People who appreciate old cartoon characters were astonished to find the strange explanation for one of animation’s most famous features: the white gloves that figures like Mickey Mouse wore.
A developer on Instagram who goes by Treehouse Detective recently made a video that looked into the history of the white gloves that many cartoon characters have worn for decades. His findings have made fans question the innocence of their beloved childhood characters.
Treehouse Detective starts the video by saying, “One reason why cartoon characters wear white gloves is way more disturbing than you think.” This sets the stage for an eye-opening look at the history of animation.
Most fans thought the gloves were only a creative choice to help the characters stand out or be more expressive, but the truth is much more complicated and disturbing.
A history that is not good
The video goes on to say that the white gloves weren’t just for showing off or being seen; they were also meant to make the characters’ dark bodies stand out.
This was accurate, but it’s only part of the narrative. The gloves come from a darker and more contentious part of American showbiz history.
Treehouse Detective says that cartoon characters wear white gloves so that their hands stick out against their black bodies. This is because blackface minstrel actors from the 1920s and 1930s used white gloves so that their hands would stand out against the black paint on their faces.
The creepy link between early cartoon characters and the racist history of blackface minstrelsy helps us understand why these characters were made the way they were.
The film says that a lot of early cartoon characters, like Mickey Mouse, were based on or even directly patterned after blackface minstrel performers.
Before the TV and movie theatre boom, animators would take their movies on tour with vaudeville acts.
The blackface minstrel performance was the most popular aspect of these vaudeville events. To get people to come, animators started to base their cartoon characters on the looks and personalities of these performers.
The confluence between vaudeville and animation’s impact
Treehouse Detective says that Mickey Mouse was first meant to be a spoof or a tribute to vaudeville blackface actors.
This news not only darkens the history of animation, but it also explains why there are aspects like the white gloves, which were designed to look like the exaggerated physical attributes of blackface actors, such as their dark faces and white hands.
This history continues throughout the 1930s and 1940s, with characters like Felix the Cat and Bosco also representing the racist ideas of the time.
The link between cartoons and blackface minstrelsy was mostly lost when blackface minstrel shows became less popular and the animation industry changed.
The white gloves, which were originally a racially charged fashion decision, stayed even if their original connotation went away.
Accepting facts that make us uncomfortable
Treehouse Detective stresses that he doesn’t want to cancel these characters or the animation industry, even though the historical context is troubling.
Instead, he wants viewers to face and comprehend the difficult facts that are in the history of their favourite cartoons.
In the video, Treehouse Detective states, “I love animation like a lot of people do, and I love a lot of these characters.” I’m not trying to get anything to stop. I just think it’s vital to know these things.
This news has shocked a lot of admirers. The happy memories of growing up with these characters have been clouded by the fact that their design decisions were based on a bad past.
“Thanks for ruining my childhood,” one fan wrote in the comments section of the video, and others agreed.
Another person said, “Why were they so obsessed with black people?”
Another person wrote, “Oh look, America’s favourite pastime, racism, never fails to show up.”
The Treehouse Detective video is still going around, and the talk over these cartoons that were once thought to be innocent will probably get louder.
Fans are having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that the figures they love have dark roots.
Some people think that the nostalgia is forever ruined, while others think that understanding the historical background is necessary for moving forward and making more thoughtful and inclusive animation in the future.
The discussion regarding race and how people are represented in media is still changing, and this new information shows that there are still many difficult facts from the past.