The Tex[t]-Mex Galleryblog: Mel Blanc: The Voice that Launched a Thousand Types

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Mel Blanc: The Voice that Launched a Thousand Types

Drawn. ca via neatorama via youtube is broadcasting a very cool interview with Mel Blanc, the voice of Speedy Gonzales, the Frito Bandito, Bugs Bunny, Sylvester and hundreds of other memorable cartoon characters for Warner Brothers and other companies. I get asked a lot at readings if I hate Speedy Gonzales and Warner Brothers for all of the stereotypes they popularized in their short, animated classics and I always say 'please read the book.' My "Autopsy of a Rat" is a cloaked love letter to Friz Freleng, Robert McKimson, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, and the thousands of artists and technicians that changed the face of animated entertainment for the ages.

One of Blanc's Mexican character-voices appears towards the end of the video, part of a bit he developed with Jack Benny for his variety show--his "Mexican" is no dope either as this schtick is complex. The gnarly threads binding the fates of Jewish American animators and Mexican-American subjectivity are the true object under analysis in "Autopsy of a Ray" and in Text[t]-Mex. The least interesting question to put here is whether Freleng, Blanc, et al were racists--does Pepe Le Peu besmirch the psyche of your average Frenchman? The more interesting question and the ongoing challenge for those of us who travail in cultural studies is how race and ethnicity (and gender and sexuality) weave there way into every aspect of what passes for entertainment.