![]() Racism permeates all the Tarzan spin offs as they always portray black people in a negative manner. It was common for children with parents from the Caribbean to watch a Tarzan jungle scene where black people were shown as cowardly, stupid and wicked to then ask their parents "Is that where you come from?" Marvel and DC Comics had a brief run of Tarzan in the 70's. The 1940's movies or the 1960's TV series starring Ron Ely were scheduled as Saturday morning entertainment for kids. Black Britons gained ideas of African history and culture from watching Tarzan at a time when there were hardly any black people on TV. The idea was to convince people that Africa was a 'dark continent' full of 'savages' and they should therefore be happy they were colonised by Britain and ignore Garvey's message.īlack children who grew up in England in the 60's, 70's and 80's were force-fed Tarzan. When Marcus Garvey’s ‘Back to Africa’ movement was gaining momentum, British colonial authorities hired mobile cinemas and drove into countryside areas in places like Jamaica to show Tarzan and other racist propaganda films. ![]() They were also broadcast in African and Caribbean territories prior to independence. These movies were shown all over the world and were popular on British TV up until the 1990’s. Possibly the most well known Tarzan was Johnny Weissmuller, an Olympic athlete, who made a number of Tarzan movies between 19. In the biography, Taliaferro also uncovers Burroughs' lifelong belief in eugenics, "the radical fringe of Darwinism" and the notion that undesirable people, such as the ill, the criminal, or the racially ‘impure’, should be sterilised.Īs the 20th century progressed, Burroughs’ stereotypes were slowly transferred onto the big screen, where they influenced millions more people. In the Tarzan stories, blacks are generally superstitious and Arabs rapacious." Burroughs was extremely proud of his nearly pure Anglo-Saxon lineage. Like many of his contemporaries, writes his biographer John Taliaferro, Burroughs "believed in a hierarchy of race and class. Lynching was common in America up until the 1960's. A ‘sundown town’ was a place where all blacks had to be out of the town by sundown or they faced severe physical consequences. The original books are full of the 'N word' and other racist stereotypes informed by the rampant colonialism of the period.īearing in mind that Burroughs lived in the 'sundown town' of Oak Park, Illinois, it is very disturbing that his Tarzan character chooses to hang his black victims from trees with vine ropes around their necks. Black people are routinely described in a derogatory manner. It would not be so bad if these were the only factual errors, but Burroughs portrays all the Africans as savages and racially inferior. This is why lions and tigers often pop up in his African jungle despite the fact that lions live exclusively in the savannah and tigers are not found in Africa at all. ![]() Edgar Rice Burroughs was born in Chicago, Illinois and had never been to Africa. Tarzan embodied the traits of a comic superhero, long before the appearance of Superman he wrestles lions, crocodiles and gorillas with his bare hands. In addition, he can speak to the animals - a skill which the local Africans do not have. For readers at the time and perhaps even now, whiteness equals civilisation. Tarzan, which means white skin in 'ape speak' is faster, stronger and more intelligent than the native Africans. The story charts the life of an aristocratic offspring of Lord Greystoke, who is orphaned as a child in Africa, raised by apes in the jungle, and soon becomes the King of that jungle and all who dwell in it. Tarzan started off as a character written by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) in the 1912 All-Story Magazine before being edited into a series of books and films. Later in the book he rescues her from a “black ape rapist”. This is how Tarzan introduces himself to Jane in Tarzan of the Apes (1914). "This is the house of Tarzan, the killer of beasts and many black men". Racism and stereotypes: how the Tarzan dynamic still infiltrates cinema.
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