A Thought on the Fleischer Brothers’ Rotoscope: the Problemof the Racial Repression of theBlack Body

Abstract

Cab Calloway, one of the most famous jazz performers of the day, is featured in some of the Fleischer Brothers’ short animation Betty Boop series. Interestingly, Calloway himself never appearson the screen: what we see on screen is an animated character which has no resemblance of the singer. However, the audience could easily recognize the musician behind the fictional character because of therealistic reproduction of Calloway’s characteristic body movements and voice.

This essay examines the unusual representation of Calloway in the films by paying attention to the Rotoscoping process which generates such an impression. Given that the uncanny nature of his movement has often been associated with the movement reproduced by Rotoscoping, my investigation is twofold. It first attempts to locate where this uncanniness comes from. Then, I ask why the Fleischer Brothers featured Calloway in the films. Drawing on Freud’s concept of the uncanny, this essay examines the underlying structure of repressionand the subsequent appropriation of Calloway’s black body generated through the Rotoscoping process.