There is a long history of racism behind famous brands, characters, and design that often goes unnoticed. Blatantly racist caricatures began with minstrel shows and the use of blackface, where white actors would use black makeup and overdrawn lips to depict Black people. These drove stereotypes that would be used in film, television, and branding. White actors depicted other minorities in an ill manner. From Mickey Rooney playing a Japanese man, Mr. Yunioshi, to Claudia Cardinale playing Indian Princess Dala, actors continued to manipulate their physical features to display the American audience’s ideas of these different ethnicities. Cartoons like Disney’s Peter Pan used Indigenous stereotypes for its character Tiger Lily and her tribe of Piccaninny, along with the song “What Makes the Red Man Red?” Big production companies such as Disney and Warner Bros. are guilty of distributing offensive caricatures that poorly reflect Black, Asian, Indigenous, and other ethnic groups. Brand mascots like Aunt Jemima were created to uphold the mammy stereotype, a Black woman who is subservient to white people and their children. She was meant to contain white anxieties about increasing the mobility of Black people within spaces of mass production and consumption post-emancipation. At this time other brand mascots like Rastus for Cream of Wheat and Uncle Ben’s Rice similarly demeaned Black men. Ethnic mascots are also very popular in sports, primarily mascots of Indigenous American men who are shown as savages. It’s only been since 2020 that brands have started to shift away from these racist images but the damage of BIPOC caricatures lingers.

TIMELINE

1833 – One of the first examples of blackface, in Bowery Theatre, New York, Thomas Darmouth Rice played the caricature Jim Crow
1889 – Aunt Jemima brand was first introduced and featured mascot/character as a stereotype of a  mammy
1893 – Cream of Wheat launched using a mascot named Rastus,  a term used for Black men who were depicted as simple-minded
1904  – first US stage production of Peter Pan features white actress, Margaret Gordon as Tiger Lily 
1927 – posters of advertising performances of Joesphine Baker by Paul Colin: ‘La Revue Negre, feature racist stereotypes: Black figures with large red lips and overly sexualized depictions of Baker
1928 – Land O’Lakes butter premieres with a sexualized mascot/character of a Indegnous women called Mia
1935-36 – Shirley Temple appears in blackface and clothing which depict the ‘mammy’ caricature in The Littlest Rebel’ and dances on a stage with two men in blackface in ‘Dimples’
1940 – Tom and Jerry cartoon introduces a character named Mammy Two Shoes, a heavyset Black woman who was responsible for taking care of the house
1947 – Florida State adopted the name Seminoles 
1953 – Disney version of Peter Pan , the tribe of Piccaninny are designed to play the exotic and savage trope and performs the song, “What Makes the Red Man Red?”
1961 – white actor Mickey Rooney plays a Japanese man, Mr. Yunioshi, in Breakfast at Tiffany’s
1978 –  FSU Seminoles began a new tradition: At home football games a Seminole warrior would ride a horse onto the field, known as Chief Osceola and Renegade
2013– Daniel Synder, owner of the football team The Washington Redskins, vowed to never alter the name or imagery
2019 – the Cleveland Indians  and MLB made the decision to remove native caricature Chief Wahoo from their brand
2020 – Aunt Jemima is retires and the company rebrands to become Pearl Milling Company
2020 – B&G Foods announced they were removing the Rastus character from Cream of Wheat
2020 – during a rebrand Mia is removed from Land O’Lakes packaging
2020 – Washington Redskins announced name change and logo retirement

REFERENCES

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