written by Love Isn’t Enough contributor; originally published at Mixed Race America
So I was channel surfing last night and came upon the vintage Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory — the one with Gene Wilder being slightly creepy (of course, it could just be the hair and eyes). It was early in the film when the kids are frolicking in the candy garden with the chocolate waterfall–Wonka is singing that song “Pure Imagination” and all is sugary bliss when Southern Man asks, “Hey, how come there aren’t any black people in this film? Where are the people of color? Are the Oompa Loopmas supposed to stand in for them? And isn’t that racist?”
Now part of my reaction was “Darn it! You stole my line!” I mean, that’s usually ME going on about representations of race and racialization and white supremacy. And especially remembering the illustrations from the original I read as a child and the story that Wonka tells about “saving” the Oompa Loompas and that they love working at the factory for free as long as they can eat cocoa beans….well, it’s a tale redolent with exploitation and racial hierarchization.
The lack of people of color is part and parcel of the way films were made in the 1970s and part of the larger problematics of the world in Dahl’s novel. But here’s the rub: I love Roald Dahl’s novels. And I love the Willy Wonka film–as problematic as the underlying narrative of exploitation is. And in an odd reversal, I was the one telling Southern Man that I didn’t want to think about these things and just wanted to watch the movie (it has been a hard few weeks…more on that later).
But still. I can’t turn off that part of my brain. Hence this blog post this morning. And of course, even with the update in 2005 with Johnny Depp filling in for Gene Wilder, we still get the cloned image of a dark skinned man as the oompa loompa par excellence.
That Southern Man…he puts me to shame with his spot on analysis of race and popular culture. Gotta get my A game on.
Over here, it was mom (me) pointing out the imperialism/colonialism. We didn’t discuss race, really, though. Of course my son was saying ‘just let me watch the movie’.
He really likes thinking about the differences between the two movies. (Not in a political way yet, just that each person has a slightly different personality in the two movies.) I think it helps encourage analysis to have different versions – 2 versions of the movie, plus the book. I really want to read him the book soon; I think that will encourage more questioning.
Very interesting. I imagined the oompa lumpas as light-skinned so it’s interesting to see the images you posted. I always found Charlie and the Chocolate Factory a bit creepy, for many reasons.
I find it so difficult sharing many “classic” well known film images or illustrated books with my son. I’m still kicking myself for letting him get access to the “Wizard of Oz” movie before “The Wiz”. I have explained that the illustrations are one persons idea of how things look, and we can have our own. I suspect that has little impact on the part of his 3 year old mind, the part that identifies the norm, that I’m trying to impact.
We’ve been reading tons of Dahl lately, his stories are absolutely fantastic, but like much material out there,particarly classic children’s material, racially conscious parents go the extra step to explain, avoid, alter, etc., in order to share the great parts of what’s there. It’s a simple sad reality. We have a Disney treasury story book edition published in the sixties which has numerous great stories but my son knows the story that mom and dad say is not a nice story, and we won’t read because it is cruel and made to make fun of others (some ridiculous “Sambo” thing). It angers me that its even there, but like everything else race related I feel like we must continue to meet the undue burden placed on us as Black parents and keep pushing forward.
Speaking of classics I’d like my son to have a children’s Bible but I still can’t seem to pin one down that’s not full of illustrations of white people.
Didn’t Roald Dahl spend some period of his life in South Africa? I wonder how that expereince shaped him?
Forgive me if I’m off base on the specific point of the blog post.
@eb: yes, so true on the children’s bible thing. We have…oh, I don’t know, maybe 5 of them…and pretty much all of them have lily white characters and blue eyed baby Jesuses. I resorted to coloring the pictures in one of his much-loved Christmas books b/c it made me so mad. Then again, DH and I are not religious so we don’t really feel a pressing need to read our son all of the religious books he receives (our families are very religious). I might be more inclined to read them, however, if they were not all so ridiculously pale.
I’d just like to point out that there are actually quite a lot of bibles out there featuring diverse illustrations, illustrations appropriate for that era (i.e., Semitic peoples), and featuring people of African descent in particular. Other non-white racial/ethnic groups may have a harder time. Just google it. Also, Jump at the Sun publishes several African-American bible story books, including some based on hymns.
eb–my friend has a bible that she was given that seems suitable for young kids and in flipping through it one day I was impressed that the pictures (all cartoonish) featured people of various shades of the brown spectrum–from dark to light brown/beige. I’ll try to find out the publisher and get back to you (I’m at the coast right now).
I do think it’s hard to be vigilant because it’s this kind of seemingly benign stuff (the cool stories! the candy!) that do serve to normalize images and plot points (little brown/orange people who are happy to work for free??? give me a break!) that we should be constantly questioning and pointing out to our kids.
First, I can relate to the parent/child “can’t I just watch and enjoy the movie” conversation. I had the same conversation with my 9 year old post “Furry Vengeance” yesterday–awful representations of Asian and Indian Businessmen, a la the Red Scare movies warning against the communist threat in the ’50′s.
Second–I just had a “gotcha” moment. It’s always eye opening to watch movies from my childhood through a new lens…didn’t notice the lack of diversity then, am hyper-conscious of it now. But even with a more recent viewing of Willy Wonka, I still glossed over the postcolonial reading–which is so obvious when you point it out.
I’d be delighted if/when my son noticed the cultural/gender disparities in movie characters (we do a lot of advertising analysis–so he’s particularly adept at analyzing it there).
But when he doesn’t, I’m trying to let him enjoy the movie for at least a day before delving into the deeper conversation. (That hasn’t worked yet–I’m usually chiming in as we leave the theater!) At a minimum, it’s always a point of learning and conversation, even if he does respond with:
“Does everything have to be a blog post?”
The Wiz has some serious colorism issues, as I recall…
Insightful post.
Given my education and training, it’s hard for me to view classic Disney films with the innocence of a child. In fact, my students and I watched, The Three Amigos” recently. So many cultural stereotypes! The students, for the most part, recognized them, and, we had a good discussion about the film.
I really enjoyed this posting! Youd site looks great!
I love finding posts online that can help me sum up my thoughts. And the title is perfect, imo. So thank you
I had to leave after watching through parts of the new Johnny Depp movie…
my response to the movie: http://tumblr.com/ZRdLMyDoGQaS