I watched this in my French 2 class. And oh my.
When she came out stage, barely clothed, with bananas around her waist.. I was stunned.
Everyone in my class was like, "what the?"
It was so degrading to watch, and then she dances some old minstrol stufff.. with her butt all out.
Wow.. this movie is not cool for that.
I'm black, I thought it was funny personally. I saw that scene when I was alone though…if I saw it in class I‘d be rather uncomfortable. Too me...it's all about context. If that scene was litterally from some cartoon in the 1920s, and that's it, that particular scene would seemigly be based on ignorance in my opinion...but that's not the case. It was a bit shocking at first but I figured everyone else's features and cultural qualities are being “stereotyped” too, and it's not like there were no African performers in France around the 1920s, there were, and many were doing what she was doing. I felt that a wealthy white woman could get offended by the portrayal of the women in the audience...it's all relative and arguably puts you back into that time frame successfully. Negative reactions to that scene are very understandable but...I wouldn't necessarily say it promotes the black stereotype...I'd say it just plays off it...and maybe in the context of animation only, idk. It was only a few seconds long and in a scene that was saturated with insane animation. The fact that the men in the audience turned into monkeys and started picking her bikini thing was what saved it for me. That was hilarious.
shareThat wasn't minstrelry, that was a caricature of Josephine Baker, who did dance wearing nothing but a banana skirt, and was a well-respected and well-loved performer in France in her day. Look her up if you've never heard of her, instead of complaining about nothing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Baker
the op needs to do some research
josephine baker is a legend..
im black too by the way
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The stereotype was the white men who turned into sex crazed monkeys after seeing her dance. Many biographies of Baker indicated she knew full well new that this was the stereotype of African sexuality held by whites at the time. She used that to her advantage and became a star. Her act changed as she grew older, was a spy for France during WW II and died an honored French heroine.
shareLoved it
I'm white and was squeamish at first...but this was early in the move...the whole movie did charichatures, this was just one of them.
Loved the movie, loved that scene
Loved it
Every culture pretty much gets lampooned in this movie. The dancer is just a caricature of an actual person.
shareThere is black and white footage of Josephine Baker doing that exact dance and dressesd that way.
Also, what "black stereotype" does this promote?
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HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW WHO JOSEPHINE BAKER IS??? Are you saying no one in your entire class, not even your TEACHER, could tell you that the black woman at the beginning was Josephine Baker??? Surely you knew that the second guy was Fred Astaire??? They weren't just random characters...
shareEverybody was portrayed as a caricature or stereotype in the movie.
Did you not notice all of the other characters?
And as others have pointed out, that character (not even a major one) is based on a real performer.
None of the stereotypes portrayed were done in a hateful fashion. I think you need to grow some thicker skin.