Who Was Betty Boop?

Film > History of
History > U.S. The 1930's - Great Depression
Music Studies > Blues, Jazz

Who Was Betty Boop?

Describes the background and history of the sexy female cartoon character and series produced by the Fleischer brothers and called Betty Boop.

3,148 words () | 8 sources | MLA | 2009 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper relates the history and development of Betty Boop, the first female flapper cartoon. The writer describes how the Fleischer brothers started out with cartoons featuring a dog named Bimbo and then created Betty Boop in the 1930s as a hot little number that entertained by dancing, singing, and just getting into all types of things. By bringing jazz music and musicians into the cartoon, musicians such as Louis Armstrong became famous and her character became a sex icon in American jazz history. Although the Betty Boop series ended in 1939, she was brought back in the 1990s with a biography about her life when her 60th anniversary was celebrated.

From the Paper:

"Three Jewish immigrants from Vienna arrived in New York in the 1880s with a fascination for cartooning and technology, which brought all three of them into the world of animation. The Fleischer brothers Leonard, Max, and Dave responded to the local influences around the Manhattan music scene to find their choice of performers. They would combine themes from their own lives as middle-class citizens, secular Jews in New York City with their own cultural and musical notions of African Americans, funneling all these raw materials into a popular representational form of cartoons (Nyback, Longmore)."

Sample of Sources Used:

"1931 Minnie the Moocher (Cab Calloway) Betty Boop." Yousendit.com. 07 December 2006. <http://www.yousendit.com/download/eG1JR1OMoxN5TA%3D%3D>
"Betty Boop - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia". 28 November 2006. Wikipedia. 07 December 2006. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Boop>.
Goldmark, Daniel. Tunes for Toons: Music and the Hollywood Cartoon Ewing, NJ, USA: University of California Press, 2005
Longmore, Zenga. "Betty Boop's Jazz Legacy." 25 February 2005. The Social Affairs Unit. 07 December 2006 <http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/ blog/archives/000304.php>.
Morris, Gary. "Betty Boop." Brightlightsfilm.com. April 1996 Issue 16. 07 December 2006. <http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/16/betty.html>.