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Quote from user: WBHmmm...

You know. I should probably remember to actually have my stuff on hand and look before I open my mouth.

Ever since I replied in the Panchito thread by accident, this topic has been bothering me. So I went back, pulled out the trade and took a second look at the scene - and all the ones containing Foola Zoola as well since that was what I'd concentrated on in my reading.

Having took that second look, I feel that I need to immediately recant one my statements from earlier. While I still didn't see it as being racist at all, upon taking an even closer look at the scenes in question I don't really see anything wrong with it to begin with. If anything - from a historical standpoint (and this might be me talking out of my ass as I can't confirm it via real book research) - I think Don Rosa actually got Scrooge's "insult" right.

Now if you *WANTED* to you could imply that something is there. Anybody could, but really it's just an incredibly silly gag meant to utterly and completely humiliate Scrooge - and a harmless one at that.

The reason I am recanting while siding with the majority here is not over the "was it racist" argument, but because I'd made the off comment that maybe Don Rosa had got the imagery in question from the "picaninny" stereotype. But it turns out that I was horribly wrong about that - and gladly so because then mvblair really would have had something to complain about. To trace the scene in question and the reason why I say that Don Rosa actually got it right actually goes back to Foola Zoola and his original source material - voodoo. Now I've expressed my mild irritation previously at Carl Barks' original "Voodoo Hoodoo" story but this isn't the place for that. If you want something that really has racial humor at the expense of the story then that's where you need to concentrate your arguments on, but here, not so much.

Foola Zoola - for better or worse - is really the only distinctive "black" character in the duck and mouse world that most will think of if you think in terms of diversity. Sure - in the 80's, 90's, and 00's we've had dognose characters colored with black skin, but Foola is different. Furthermore, it doesn't help that he's a villain AND in the original story he was a "shark-toothed" monstrous looking subhuman type character. Don Rosa took a character that was probably one of Carl Barks's most sinister and equally over-the-top stereotypes of your typical Tarzan style jigaboo native (widely used back in Barks's younger days) and actually turned him into a seriously threatening and scary McDuck villain on par with - IMO The Phantom Blot. Think about it - we've only ever seen Foola Zoola in two stories - the original and here - but he's also the only villain that flat out seeks to kill Scrooge McDuck via the use of the silly Bombie - not for money, not for his dime, but just out of flat out vengeance for Scrooge wronging him and his people. He didn't even care that Donald had nothing to do with the incident in question in Barks's story. He poisoned a voodoo doll, set an eternally dead man on the duck, and would kill anybody related to McDuck if he had the chance.

Sure, Glomgold has (intentionally at one point) been flat out murderous at Scrooge and more often than not threatened him at gunpoint plenty of times but he's never had an out-and-out hard-on for wanting to kill his rival - just ruin him. If you really think about it - for only having appeared once or twice - Foola Zoola is one of the darkest characters in Disney comics next to several Gottfredson/Walsh villains.

Furthermore there's also his association with voodoo - one of the more darkly romanticized religions/cultures/whatever in fiction. So how does this all tie in to the racism complaints and how can I say that Rosa got it right you ask? Well, as I read it, there are three major factions of voodoo - haitian, american (louisiana), and west african. I did some wiki research on pigs and their representation to voodoo culture. This is what I found:

Quote:Creole pigs served as a type of savings account for the Haitian peasant: They were sold or slaughtered to pay for marriages, medical emergencies, schooling, seeds for crops, or a vodou ceremony. The resillience and boisterous nature of the pigs, as well as their incorporation into vodou folklore and the oral history of the Haitian revolution, made them a symbol for the independence and personality of the Haitian people.
So what does this mean? Foola Zoola and his tribe represent the West African branch of voodoo. Don Rosa touched upon the Hatian branch in "Lost Charts". While my example may come from the hatian branch, pigs are well implemented prior to slavery and black expansion in voodoo folklore. Now Foola Zoola's people see the pig as having personality and indepence, whereas in white society being called or associated with a pig is a borderline insult. You can very easily make the argument that Foola Zoola wrapped Scrooge up in a sacrificial pig skin and decked him out in body paint to not only insult Scrooge but show his independence from him by literally hoisting him on his own petard and shoving him off the doorstep as a sacrificial tart. It was pretty much the most elaborate and definative "thumbnose" gesture you can get. Scrooge meanwhile was so blinded by his anger, that he missed the point - and I think you might have also.

Both Scrooge and Foola are at fault. Not just one or the other. The point of the story was that Scrooge didn't care about Foola's people or thier well-being and as a result, he became a marked man of a crafty and vengeful witch doctor for the rest of his life. Foola meanwhile was so incensed by this uppity white man who destroyed his home that he went and rose a dead man, poisoned a voodoo doll, and - years later - tried to kill Scrooge's nephew to atone for a sin that should have been left to die years ago. Foola was the one who was most certainly wronged more, but two wrongs do not make a right and at the point where he didn't give a crap about Donald, it stopped being a revenge thing and started being full out hate.

So no - short answer, I do not see it as racism because, as a black man reading a story with a "black" character in a series in which there are practically no black characters, I chose to actually look it up and find out for myself before complaining if Don Rosa really stuck to his claim of "looking up something before he wrote it", and for my money (your money may differ and that's your perrogative) I think he did. And for all intents and purposes, I learned something intentional or not in the process.

Quote from user: ramapithThe Tex Avery image you linked to... now THAT'S unquestionably the result of racism. Same goes for lots of old cartoons in which a dynamite blast leaves a character in obvious, red-lipped blackface with thousands of bowtied pigtails.
For me, there's a world of difference between that and this Scrooge scene?which takes place, I should add, in a story that goes out of its way to bash colonialism and (implicit) racism.
Bingo. Again. If you want something to complain about, try and find a version of Voodoo Hoodoo in its unedited form before Foola and his tribe were given dognoses and the dialogue and parts of the artwork tweaked. It's not flat out terrible and believe me I am the last person to try and cry racism at every little thing but that is the one Barks story in which I honestly kind of came away dissapointed because, while any writer accidentally can slip into that trap, I often feel like blatant stereotypes for humor are a pretty cheap attempt whether they are a victim of being part of that time period or not. I laugh a lot harder at Speedy Gonzales and Mammy Two Shoes than I ever will Buckwheat and Al Jolson. =\

Quote:Don't worry about it mvblair. It's okay as long as you don't do it again.
... **facepalm**

Roger, everyone is free to voice his or her opinion even if its a dissenting one. That is the *POINT* of a debate. Furthermore, do you have to respond to every little thing with a single sentence that adds nothing to the discussion besides "I agree" or "you were right" or "thank you for telling us that" or just repeating what the last person said over and over? You haven't made a single post that doesn't do that or express a genuine opinion or outlook of your own that doesn't piggyback off of someone else in like, the past two or three weeks.

I'm not trying to be rude and maybe its just me getting easily agitated over absolutely nothing (if I am somebody please slap me on the back of my hand and I'll shut up), but it's kind of annoying. =\
Well Excuse Me but it's hard to find something to say sometimes. That's why I stopped contributing a few months back.

Quote from user: Roger NorthI would say Thank you but I don't want to annoy you Lars. That was very condescending to ask such a rude question.
I'm not annoyed by you, Roger. And I certainly hope you don't think I'm rude and condescending towards you. I just wondered why you first were allowed to quote Don Rosa and then wasn't. But I respect that you don't want to talk about it, of course.

1/ A touchy subject

I don't think MV actually thinks anybody (Rosa or anyone here) has a racist streak (big or small) or is more or less prejudiced, and David hopes his words are not too strong when stating his puzzlement.

Stereotypes obviously are a touchy subject, because their extent and intent may not be clear, two readers may have a different perception, ..., and (as I said on a previous page) you easily get to a point where you are not sure how to phrase something, for fear of seeming too sensitive or too casual.
Discussing this on a message board is not very easy either; oral communication naturally allows for more variations, vocal nuances and hints, immediate reaction, ...; over-explanation in messages sometimes makes things more complex.

I would sum it all up as follows...
- MV liked L&T a lot
- the episode addresses the one time Scrooge's greed made him go madly evil for a moment; he shows utter disrespect for Foola Zoola's beliefs and is punished for this
- MV was surprised by Rosa's gag (7.8) and questioned its use
- of the few people participating in the discussion, no one else feels offended nor bothered by the gag, but this is hardly a representative group
- explanations, arguments and counter-arguments ensued, creating some sort of confusion

2/ The story

MV raised the issue of appropriateness-- is it funny? is it useful? is it justified?
Let's just go back to the story, which I, too, should have done-- I remembered the gag quite well, but even skimming over the pages added a few bits

(p 5) The chief of the Qwak Qwak tribe offers Scrooge a miniature drum "as a symbol of [their] treaty"; in return for the Kachoonga diamone mine, Scrooge offers him another miniature: "chief 'quarter-dollar'", "the chief of my village".
There is an awful lot to discuss this handful of panels alone: the chief's Rousseauian simplicity; Scrooge's use of the native's simplicity and ignorance; the fact that the dollar truly is the ruler of Scrooge's capitalist "village" (and Scrooge's mind).
This draws on fact; when they did not kill everyone, colons traded lands and riches for trinkets.

The chief tells Scrooge the Voodo tribe won't sell their rubber plant land because it is scacred; Scrooge pays them a visit nonetheless.
(p 6) An irate Scrooge orders the "hillbillies": "Open the gates! I'm coming in!"
Instead, they crown him with a ripe watermelon (?); this may not be quite hospitable, but Scrooge was hardly polite, and they may very well have heard of the white duck that buys land.

(p 6-7) Scrooge insults the tribe's beliefs: "forget your phony voodoo gods and sell!"; he tries the coin trick again ("Ah, look at this! That's big chief Ayb-Link-kun!"), but Foola is not fooled (hey, not my my pun! Barks chose the name!-- not quite a 'politically correct one', either: 'fool [of] a Zulu') and feels further insulted.
Scrooge keeps on: "What tommyrot!", Bah! I'll show you how much I respect you and your voodoo flimflam!"-- and he kicks "the bones".

(7.8) A pigsking-wrapped, painted and bone-adorned Scrooge is thrown out of the village.

However scary Foola Zoola may look (but then, we do meet him in particular circumstances; maybe he's not such a bad guy), Scrooge truly is a villain here, and becomes more so when "[he] hire[s] a mob of thugs and chase[s] the trib einto the jungle!" (Barks' "Voodoo Hoodoo", 6.2): he is the stereotypical evil white man with a black heart who robs the natives of their land: he deserves being punished.

3/ Stereotypes (or, Back into the frying pan)

Foola warns Scrooge "[he]'d best depart [...] before a nutshell serves [him] as a hat!", then again that he will get "his tail kicked from here to Cape Town if he doesn't show respect for the Gods!": he does not curse nor shrink him yet, but decides to kick him out.

Since this would not quite be enough, and they know his sisters are waiting outside, they disguise Scrooge in a silly way.
I have tried to explain how I interpret it (ridicule the enemy by using elements of your own culture, which he despises), and David has explained it even better with his example of a German context: they use what they have.
In the characters' universe, it is thus all natural, and you might imagine that they tie bones into his feathers because that's what their children do.

At this point, I don't think anything can be suspected of being tinted by prejudice.
The problem appears when the idea is materialized into a drawing, and the disguise has to be conceptualized and drawn. How can you do this?
It's not even walking a thin line, but walking a sharp blade between two spear-studded pits: the aim is to make Scrooge look silly, but the natives must not appear to be the mocked either.

Painting him does seem logical enough-- an elaborate pie-in-the-face / pot-of-paint-on-the-head kind of gag.
I have no idea what exact symbolical meaning the pigskin may have for the tribe (or actual Voodoo priests), but it may just be an easy way of holding him still while painting and kicking Scrooge out.

Scrooge's behavior in the last two pages and the burning of the village (which he orders) over the next two pages are extremely shocking and overshadow the gag-- but, still, is it offensive? Not necessarily per se, but because stereotypical elements have been used?

(Most) stereotypes do have a grounding in reality: tribesmen from Africa or Pacific islands do paint their faces, wear bones in their noses, ears or lips, ...
I don't think the use of one or several stereotypical features is not enough to feel outraged; the number of such features and, more importantly, their use, have to be taken into account.

Is the chief of the Qwak Qwak tribe an offensive portrayal of an African? He certainly typifies the inevitably naive native, who is awed by the quarter dollar and deems it a treasure (trash or treasure: Miss Featherbrain does not understand what the fuss is about the stringy yellow feathers and the unedible hard yellow goose eggs), but this is necessary in order to depict Scrooge as the tricky businessman who takes advantage of the ignorance of others-- not just ignorant Africans (meaning it here in a pejorative way) but anyone, just like Donald takes advantage of him when he buys jar after jar of rare coins.

Is Foola Zoola an offensive portrayal? He has no tattoos nor paint. His snake armbands may indeed hint at meanness, but they look pretty harmless.
He does have a cruel, diabolical stare and sharp teeth, but so does Scrooge in this story-- drawing between them the parallel Jonathan points at: Foola is offended, and rightfully seeks punishment, but, like Scrooge, he goes too far.

Later in the story, the chief of Rippan Taro does not look offensively stereotypical either; he has jsut enough exotic features to be identified.

Now, where might there be a problem with the gag?
Scrooge (a white 'man') being painted & trimmed up thusly (a sort of comical Voodoo version of a blackface)?
The fact it's a punishment (being decked with native attributes being considered insulting by the superior white man)?
The fact it's supposed to be funny?

Two points of view must be considered: the characters' and the readers'.
Diegetically, the natives use whatever they have and know; for all we know, he may have been dolled up like a child or a woman (except for the pigskin bag, of course).
Each reader may react in a different way, yet I think the way the author intends this to be reacted to is from Scrooge's point of view-- obvious as it may seem, it is "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck", after all: Scrooge cannot take "No!" for an answer, especially in front of his moralizing sisters; he might have devised other crafty ways had he been simply kicked out (with no disguise), but this was the last straw and he went quite literally mad.

Rosa's problem with this episode was depicting Scrooge as a bad guy as per Scrooge's recollection of the events in Barks' story (quoted a few paragraphs above); finding a way to do this must have been difficult; the nagging sisters and refusals build up Scrooge's anger, and Rosa came up with one thing that might trigger off the temporary insanity that made a thug of Scrooge: ridicule.

In Rosa's solution, ridiculing Scrooge required the use of stereotypical features, which one may find offensive, but I think whatever offense might be taken by their use is easily balanced by the fact that the natives (African or South American or other) in this episode and all the others are not depicted in a prejudiced way; as a matter of fact, Scrooge makes friends with an Aborigene and learns from him in Episode 7.

http://bobcat74.free.fr/obemoticons/disney/ducks/fermy004.giflivier

Quote from user: Olivier(Most) stereotypes do have a grounding in reality
Indeed, be they positive or negative. But is Don employing a stereotype here? No, I don't really think so. Also, regarding a lot of the other character topics you were referring to; there is a line between archetype and stereotype. I think Don's always done an admirable job of not skirting across it in his entire body of work.

And, I say this as someone with the same opportunity to find offense as mvblair, using the example of the Canadians used in War of the Wendigo. The thing is though, instead of looking for a chance to say "How dare he portray us as a bunch of flannel-wearing "Eh"-saying lumberjacks!", we can look at the larger picture and realize that Donald was in the woods of Ontario (a region, along with a large amount of Canada, known for "Eh"-peppered dialect... it's how a lot of us talk), with a couple of guys who work in the forest industry. Stereotypical? Only if the reader insists upon it without context.

Quote:Now, where might there be a problem with the gag?
Scrooge (a white 'man') being painted & trimmed up thusly (a sort of comical Voodoo version of a blackface)?
The fact it's a punishment (being decked with native attributes being considered insulting by the superior white man)?
Both of those points are assumptions you are making about the scene. You are the one putting the "insulting to the superior white man" into play, trying to generate a larger malice to Scrooge simply being humiliated and kicked out of the village.

His being humiliated and kicked out is the only thing happening here. What people here are reading into it ("voodoo blackface", "superior white man") are your their misguided interpretations of the scene. Don did not intend for anyone to read anything into it beyond "Scrooge is humiliated and kicked out of the village", so implying that Don used a slur in the gag is interpretation. Not the truth.

Of course though, this is about the "how" more than the "what". Frankly, I think trying to make a racial statement out of Foola's methods is comparable to doing the same thing about the way Scrooge tarred and feathered Flintheart in chapter 6. There's simply no racial thing about it. Just one man's method of humiliating another with the resources available.

Quote:In Rosa's solution, ridiculing Scrooge required the use of stereotypical features, which one may find offensive, but I think whatever offense might be taken by their use is easily balanced by the fact that the natives (African or South American or other) in this episode and all the others are not depicted in a prejudiced way; as a matter of fact, Scrooge makes friends with an Aborigene and learns from him in Episode 7.
I'm glad you brought this up, though I don't really agree with the "balanced out" thing, since there's nothing to balance against in truth. ;)

What this is though, is a great example of the actual respectable and admirable traits Don bestows upon such characters in his stories, focusing on role, and never race.

I'll dare to walk the proverbial tightrope and put in my own oar on this issue; but since it's mainly an objective opinion, I'll assume it's safe (though we all know what happens when you assume :P ).
Compared to the much older Scrooge and Donald comics, the natives in LTo$ don't seem especially stereotyped, at least as far as appearance---if you look at stuff like Memin Penguin, or even certain European comics (I won't mention titles unless necessary), there's some SERIOUS stereotyping going on in those. As far as any behavior of the natives (such as how they act about shiny coins and trinkets), I don't know. Much of that chapter is supposed to take place in the early 20th Century---and these days, with more exposure to modern technology and education, fewer natives in Africa and elsewhere are going to fall for such chicanery as Scrooge tried to pull off.
As for the way Scrooge was painted up, he just plain looked goofy to me, and I didn't consider any stereotyping possibilities at that time. I just figured Foola was messing with him, though it was also a warning. Of course, Scrooge---like his nephew---just HAD to keep pushing it. XD

Quote from user: Robb_KSo, let's stop all this talk aboat trying to justify that depiction as racist against Canadians, eh?
Huh?? That's exactly my point! I say "eh" a lot myself! Yet, I didn't have the slightest issue with those scenes because I don't go looking for racial smears where there aren't any. If Donald is in Canada, he should be with Canadians. Characters and events should reflect the settings, eh?

Quote from user: Robb_KYes. I understood your point, and was agreeing with it.
Ah, was a bit confused there. :)