Freebie Film Tip #27: Betty Boop, Exobiology, and Cultural Exchange

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Freebie Film Tip #27: Betty Boop, Exobiology, and Cultural Exchange

A Hawaiian woman playing the ukulele.

Okay, revisiting Betty for a moment, but she's too rich a source not to mine more than once:
In Bamboo Isle, Betty and Bimbo are messing around on a Pacific island. The music is good, and the animation is as surreal as it gets. (Note the Melanesians with the dice on their shields. Note the dentures used as a cigar-cutter. Oh, just give up on reason and go with the flow.)

This was 1932, pre Hayes Office. Good thing, too. Modern people may be uncomfortable with the ethnic characterisations, although the Royal Samoans music group didn't seem to object. It's a fair bet, though, that the Hayes Office would have noticed that Betty wasn't wearing anything but a lei and a grass skirt. Or that hula dancing could be, er, racy. Or that there's a lot of Sexy Stuff going on. Free-spirited, is what it was.

What nobody back then seems to have noticed is that Betty is, by now, a human being. And that her boyfriend Bimbo is still a dog. He's an awfully cute dog, mind you, and it's a broad-minded universe. But that's rather a lot of exobiology for a series that predates Star Trek by about 35 years.

Okay. Shutting up now.

A pair of feet sporting a map of the southern hemisphere.
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