Description
Book SynopsisNicholas Sammond argues that early cartoons are a key components to blackface minstrelsy and that cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse and Felix the Cat are not like minstrels, but are minstrels. Cartoons have played on racial anxieties, naturalized racial formations, committed symbolic racial violence, and help perpetuate blackface minstrelsy.
Trade Review"Nicholas Sammond’s study provides a detailed, thoughtful, exhaustively researched examination of the process by which the early animation studios cast about for technical and semiotic models to inform their new art form and drew upon the complex and conflicted vocabulary of blackface minstrelsy to do so." -- Christopher J. Smith * Journal of American History *
"
Birth of an Industry is a welcome addition and valuable contribution to the ongoing academic discussion of the relationship of ethnic tensions to the art and business of animation." -- Christopher P. Lehman * African American Review *
"Sammond's impressive
Birth of an Industry condenses and stretches various links among the evolving art, labor, and business of early animated film." -- T. Lindvall * Choice *
"Moving effortlessly among theories of comedy, critical race theory, performance studies, animation criticism, and both Marxist and Freudian analyses, Sammond has produced a comprehensive study of the rise of American animation." -- Diego A. Millan * Studies in American Humor *
"Few authors . . . have proved minstrelsy's connections to early animation as carefully and convincingly as Nicholas Sammond in his thoughtful text
Birth of an Industry." -- Carmenita Higginbotham * Journal of Southern History *
"Sammond’s work in
The Birth of An Industry is notable and fascinating. . . . By unpacking each component of the production and representation of minstrel animation, Sammond builds the space needed for an insightful discussion." -- Niamh Timmons * Journal of Popular Culture *
"
Birth of an Industry offers a timely, valuable, and theoretically distinguished intervention." -- Malcolm Cook * Animation *
"With
Birth of an Industry, Nicholas Sammond demonstrates that the specter of racialized caricature and its attending performative power dynamics have a longer and more pernicious continuum through which race, industry, and the nation understood and affected one another." -- Allyson Nadia Field * Media Industries *
Table of ContentsNote on the Companion Website ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction. Biting the Invisible Hand 1
1. Performance 33
2. Labor 87
3. Space 135
4. Race 203
Conclusion. The "New" Blackface 267
Notes 307
Bibliography 351
Index 365
