I watched this film as part of my class Film: Silence to Sound. We discussed this Betty Boop short along with The Jazz Singer and discussion on minstrel shows and racism. This is an excellent example of racism in early cartoons and has a great study on gender.
Betty Boop is a flapper with her short hair, makeup, jewelry, short skirt, and rebellious attitude. In this film, she writes a letter to her parents as she's running away, talks of killing herself, has noticeable stockings under her skirt, and becomes involved in subversive "black culture". Betty and Bimbo both walk with "jive", the same way Malcolm X and Shorty did in the beginning of Malcolm X. In this scene, Shorty tells X that he has to walk black and they walk in the same way Betty and Bimbo do, leaned forward, rhythmic, and arms swinging. This is represented literally in a cave in the dark. Here, Cab Calloway plays this ghastly ghost creature, while there are skeletons, ghosts, and other creatures dancing about. There is also a jail scene where the ghosts are in prison and then sent to the electric chair. This is quite exploitive, representing black culture and jazz as ghostly and evil in a way to almost scare kids away from getting involved in black culture and to stay in their comfortable homes, just as the monsters literally scare Betty and Bimbo back into their house.
This film made me very uncomfortable for many reasons besides the racial undertones. In the beginning, her facist-esque father screams at her and his head literally becomes a record player. Meanwhile, Betty is balling and she, her father, and her mother are all bouncing up and down in sync. It is very uncomfortable and unsettling to me and makes me cringe a little bit.
Review of Minnie the Moocher
