Floyd Gottfredson Library

[Jonathan H. Gray]

> From: francesco.spreafico at gmail.com
> To: dcml at nafsk.se
> Subject: Re: Floyd Gottfredson Library
> Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:56:37 +0100
> 
> jerryblake2 at juno.com wrote:
> 
> > Will the
> > stereotypical Italian fruit vendors in several stories have their
> > dialogue changed to proper English so as not to vex Italians?"
> >
> > Actually, they've already done that--Gladstone's version of OSCAR THE
> > OSTRICH from back in their first run was altered to Anglicize the
> > dialogue of the crooked pet-store owner Tony, as well as the dialogue
> > of a minor fruit vendor character.
> 
> As an Italian, let me add that I'm "vexed" by such censorship, and not in 
> the least by the language originally used. But that was obvious, wasn't it?
> 
> Francesco 


I'd feel remiss if I didn't add to this conversation somehow.

I'm a black guy who grew up in the deep south. To put it in context, my Grandfather of 92 years was raised on one of the last surviving cotton plantations in the south where his mother and father were sharecroppers. When I was five years old my first encounter with racism was in the first grade when a little boy alerted to the class that his grandfather informed him that black people were "white people who had done terrible things and were shoved into ovens to be marked for the rest of their lives." The grandfather had most likely said this to scare the little kid into not acting bad, but considering I was 6 years old, clearly stupid in the ways of the world, and one of only 3 or 4 black kids in the class at the time - I went home to my Grandmother crying my eyes out trying to figure out what it was that we'd done wrong. Naturally, when my mother came to pick me up from my grandparents house after work, this did not go over well with the school board and the PTA. :P

Surprisingly, even after that, racism does not vex me as much as it does others, because I've come to understanding that it is the product of incredibly stupid and ignorant people who don't seem to possess even 1/4 of an iota of a brain. As someone who's goal in life is to do cartoons and comic books, I even understand the context behind the different times that many of the pieces in question were created for - Let's use the most well known "banned" Looney Tunes short "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs" for example. I knew this friend who was also in animation and also black that took offense at even the slightest thing like that. I could see where said person was coming from in this day and age where we are supposed to be past that, but i also explained that the context was totally different as well. Even if its a well animated cartoon that relies on heavily cloyed stereotypes to get its point across, in the context of a historical perspective its symbolic for the story behind it. Besides that, it isn't half as bad as many cartoons that were FAAAAAAAAAAAR worse in thier portrayal of lazy, shiftless, jive talking blacks like "Scrub Me Mama With A Boogie Beat" which even I thought was out of control. :P

Like I said, it takes a lot for something to bother me - and while I may get annoyed at things - I do understand the context and what they mean, and I don't fly off the handle at every thing that may bug me. I usually just shrug and brush it off or - because I'm a nerd like that - ingest it with rabid fervor and interest to try and find out more.

Having said that, a long time ago I managed to get my my hands on some selected scanned pages of Treasure Island - significant for being the first appearance of Captain Churchmouse and Spooks the Gorilla. It's a pretty good serial as far as early Mickey serials go. I don't remember how or where I got it from or what i did with it (I think it was an old print from a guy who owned a comic book store and collected old stuff like that), but I remember seeing it and being visibly shocked at the depiction of the savages who were like something out of a bad caricature of savages from a mediocre Tarzan movie. I remember seeing it and thinking to myself "HOLY COW. I can see how this could be gotten away with back then, but they'd NEVER get away with printing this today." It also doesn't help much that - if I remember correctly - it begins with the infamous "Mickey's Suicide Attempt" subset of strips. The lips on some of the savages are so big that they practically droop and hang unkemptly off of their faces. It's a good story as is its sequel, but its one of those where even with a discalaimer before it, it's kind of sadly got that "Wow..I can't believe they did that!" stigma attached to it. I've heard rumors that the follow-up story, featuring Pete and Squinch instead of Pete and Shyster, is just as bad in those respects. And the same would also probably go for "The Great Orphanage Robbery" which spends the entire first third of the story with Mickey and co. in blackface re-doing key scenes from "Uncle Tom's Cabin": good stories that unfortunately fall prey to the sadly bigoted backgrounds of thier times. =\

Don't get it twisted, now. I'm not standing up for Disney's censorship. I detest censorship. (Remember how we were almost banned from seeing the far more harmless "War of the Wendigo" during Gladstone Series 2?) On the other hand though, I can see the dilemma that the guys who DO WANT this stuff printed in context are facing: Given that a disclaimer just won't cut it for the hardcore unnecessarily prudish types, do you run the risk of not printing 1 or 2 stories in what was supposed to be a full collection or jeopardize the entire shebang by risking the ire of the censors and depriving the fandom further of something they've been begging for for years? And to gild the lily a bit more, lets say you are allowed to print it, but only if strips are omitted and or totally redrawn? That, in and of itself mars the idea of the collection to begin with - especially when nearly an entire story would need "redrawing" and not just a few panels. If getting an almost complete Gottfredson library means taking option 2 over option 1, I wouldn't necessarily like it, but I wouldn't balk at it either given the option of not having it at all or having it censored for stuff FAR less harmless than this. =\

if now is the best time for Gemstone to do this with minimal damage, I say go for it. Furthermore, for every "me" that DOES understand the historical context and significance behind it and doesn't really care, you also have the "opportunists" and or "stupidly offended at everything types" that feel it is their job to sanitize society whether society likes it or not. And everybody knows that its always the loudmouths that ruin it for everybody else. I say take the Leonard Maltin DVD Treasure approach, but sadly what is done for the cartoons can't quite be done for the comics yet. We haven't reached that point, apparently. But hey, look at how long it took us JUST TO GET the cartoons out there and uncut to begin with. 

At least we're getting some form of a Gottfredson library, even if its not truly complete. Heck, it won't be until a 3rd Barks library that we even get anything complete from him.

Food for thought. =\
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