Gender and Ethnicity in Comic Strips

Over time people of color have been degraded and dehumanized in many ways. In his 1973 book, "Comic Stripped", Arthur Berger refers to the early comic strip, Yellow Kid, whose "...world was that of tough, dirty little immigrant kids... There were Negro children, with kinky hair or thick white lips, Irish toughs, and mangy, ragged animals." (Berger, 27) "Babies and children permeate the cartoon and you get a sense that they are not really human; they are …

…humiliated... In truth, individualism in American history was generally a meaningless euphemism to beguile large numbers of people who were being subjected to the violence of inhuman and dangerous jobs for paltry wages." (Berger, 58) Works Cited: Berger, Arthur A. The comic-stripped American. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1973. Chavez, Deborah. "Perpetuation of gender inequality: A content analysis of comic strips." Sex Roles (Historical Archive) 13.1-2 (1985): 93-102 McAllister, Matthew P., et al., eds. Comics and Ideology. NY: Peter Lang, 2001.