#8 - "Santa's Surprise"

This video can be found at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7492424601969524458&q=Santa%27s+Surprise&total=215&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Next, I chose another cartoon that I thoroughly enjoyed throughout my childhood. The cartoon is entitled “Santa’s Surprise” and marks the first appearance of Little Audrey (who later got her own show). It was released on December 5, 1947 by Famous Studios and was directed by Seymour Kneitel. In the short, seven children from all edges of the planet who have been waiting patiently for Santa Claus to visit them sneak into his sleigh and catch a ride with him back to the North Pole. Once there, Santa falls into a very deep, well-deserved sleep and the kids pile out of the sleigh. The children feel bad that Santa brings so much joy to everyone across the world, but has no one in his life to make him happy (for some reason there is no Mrs. Claus). They quickly decide that the best thing that they could do for him would be to clean up his extremely messy house. After quietly entering, they go to work on cleaning up after St. Nick. Of course, being that it’s a cartoon for children there is a song involved and also some drama as the kids keep making loud noises that don’t seem to faze Santa a bit. In the end, they succeed in their mission and, as they leave, the slamming of the door awakes Kris Kringle. He looks around to see a decorated tree with a present for him beneath it. In the small wrapped package is a music box that displays a photo of each of the children as it plays; attached to the music box is a calendar that reminds Father Christmas to not forget them next year. I chose this cartoon for a few reasons. The first being, like I said, that it was one of my favorites as a kid, I owned it on VHS and watched it year-round. Also, the holiday season is quickly approaching and thought that this would be a festive blog. Finally, the short raises many racial stereotypes in the portrayal of the children, which makes it perfect for this assignment.

This media item relates most directly to the “Welcome to Cleveland” exhibit that we viewed and discussed. The children in “Santa’s Surprise” are very racialized, especially the Asian and African boys. The Asian boy appears with straight, black hair, cut similar to a bowl cut and his eyes are so slanted and squinted that they often appear closed. The African boy is represented by large pink lips, big white eyes, and short jet-black hair (not to mention, brown skin). Other characters conform to physical stereotypes too, but none to the extreme that these two do. The characteristics that are supposed to represent these races in “Santa’s Surprise” are (not surprisingly) almost exactly those depicted in “Welcome to Cleveland,” which speaks volumes to the ubiquity of these generalizations. Also, in addition to displaying physical ideals of race, the cartoon also shows a very obvious African-American stereotype, as the black boy is shown shining Santa’s boots. Although, he was not kneeling down to clean them while St. Nick was wearing them, the fact that the writers elected him to shine shoes, reinforces an idea that white children of the day probably were already exposed to in the real world. Although I can’t think of a piece that we’ve read that this relates to directly, it definitely falls into our range of interest and study.

I’m sure that the writers of this children’s cartoon did not purposefully design it to be racist, in fact it is more likely that they were trying to portray an image of diversity and interracial cooperation, however by representing each race with the ideal characteristics that they were used to, they produced images that could be considered racist. Something else I noticed when watching “Santa’s Surprise” this time was that the white girl, even though she WOULD later get her own show, was the only child given a name (“Little Audrey”). Again, I’m not so sure that the writers wanted it to seem that they didn’t value the other characters as much as they valued little Audrey but it could definitely be interpreted that way. I think this is a testament to how hard it is to correctly present diversity, if you don’t try to understand the other cultures first. Also, like we’ve said countless times since talking about “Chief Wahoo”, it’s not always your intentions that matter, it’s the way something is perceived by each individual.