in the new world. The

working class had been growing fed by thousands and thousands of new

immigrants, who, unlike the rst ones who came from Britain, 5anada, 4ermany,

'reland and Scandinavia, these arrived from Hungary, 'taly, 8oland and ussian.

The new immigrants were often 5atholics and @ewish and, often as well, their

cultural and religious heritage collided with the one of the rst colonists.

5inema and cartoons were the main forms of entertainment in cities, a cheap

ticket to dream for a while trying barely to escape from a harsh life. 5inema was

not only ine#pensive so that everybody could go, but it also was silent, so you

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did not need to speak *nglish to understand the lm, and in this way, immigrants

became a very signicant volume of the audience.

't was September of a happy 12(1 when newspaper showed a new face of the

glamorous Joyful dreamed Hollywood.

osco -baco /"atty0, one the best paid and most famous Hollywood stars was

charged with raped and murder. 't was a social

shock, especially because osco was a

naive and innocent comic character.

osco was charged for killing Kirginia

appe, another star, with his weight

while savagely raping her. -fter three

days of a wild party, Kirginia was

translated from a destroyed suite of

the hotel to the hospital where she

died some days later. osco was declared innocent of all the charges, but his

career was nished, and the public opinion was convinced of his culpability.

But, osco was not alone. "ebruary 1, 12((, illiam Desmond Taylor, one of the

most famous movie directors, was murdered in his bungalow in the est ;ake

District of ;os -ngeles. He had been shot in

the back by a F: caliber revolver. Taylor=s

murder became one of the most sensational

cases in the annals of Hollywood crime

and one that has never been close to being

solved.

Hollywood land of dreams had a dark side and this aEected to the bo# o$ce. The

enormous weight of the new immigrants with their traditional 5atholics and

@ewish moral ideas let showed all his power in the answer of the audiences to the

new Hollywood face, and they were not ready to accept this kind of behaviour.

The producers had serious reasons to be worried. The forces of moral

conservatism, fresh from their triumph of adding a prohibition against alcohol to

the +nited States 5onstitution, prepared to challenge the lm world. They started

to claim to ask the government for some federal actionC voices began calling for

censorship of the movies, and the bo# o$ce went down.

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The movie industry needed to be put their house in order,

and ill Hays was going to be the man for the task. 3n 19

7arch 12((, The -ssociation of 7otion 8icture 8roducers,

and The 7otion 8icture 8roducers and Distributors of

-merica, 'nc 788D-, made Hays the rst president of it,

with an o$ce on "ifth -venue in >ew &ork. He accepted a

salary of S' 1A,))) per annum Labout :M)),))) in 12:M

dollarsN, a prepaid life insurance policy, plus an almost

unlimited e#pense account.

Hays!s rst move was to strengthen the nances of the

new trade association. He approached >ew &ork bankers

whom he knew from his days as head of the epublican

party and within a week had set up a line of credit which put the 788D- on

stable economic footing. Such 6uick action impressed his new bosses. ith his

political connections, he demonstrated that he was the right man for the Job.Then, he created a formal public relations arm of the 788D- to deal with the

religious groups, educational organiations, and other parties so concerned with

the presumed negative in?uence of the movies.

't was Hays who, in 12(I, established the 5opyright 8rotection Bureau to register

titles of lms and thus head oE disputes over duplication. The ne#t year saw the

establishment of a formal committee on labour relations. This interest in

;abour resulted in the formation of the -cademy of 7otion 8icture -rts and

Sciences 12(:, today well known for its annual 3scar -wards, but the Hays 3$ce

had created the academy to provide a forum for labour disputes.

THE CODE

'n 12F), therefore, a new code, which came to be known as the Hollywood

8roduction 5ode or Hays 5ode, was written. Hays 3$ce had to organie formal

selfregulation of movie content through its notorious 8roduction 5ode

-dministration L85-N. But, that, certainly was not a real censorship for movies

industry. 5ensorship takes place when an outside force, usually a governmental

agency, dictates what may be published or shown. The Hays 3$ce policed the

productions of its own member companies< any nes were paid to the Hays

3$ce, owned by and operated for the members themselves. The 85- was

created so that federal censorship, most strongly advocated by the 5atholic

5hurch, would not become the law of the land.

The industry accepted The 5ode nominally. Hays had established some kind of

morality suggestions more than rules and the most producers followed them or

pretended to do it. However, after a few years the guidelines started to rela# and

by the coming of sound in the late 12()s, the treatment of crime, violence,

se#ual indelity, profanity, and even nudity became alarming to some people.

The arrival of sounds made even more shocking this kind of contents and the

strong morality 5atholic group in society claimed for the necessity of agovernmental censorship control.

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'n 12FF a new organiation dedicated to identifying and combating obJectionable

content in motion pictures from the point of view of the -merican 5atholic

5hurch was founded, it was The >ational ;egion of Decency, also known as The

5atholic ;egion of Decency. -t the time, the population of 5atholics, some twenty

million, were theoretically forbidden from attending any screening of lms under

the notion of mortal sin. Then, lms were submitted to the >ational ;egion of

Decency to be reviewed prior to their o$cial duplication and distribution to the

general public, after receiving a stamp of approval from the secular o$ces

behind Hollywood=s 8roduction 5ode.

Hays and Hollywood reacted and 1 @uly 12F9, Hays=

5ode was actually working. "or that reason, movies

made between 12F) and F9 are thus often referred to as

precede or precode, even though the 8roduction 5ode

was theoretically in eEect. +nder the original 12F)

8roduction 5ode, all lms were designed to be suitablefor viewers of all ages, even if adults were their primary

target audiences. They were created for an adult

audience and they were full of trickery and

salaciousness, as well animation. ;ike the rest of the

industry, cartoons were not particularly worried about

The 5ode. They do include the broad ethnic and gender

stereotyping that was common to the comedy of the era, and an inordinate

amount of caricatured cameos of celebrities and newsmakers.

Betty Boop made her rst appearance on -ugust 2, 12F), in the cartoon /Diy

Dishes0C the si#th installment in "leischer!s Talkartoon, a series of 9( animated

cartoons produced by the "leischer Studios and distributed by 8aramount

8ictures between 12(2 and 12F(. -t 12F(, Talkartoon were replaced by the Betty

Boop series, which continued for the ne#t seven years. 't is regarded as one of

the rst and most famous se# symbols on the animated screen. -s it is well

known, Betty, a se#ualied woman character, has never been the favorite

character between conservatives, however, her popularity was drawn largely

from adult audiences having a healthy protable life until 12F9 when The

8roduction 5ode was operating eEectively. The 5ode of imposed guidelines on

the 7otion 8icture 'ndustry and placed specic restrictions on the content lms

could reference with se#ual innuendos. This greatly aEected the Betty Boop

cartoons in deep.

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-t that time, 7innie 7ouse was as well displayed showing their underwear or

bloomers regularly, but in the style of childish or comical characters, not an

entirely dened woman!s form. Disney=s style had no problems with the

conservative 5atholic thought. -lthough his ancestors arrived at **++ in

between the lately 1:th and the early 12th centuries, his family preserved the

original 'rish 5atholic mentality. *lias Disney educated his children inside of a

strict conservative style of life. alt Disney did not need to do any work to make

cartoons according to with the imperative moral at the moment because he was

a good e#ample of it. -nd audiences appreciated it. So, meanwhile others

producers were in trouble with the application of The 5ode, that became an

e#cellent opportunity for the company of the 7ouse.

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't was not until 12F9 when the things actually started to be serious about the

code. Scenes, scripts, shoots even whole lms were banned. >ude, violence,

racial points of view or religious critics were cut. -nd, of course, that was for

animation as well. But, unlike lms, animation fed

on irony, social and political criticism, sarcasm,

surrealism and, of course, se#. 8eople did not

make drama or philosophy using animation and

the code represented a hard blow for a business

which was di$cult enough. 't was starting to be

pretty di$cult to make money with animation.

The production re6uired a higher technical

6uality every day and that meant moneyC

however, the cost of the production increased day by day, the income produced

by short cartoons did not. The eEects of the depression were present all aroundC

the problems with the censors made more complicated to nd the fun for the

cartoonist and the development of the new technologies were another handicapto add to the enough di$cult economic situations during the depression.

However, even Disney was aEected for the censorship. There were two main

reasons for that. By one hand, the competitors who were not very happy with the

successful of the mouseC by the other, Disney behaviour became an e#ample of

how the things should be work in cartoons.

'n "ebruary, 1M, 12F1 The Times e#plained

/7otion 8icture 8roducers O Distributors of -merica last week announced that,

because of complaints of many censor boards, the famed udder of the cow in the7ickey 7ouse cartoons was now banned. 5ows in 7ickey 7ouse or other cartoon

pictures in the future will have small or invisible udders 6uite unlike the

gargantuan organ whose antics of late have shocked some and convulsed other

of 7ickey 7ouse!s patrons. 'n a recent picture the udder, besides ?ying violently

to left and right or stretching far out behind when the cow was in motion, heaved

with its panting when the cow stood stillP it also stretched, when seied, in an

e#aggerated way.0

hat for the most of the people are all problems is the same that for someone

become an opportunity. Disney had the right point of view, the one which

audience were opened for accepting and dreaming with. "ree of what the

conservatives could feel like a treat and full of the happiness and hope that the

desperation of the time during the Big Depression needed it after, Disney had an

opened path to becoming a kind of the land. He developed a character thatrepresented the purest and classic -merican Spirit< 7ickey 7ouse became

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6uickly a phenomenon. Disney, always learning from the successful before him,

and deeply wishing to be as famous as they, wanted that his 7ouse was more

loved than the previous /"eli# The 5at0. 7ickey was ready to have his own line of

products, but Disney was going to do it better, he was going to invent

merchandising.

During the early years of the depression nothing was easy for nobody, but while

the whole country was in bankruptcy 7ickey 7ouseQDisney became rich, richer

and richer, and more and more selected as the model of the perfect -merican.

/The fresh cheering is for 7ickey the Big Business 7an, the world=s super

salesman. He nds work for Jobless folk. He lifts corporations out of bankruptcy.

herever he scampers, here or overseas, the sun of prosperity breaks through

the clouds.0 H. ;. obbins. The >ew &ork Times 7arch 12FA.

The feeling and the rules of censorship will be changed, but for that moment,

Disney was already the absolute kind of the land. Disney was seeding cartoons

with a very concrete and dened way to do it. The eternal happy Disney ending,and cute characters with sweet colours suitable for the whole family, according

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to with a conservative point of view, had shown how substantial business it could

be. Because nally, that is what all is about%

-nd cartoons started to become sweeter, happy and se# free like if that was a

natural way to do it, and the only right way for fantasy lms and adults were

losing their interest. -nd one day, suddenly, it seemed like nobody thought aboutanimation for adults anymore.... until now, when business is growing up again

thanks to the whole family concept again.

But that is another story.

8epa ;lausas

-pril, ()1M. 8aris.

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