#Baby Esther

[poppingmary]

The original Betty Boop, Esther Jones aka Baby Esther.

Esther Jones, known by her stage name “Baby Esther”, was an african american singer and entertainer in 1920s. She performed regularly at The Cotton Club in Harlem, NY. Helen Kane saw her act in 1928 and appropriated Jones singing style for a record of “I Wanna Be Loved By You”. Her style went on to become the inspiration for the voice of Betty Boop.

(source Facebook)

[dahlialiketheflower]

I grew up with Betty Boop and now I get to be her!

Instagram.com/dahlianicole_

[thevioletscout]

Did you know!

Betty Boop was based on an African American jazz singer named Esther Jones, pictured below!

Despite this, Betty Boop has been consistently portrayed as white, and Esther Jones' likeness was used without her permission. 

And if you've actually read this far and not just nodded and scrolled on, congratulations! I was lying to you, that entire thing was bunk.

Esther Jones, better known as Baby Esther or Lil Esther, was only a child when Betty Boop made her debut, her exact age is a mystery due to a lack of records. That image I showed you before? That's of a model named Olya P. for the magazine Retro Atelier in 2008. Also Olya’s not even black, she’s white and either Russian or Ukrainian.

Betty Boop was indeed visually based off a jazz singer and actress, but it was Helen Kane, a white woman. Clara Bow, another white singer, is also sometimes cited as an inspiration, but with less evidence. 

It was Helen Kane who found out her likeness was used without permission and filed a lawsuit against Max Fleischer and Fleischer Studios for it. While he would later wholeheartedly admit it, he denied the likeness as part of his testimonies. In the process, he argued that Kane had taken most of her songs and style from Baby Esther. However, according to Wikipedia it’s possible a lot of the evidence for that was fabricated in an attempt to discredit Kane.

So to be more precise, Betty Boop was based off a white woman who might have based her image off a little black girl.

Also, the topic of Betty Boop's intended race gets a little silly regardless given that she was first conceptualized as an anthropomorphic poodle. While it's not exactly unheard of for the 1930s, I don't think they were really focusing on coding her as a specific race at that moment.

The cartoon Minnie the Moocher (remember this) would even depict Betty Boop as coming from a German immigrant family. Many speculated she was even Jewish due to this as well as the Fleischer brothers and her voice actress Mae Questel both being Jewish, but Benjamin Ivry of Forward pointed out that her family's meals were not Kosher so this was unlikely. 

Now you might be thinking; okay but what's the harm in portraying Betty Boop as black? Can’t black people reclaim this one character for themselves? And honestly, I kinda agree. Personally I think Betty Boop is one of those characters that can be ANY race, not just white or black, given her ambiguous and stylized features. I love seeing black women cosplaying Betty Boop or her being portrayed as black in art.

However, the reason I bring this up is because I personally think false or misleading information does not make for good representation. Especially when it leads to situations where artists have to explain themselves for giving Betty Boop light skin when the reason cited otherwise is blatant misinformation. Though thankfully the one interaction I have had about it before posting this was very polite.

Not to mention, this kind of thing maybe not necessarily buries but distracts from the very real contributions and accomplishments of black people in Betty Boop's history.

Let's talk Cab Calloway, for example.

Cab Calloway was a singer and bandleader acclaimed for mixing jazz with vaudeville. He was the first African American to sell one million copies of a single record, and collaborated with Fleicher Studios for three animations, Minnie the Moocher, Snow White, and The Old Man of the Mountain. In these, he would perform a song, the first and last even being directly named after his music, and he was even directly rotoscoped while dancing. 

I can't find any sources for who approached who for these collaborations, but I feel its needless to say there's an inherent respect for Calloway and his work in these cartoons. For a black man in the 1930s. And they didn’t even hide it, Minnie the Moocher and The Old Man of the Mountain features live footage of Cab Calloway and his very visibly black band.

These cartoons bleed passion from both the singer and the animators. And if you’ll excuse the sidenote, I watched those cartoons as part of my research and even today his music is still absolutely enchanting. 

And Calloway was not immune to racism just because of his success either. He and a friend, Felix H. Payne Jr. were even victims of police brutality by officer William E. Todd in 1945 when they were attempting to visit Lionel Hamptom at the whites-only Pla-Mor Ballroom.

His work matters. Betty Boop was only one small part of his career, the man did a lot in his time, but he brought something truly amazing to the table.

There are real people whose accomplishments deserve to be recognized, but I feel they often get pushed aside in the efforts to make up representation that was never actually there under the false belief that there was none in the first place.

Hell, this entire thing is a discredit to the real life of Esther Jones herself!

She was a literal child who’s date of birth and especially death are unknown. She gained fame in her hometown Chicago which led to her becoming an international celebrity, touring Europe as an honored representation of African Americans alongside Josephine Hall. Then she basically retired as a teenager and disappeared from the public eye.

And what is her memory nowadays? As a sexy flapper that supposedly inspired Betty Boop’s creation.

Even knowing this was false, I had to fight back so much misinformation while making this. This photo right here? I was led to believe this was a photo of an adult Esther Jones, but it’s not! We don’t have photos of her as an adult! This is a completely different, unidentified, woman photographed by James Van Der Zee!

And quite frankly, as a white woman I feel like a jerk having to be the one to tell black people that actually no Betty Boop was based on Helen Kane, not Esther Jones.

So in conclusion, STOP MAKING SHIT UP.

[Sources:

Betty Boop - Wikipedia

Cab Calloway - Wikipedia

Baby Esther - Wikipedia

Модель Оля | BETTY BOOP Wiki | Fandom

Dizzy Dishes (1930)

Minnie the Moocher (1932)

Snow White (1933)

The Old Man of the Mountain (1933)]

[frank-o-meter]

Esther Lee Jones (aka Little Esther) was a popular African American performer who toured the world in the early part of the 20th Century.

When interviewed in Rio de Janeiro, a reporter asked how she had avoided the racists who lynched and burned black people in Texas and Alabama. Esther replied that she had so far escaped their wrath by staying out of the South.

[blueiight]

[nickysfacts]

Baby Esther “boop boop a doop” herself to stardom!💄

🎶👩🏾‍🦱🎶

[zumainthyfuture]

"Betty Boop: A complex history hidden in black and white. Stolen from Cotton Club singer Esther Jones, known as 'Baby Esther,' who never regained the rights to the character inspired by her."

[huntinclowns2024]

Following our inquiry, we discovered that Melissa May Farrington, an American, is the owner of the troll account Clown Hunter, which has the @Clown22500580 handle and targets black individuals and minorities. An elderly white woman runs who runs the clown troll account was born in 1956.

Farrington has assumed the identity of a predator for her troll account. A monster that resembles a clown. She has a very large nose in real life that resembles a vacuum cleaner. Suggesting that AI was utilized to synchronize her real face with the clown's.

A social media post that we came across claims that she used to be a Betty Boop impersonator in her younger years. As of 2020 she is a clown and lives in a circus tent according to her bio on social media.

She might delete her hate account but we have archived it and most of her posts.

It is said on her anonymous troll account that she is an attack dog. She lacks intelligence because she most likely didn't know that pestering others online could have negative effects. Most likely, May Farrington is a narcissist. Because of her narcissistic nature, she is likely to believe herself to be the victim when she learns that she has been unmasked.

She is hardly a victim because, in actuality, she has been intimidating others on social media for the entire time. Like she's got the right to. however, she was unaware that she had left a digital paper trail.

Although Farrington is from Tacoma, Washington, she poses as British and uses a fake British persona. This is a symptom of Asperger's or autism. People who have those conditions usually do not harass people online.

Upon investigating, we discovered that someone Farrington had bullied online had claimed that Farrington suffers from Asperger's condition. That still does not justify what Farrington does on social media.

MissMay03, LadyMay, and MissMay03US are the troll's other aliases.

https://www.youtube.com/@missmay03ushttps://www.flickr.com/photos/missmay03/

We are merely alerting. In order for people who have been targeted to know who is behind the account. So if she harasses or bullies someone under the guise of anon, people can face her directly.

Farrington has harassed more than 100 people on social media, but she hasn't singled out one person. This is a result of no one finding out what she has to say. Rather, she made the decision to turn into a troll and spread hate. This is a meant to be an intelligent individual. It appears that she is not a particularly kind person.

We made the decision to identify the owner of this hate account. A white American woman in digital blackface is the person behind the clown troll account.

She frequently cites her non-white ethnicity as an explanation. She is obviously a white woman, though. Additionally, she makes fun of her employment by claiming that her employer will never be aware of her social media activity. She works for a company as a writer but is also self employed.

Since the troll had been harassing individuals for more than three years under the alias, we decided to get all of her information in order to identify who she was. She uses numerous social media accounts. She possesses more than only Clown Hunter. We thus tracked her online whereabouts.

She foolishly used her own identity in the email she used to harass individuals. We used third-party search engines to perform a reverse search. And during a search, she surfaced. Regarding this person, some information has already been posted.

At first, we weren't sure if the two people were the same. But it was proven when we noticed that she had posted frequently posted anti Betty Boop posts. Her primary posts consistently express her dislike for Betty Boop's race as a black woman.

Farrington dislikes Betty Boop essentially. Helen Kane, her Facebook profile, is similar to Betty Boop in certain ways. She does not like the other Betty Boop, despite her fondness for the first. She seems to have an interest in a real life Betty Boop.

Farrington hunts for what she thinks are clowns. However people she hunts are random people who have no idea who she is. So she is technically harassing random people that she does not know.

By bothering others, she is attempting to control what they share and what they don't. The majority of people choose to ignore her and go on. She anticipates getting into arguments with strangers on social media. May doesn't seem to have a personal life, a family, or pals.

Farrington never succeeded in her attempts to be a scholar. She went to Technical College at Clover Park.

Her account, now known as X, is used to harass and abuse black people on Twitter. She is a graphic designer with extensive Photoshop knowledge. She writes for Radio Tacoma as well.

She oversees multiple Helen Kane webpages. She assisted by a gang of people who all joined in 2020 to torment others. The individuals are elderly people from in her group.

Farrington is likely mentally ill and paranoid. She would not be hiding if she didn't believe she was at fault.

If anybody has experienced harassment from Tacoma, Washington's May Farrington on any of her troll accounts. Farrington also runs other troll accounts, including several on YouTube. She is insane in addition to being racist.

A thorough background check was conducted on the male and female residents of Farrington's home, and the results were alarming. She ought to think about her own life and the lives of others around her before harassing others.

[arelenforyadarlin]

Betty boop is finished!!!

[faerieskins]

After consulting with the homies our Clone High ocs are as follows:

Giulia Tofana (Creator of Aqua Tofana)

Jack the Ripper

Esther Jones (the inspiration for Betty Boop)

[show-us-kaidenshenandoah]

a loved one of mine sent me this post back in June, but i was immediately afraid of being a party-pooper so i didnt post my reply publicly but, now, ive had more than enough emotional distance from the knee-jerk anxiety of "oh no what if i correct people and everyone sends me hate and doxxes me" that im like "oh yeah i should post that" lmao (if i already did this: sorry, chronic memory loss stinks. i dont remember having done this before lmao)

if you dont like reading a long thing of text to get information btw, totally get it, here is a video link to Jessica Vill's video about the topic which will walk you through identical information if that is your preferred way to process/learn

also: you can easily google and wiki my sources, these arent hard things to verify once you know to look them up to begin with. but i did include screenshots below as my various sources; as well as evidence of "yeah, it would be super easy to fact-check me about this if you feel so inclined" [transcripts of images will be my reblog of this post under a read more, bc tumblr kept throwing a fit otherwise if i did it here] nonetheless, never blame people for not knowing what they didnt know. the misconception is absolutely the fault of PBS (for not fact-checking the author of that article pre-publication if nothing else) for publishing an article preying on the Black community's pre-existing attachment to Betty Boop for clicks. i wont be going into that article itself that had so terribly misreported, esp since PBS already apologized, im just reporting the information i know

i will add the following corrections to what i said in that DM:

i do not "blame" anyone above for the misinformation. if i "blame" anyone, it is PBS for claiming Fleischer consciously based Betty Boop's personality and design on Esther Jones, which you can see in the screenshot above; where BlackHistory.com cites and quotes that said misreported article. thats who i was groaning about in my DM, the PBS article; i was not nor was i ever attributing misinformation to come from @rikareena or @lveshae, but especially not @rikareena who fact-checked and was lied to by (a) said misinformation and (b) there not being an editorial within the snippet SAYING "oh btw sorry, our source we mentioned was bad actually. PBS apologized for the misinformation and not fact-checking it and we should too for spreading it without fact-checking our source ourselves". you should always google your facts and that is exactly what @rikareena did. it was not anybody in this post's fault that these sources were based on misinformation. do NOT blame or send negative attention to any tumblr-user/individual person within this post or outside of this post, istg, demand better of these website-sources instead (esp to have fact-checking teams themselves) and not individual people omfg

we do have few photos of Little Esther (you can see all of them in Jessica Vill's video), not just one. but they all are of her as a child. we have NO confirmed photos of her as an adult. also, to clarify, Little Esther was who i was talking about in regards to lost media, we have VERY little records of her performances (to which im glad people HAVE been looking into her and finding more about her that we can confirm is definitely her through this misreport. i love that she is re-gaining fans and her story is being shared, very big silver lining of this whole thing. if you're into uncovering lost media, please do look into her and help find more about her) also, she goes by "Baby Esther" and "Little Esther" as well as her name of Esther Jones/Esther Lee Jones

the photo i said was maybe her as an adult was incorrect. you'll see it below, it's the "Do Tell by James Van Der Zee, circa 1930" portrait that has oft been misattributed to Esther Jones. we do not know who this woman modeling for him had been

the cosplayer in question i mentioned was specifically Olya Gussy. she dressed up as Betty Boop and was photographed in 2008 by Retro Atelier. she is often misattributed as being an adult Esther Jones, which she is not

part of why i can never remember Betty Boop's primary "original" voice-actress is because Betty Boop has had SO MANY, even in just "classic Betty years". but i was specifically thinking of Mae Questel. the main three classic 1930s Betty Boop voices were Mae Questel, Mary Hines, and Bonnie Poe, but there were also several others in the 30s alone. but, yeah, when i was trying to talk about Betty Boop's voice-actress, it was Questel specifically who was in my head

i got my information wrong about the Betty Boop musical "Boop!". i got confused; i blame my chronic memory loss, but still my bad. anyway. it has so far ONLY been OFF-Broadway and is DUE to be ON Broadway in 2025 (get hyped!!! im so excited!!). off of Broadway, it has so far only been in Chicago according to the Wikipedia. and though it only had a had a short run in Chicago overall, the entire time it WAS in Chicago, Betty Boop was played by a Black musical actress: Jasmine Amy Rogers. love her, go support her!!

here are various screenshots with more information. feel free to look into them and/or the court-case on your own time. this is just "yep, shallow 2+2=4 levels of using google/wiki to fact-fact" on myself (which, to reiterate: is NOT a diss on anyone who didnt know what they didnt know, outside of this post or within it, idgaf, i do not tolerate trolls and dickheads being mean and utalizing me/my posts as a weapon to do that with) and show my sources in a more visual way

so yeah!! Betty Boop absolutely should be claimed by Black people since she has so many connections to Black American art within her performance, and Betty should 100% be drawn as a Black woman by any and everybody who wants to depict her that way

but also dont give Fleischer Studios credit for things they didnt do. they did not utalize Ether Jones in their initial conception of Betty in any purposeful or concious way; they did not design a Black animated female character in the 1930s. do not give them that credit that they have not earned. Fleischer Studios only utalized Esther Jones to get out of a court-case they had with Helen Kane. them accidentally creating a character whose performance is heavily in connection with Black American artists, like Esther Jones, is VERY DIFFERENT than them basing a character off of Esther Jones or being inspired by her in of by itself. do not give them flowers for making a Black female character star in her own shorts (and then rescind said flowers-that-they-didnt-earn for how she then "became white-washed" like that PBS article misreported) when they just?? didnt do any of that?

(also this is mostly unrelated but bc it is tangentially related to "dont give Fleischer Studios credit for things they didnt do" thing: if you know me, youll see me specifically crack jokes about Betty Boop being wlw and/or about her "he/him butch girlfriend, Freddie". im talking about her canon boyfriend, Fred or Fearless Fred, who is a human (unlike her also once-canon boyfriend of Bimbo, the anthropomorphic dog). do not take me making jokes about headcanons and how "Fred's design is too sapphic to be a cis man" as legitimate fact. youll see the internet jokes of a similar vein sometimes, im definitely not the originator of that joke)

Betty Boop is for everybody in the same way as youve likely seen that Hatsune Miku trend where everyone is making a cultural Miku re-design to their specific ethnicity or way of life; we've seen Betty Boop be flexibly "for everyone" tons of times, even outside of her being a nostalgic tribute to the flapper girl era (a cultural niche in which women of ALL backgrounds took part). in classic Betty Boop cartoons alone, we've seen:

Betty Boop as white/white-passing (especially any time they copied Helen Kane which Fleischer Studios did OFTEN and didn't even HIDE until it became a legal issue; but also Helen Kane wasn't even being that original. baby voices like Betty Boop's was a common gimmick of actresses then and Helen Kane's catch-phrase wasn't even her own. i still personally think Fleischer was copying Kane, but also it makes 100% sense why she lost that lawsuit),

we have had Betty Boop be Jewish (the most obvious being parents in some shorts speaking with thick Yiddish accents, implying she is the daughter of immigrant parents, most famously in the "Minnie the Moocher" short as part of the set-up before any music even began to play),

we've had her be rotoscoped dancing using Indigenous Hawaiian dancers, in their regalia, and given a tan (multiple times but my favorite is "Bamboo Isle" for sure),

we've had her collab with Cab Calloway (a famous Black jazz musician for anyone who doesn' recognize the name) along with others and had Betty Boop's catchphrase ultimately come from Baby Esther's scatting, along with other instances of Betty Boop's performances having connection to Black American performance-art

and, hell, you could even make arguments about Betty Boop as a cowgirl in her "Nan McGrew" parodies. cowgirls and cowboys were a largely queer and/or POC group, paid very little but allowed a lot of freedom of expression and welcomed isolation, until America cinema and the like white-washed cowboys to hell and back. you could see Betty Boop as anyone of any identity, really, but especially as being of the marginalized in that vein

Fleischer Studios did definitely (accidentally popularize infantalization in animated women woah who said that, who brought up my special-interest) only announce that they used an alagamation of flapper women in their design to better shoot down Helen Kane, but that doesn't mean it wasn't true. Betty Boop IS the 1930s tribute to the flapper era of the 20s and all the women from there, of all skin-colors and ways of life. anybody can cosplay or draw Betty Boop. but Black people especially do have a special connection to Betty Boop that cannot be denied and is v beautiful

(i could talk for a few hours about Betty Boop, and i will be the first to admit this isn't even her first "well, originally..." debate concerning her as a character, much less the breadth of her impact OR all aspects of her history. there's all the ways she did steal/borrow from Helen Kane, at least in my opinion; her impact of infantalization in animated women's designs; her hyper-sexualization and how theater at the time functioned (in a sexual way*) and her specific "gags in the margins"(*×2) animators would make; her almost movie about her and her father that a lot of Betty Boop fans have dug up and shared the conceptual work of around; and even the debate of her age as that is constantly in flux depending on where you look and at what time of history (*×3). all of which i mention in an "if you liked learning about Betty, there is a lot more to look into learning about her" way rather than an "ask me, ask me, ask me" way)

(said * clarifactions will be with the aforementioned reblog to not make this post even LONGER than it already is lmao)

anyway. again: A++ art though, absolutely love it ♡

boop-boop-a-doop

[bleulone]

JULIO PEÑA FERNÁNDEZ as ROI in BERLÍN (2023-)

[sleepynegress]

Fun Fact: This is a great tribute to the likely earliest inspiration for the Betty Boop cartoon, Florence Mills.

Florence Mills (above) is who Baby Esther was imitating in her act. And Baby Esther's act was used by Max Fleischer to prove that Helen Kane had no claim on Betty Boop's stylings in her lawsuit against them.

Fleischer successfully proved Esther predated Kane and that Helen had been to Esther's act. The baby voice actually makes sense now, given that Esther was a child at the time (see below) So, I think Betty is Florence's style, as interpreted by a child.

So, It's nice to see a Black woman performing her.

It all has come full circle.

Both of these Black performers, both the child and the woman, were HUGE stars in their day. Baby Esther performed all over Europe and was paid $750 weekly.

Florence's funeral procession was legendary in the amount of mourners who showed up, a demonstration of both her level of fame and how well-loved she was (pictured below)...

She was known as not only a singularly talented broadway performer but a prolific philanthropist, advocate for "colored" rights, & helping all the down and out (homeless and disabled), black and white:

Betty Boop would not exist but for a talented Black child performer named Baby Esther and legendary theatre, vaudeville, and Broadway Black woman performer, Florence Mills. P.S. I had to add this photo of Florence because she is totally giving Betty B. :

[parmaviolets]

I want Liz to maintain her Avid Claire's Shopper vibes but coupled with 16 year old girl coming to terms with how fucked up and unfair the world was to her after biting her tongue for so long. she's like a ex disney channel child star to me

[shaylogic]

Post of fan theory about the "Mary Ann" Dolls by @snowmenatwork

Follow up post expanding on this concept by @waywardsonsandaughters and fantastic addition by @mr-g-clarie

My dream interpretation of the "baby" and "doll" aspects of Edwin's Hell in the Doll House [quoted from dreammoods.com]

Something Something

victimization of the effeminate gay man

[arelenforyadarlin]

making a paper doll of Betty Boop! when I get the joints I'll put her together!