Mammy Two Shoes

I’m doing something different for today’s post because I discovered something I think all of you should know about. I was contemplating whether Jerry of Tom and Jerry fame is Black when I discovered a character named Mammy Two Shoes. No, I didn’t make that up, that is literally the character’s name. Ms. Two Shoes is the housekeeper for the house Tom and Jerry live in. As you can see, the character was drawn to perfectly fit the Mammy stereotype: she is plus-size, brown-skinned and scolded Tom whenever he got into trouble. Ms. Two Shoes’s head is rarely seen in the cartoons she appears in, suggesting her character is only present to represent a stereotype, not a fully conceptualized character. Ms. Two Shoes has been edited out, re-animated or dubbed in later showings of Tom and Jerry because of how racist the character is. She was finally removed from the cartoon in 1953 after years of protests by the NAACP.