![]() ![]() What’s worrisome is when modern talkers on the point cite her as the sole inspiration for the sexually explicit cartoon. No one woman can be credited as the sole source of the character, and pointing at Jones as the one, true inspiration is inaccurate on a few levels. Recasting Betty Boop as black can’t undo Kane’s appropriation from Jones specifically since the star she was stealing from bears no resemblance to the actual character beyond singing style. The studio sited Clara Bow as their inspiration for Betty Boop’s physical appearance, though the creator did admit there was partial inspiration from Kane’s look too. Allying her image too closely with Jones, whose stardom faded in her mid-teens, is wildly problematic. For all the focus Jones received in the lawsuit, Betty Boop is a white cartoon character and developed as a sex image to go along with the flappers of the time. We can look back and say Kane was ‘cancelled’, but only insofar as she had transgressed against her own higher-ups. In 1932 Kane claimed to have invented the style herself, but an ex-manager of both Kane and Jones revealed that she had gone to Jones’ cabaret act months before Kane recorded her hit, I Wanna Be Loved By You, and she only began combining scat singing with babyish tones after having seen Jones perform. ![]() 1925, whereas Kane only took it up in 1928 – after seeing Jones perform. “Too cute for words”, ran the Chicago Defender. Jones’ baby talk was iconic of her act, more naturally since, well, she was a child. 1919, so when Kane saw her perform in 1928 she was stealing from a girl between 7-12. She sang, danced and performed acrobatics on the stages of the US, Paris, Berlin, and South America. Managed by her parents, she was the highest paid child performer by 1929, referred to as a miniature Josephine Baker. In the lawsuit, put forward as possible inspirations for Betty Boop’s singing style were Edith Griffith, Félix Mayol (both child performers), Gertrude Saunders (the first scat singer), and, most prominently for all the evidence of Kane attending her performances, Esther Jones.Įsther Jones lived and breathed the industry. She went on to become the world’s highest paid performer.īut what about Esther Jones? She became a huge feature in the case discrediting Kane. Josephine Baker only became world famous after she left the US, because of the limited opportunities available at home, despite her skill. Though racism still abounded, artistic industries abroad were more open to their talents and more likely to give them the accolades they deserved. Post-WWI, many black artists found themselves emigrating to Europe. To be successful in the industry was still a precarious position if it was achieved. Industry greats of the US, when black, still faced overt discrimination, with even the most successful struggling to secure performances in larger venues. We can presume the damage such a lawsuit would have done to her reputation in a segregated industry posed greater a risk than winning a copyright claim. ![]() Plagiarism ran wild in the 20th century as copyright laws developed, but the achievements of black artists were appropriated often without ever being able to take legal action against those who profited from them neither Jones nor her parents ever brought a suit against Kane. Then the truth came out Kane wasn’t the sole inspiration for the cartoon and didn’t create the singing style as she so claimed – it was popular throughout the 1920s, and scat singing in particular had been developed by black performers. Jones’ association with the cartoon character began when Helen Kane took a suit against Fleischer Studios for the use of her image in creating Betty Boop. The first point I want to stress is that we need to stop referring to Jones in terms of womanhood – throughout her own stardom, she was a child performer. Esther Jones is now often referred to as ‘the real woman who inspired Betty Boop’, but, as ever, the actual case as it unfolds is a lot more convoluted. ![]()
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