The Queens of Animation by Nathalia Holt

Author:Nathalia Holt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2019-10-21T16:00:00+00:00

Sick Call by Mary Blair, circa 1930s (Courtesy the estate of Mary Blair)

Even though there was a gradually shifting perspective on the use of stereotypes in film, the lack of diversity in both the story and animation departments was hindering not only Song of the South but also the future of animation at the studio. There was no relief in sight. In 1948, two years after Song of the South was released, Walt Disney Studios hired its first African American animator, a man named Frank Braxton. He was brought in as an inbetweener, a job with an exceedingly high turnover rate. Like many of his cohorts, Braxton decided not to stay in the position, leaving for unknown reasons after only two months to look for work in animation elsewhere.

Soon afterward, Braxton befriended Benny Washam, a Bugs Bunny animator who worked at Warner Brothers Cartoons. Washam decided to advocate for his friend; he walked into the office of Johnny Burton, the production manager, and said, “I hear Warner Brothers has a racist policy and refuses to hire blacks.” Burton spun around and yelled, “Whoever said that is a liar! It’s not true.” “Well, then,” Washam replied, “there’s a young black animator outside who’s looking for a job. Guess he’s come to the right place.” Braxton quickly became a valued animator in director Chuck Jones’s group, and in 1960, he was elected president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Screen Cartoonists’ Guild.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.