Amos and Andy

I did not find the clip very shocking, when the time period in which it was produced is taken into consideration. The film was made by white people for white people, during a time when eventhough African American's were free they did not have equal rights and were still constantly looked down upon by white Americans. I feel that the clip became so popular because the white people of this time looked for ways to justify their feeling of superiority and this clip did so through humiliation of the African American race and portraying them as being unintelligent, and rowdy. This is similar to how the White American's portrayed the Indians as being "savages" in the late 1800's. The clip exemplifies what was talked about in lecture about analyzing cartoons. The characters in the cartoon, although supposed to be African American's some what resemble clowns, which makes one think that white American's did not take African American's of this time seriously. The characters actions also give insight to how the white American viewed the African American of this time unintelligent, vulgar, and comical.