"This is the house of Tarzan, the killer of beasts and many black men" .This is how Tarzan introduces himself to Jane in the book Tarzan of the Apes. Later in the book he rescues Jane (who was originally an American woman from the South) from a 'black ape rapist'
Tarzan started off as a character written by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) in a 1912 magazine before becoming a series of books and movies. The basic story is that the aristocratic offspring of Lord Greystoke is orphaned as a child in Africa, raised by apes in the jungle and becomes the King of that jungle and all who dwell in it. Tarzan, which means white skin in 'ape speak' is faster, stronger and more intelligent than the native Africans. For readers at the time and perhaps even now, whiteness equals civilization. In addition he can
 | | Tarzan swings an African as a weapon. |
speak to the animals a skill which the local Africans do not have. Tarzan is a comic superhero, long before the appearance of Superman, he can wrestle lions, crocodiles and gorillas with his bare hands.
Edgar Rice Burroughs was born in Chicago, Illinois and had never been to Africa. This is why lions and tigers often pop up in his African jungle despite the fact that lions live exclusively in the savannah and tigers are not found in Africa at all.
It would not be so bad if these were the only factual errors but Burroughs portrays all the Africans as savages and inferior to Tarzan and any other whites. The original books are full of the 'N word' and racist stereotypes informed by the rampant colonialism of the period. Black people are routinely described in the worst possible way.
"[The little black boy] had seen Tarzan bring down a buck, just as Numa, the lion, might have done... Tibo, the little black boy, lacked the divine spark which had permitted Tarzan, the white boy, to benefit by his training in the ways of the fierce jungle. (From Jungle Tales of Tarzan)
Bearing in mind Burroughs lived in the 'sundown town' of Oak Park, Illinois (a sundown town was a place where all blacks had to be out of the town by sundown or face severe physical consequences) it is very disturbing that his Tarzan character chooses to hang his black victims from trees with vine ropes around their necks . Lynching was common in America up until the 1960's.
Like many of his contemporaries, writes his biographer, John Taliaferro author of Tarzan Forever, Burroughs "believed in a hierarchy of race and class. In the Tarzan stories, blacks are generally superstitious and Arabs rapacious." Meanwhile, Burroughs was "extremely proud of his nearly pure Anglo-Saxon lineage "In his book, Taliaferro uncovers Burroughs' lifelong belief in eugenics, "the radical fringe of Darwinism," the notion that undesirable people -- the ill, the criminal, and the racially "impure" -- should be sterilized.
 | | Black people are 'privileged' to work for free in this Tarzan comic |
In 1918 Tarzan made his first movie appearance in Tarzan of the Apes and the written stereotypes were transferred onto the big screen where they influenced millions more people
Possibly the most well known Tarzan was Johnny Weissmuller an Olympic athlete who made a number of Tarzan movies between 1932 and 1948. These movies were shown all other the world and were popular on British TV up the 1990's. They were also broadcast in African and Caribbean territories prior to independence. When Marcus Garvey's Back to Africa movement was gaining momentum, British colonial authorities hired mobile cinemas and drove into countryside areas in places like Jamaica to show Tarzan and other racist propaganda films. The idea was to convince people that Africa was a 'dark continent' full of 'savages' and they should therefore be happy they were colonised by Britain and ignore Garvey's message.
 | | Ron Ely from the 60's/70s TV show. |
Black children who grew up in England in the 60's, 70's and 80's were force- fed Tarzan. The 1940's movies or the 1960's TV series starring Ron Ely were scheduled as Saturday morning entertainment for kids. Black Britons gained ideas of African history and culture from watching Tarzan at a time when there were hardly any black people on TV. It was common for children with parents from the Caribbean to watch a Tarzan jungle scene where black people were shown as cowardly, stupid and wicked to then ask their parents "Is that where you come?"
Marvel and DC Comics had a brief run of Tarzan in the 70's. In 1981 Bo Derek popped up as Jane in Tarzan the Ape Man starring Miles O'Keefe. Then there was Christopher Lambert in the 1984 Greystoke the legend of Tarzan.
 Despite the passage of time since 1912 the stench of racism permeates all the Tarzan spin offs as they always portray black people in a negative manner. The only possible exception is George of the Jungle (1997) starring Brendan Fraser where black people were given some of the best lines and turned the stereotypes upside down.
In 1999 Disney decided to re-invent Tarzan as an animated movie with Tony Goldwyn as the voice of Tarzan. Disney consulted the source material and had a problem..how would they deal with the racist portrayal of black people in the original literature ? Their solution was simple; remove all black people from the story. So even though Tarzan is set in Africa if you watch the film you will see lions, elephants, giraffe, hippos, crocodiles etc but not one single African person. When questioned about this situation in the Spokesman film review of June 30 1999 the response was:
'Co-directors Kevin Lima and Chris Buck have said that the absence of minority characters in Tarzan was a consequence of the desire to keep the story simple. The pair wanted to concentrate on Tarzan's choice of being animal or human. And with the need to create Jane and characterize the animals the only kinds of black characters that could be squeezed in would have been minor.
The white supremacy is so blatant; they were more concerned with giving character to the animals than the African people. Of course a simple solution to the racist problem would have been to make both Tarzan and Jane black but clearly this was too complicated as they would then have to create adventure and love scenes for an African couple set in Africa and when has Disney ever done that in its 90 year history?
The much lauded Lion King (1994) could easily have been done with a full cast of animated African people but that did not happen. Why not ?
 The idea of removing black people from a movie to make things simple did not die in 1994. Ari Handel the writer of current blockbuster Noah explained why there no black people in his film by saying this:
"From the beginning, we were concerned about casting, the issue of race. What we realized is that this story is functioning at the level of myth, and as a mythical story, the race of the individuals doesn't matter. They're supposed to be stand-ins for all people. Either you end up with a Bennetton ad or the crew of the Starship Enterprise." Read the full comment HERE
So in the 21st century it was just too distracting to have any black people in a film about the Biblical origin of the world and white people represent the whole planet !
From 2001 to 2003 Disney persevered with the Legend of Tarzan animated TV series. It is
 | Queen La and the 'leopard men' from 2001 TV series Legend of Tarzan. What colour is Queen La ?
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noticeable that Queen La, Tarzan's enemy, despite her white hair and green/blue eyes has a different skin colour to Tarzans. Queen La's evil troops are called the Leopard men and are portrayed as non-human. What is not well known is that Burroughs original Leopard men were Africans who wore leopard skins, see photo. 
It took until 2009 for Disney to green light a movie with a black lead, The Princess and the Frog, but again they refused to endorse a loving black couple. After African-Americans complained when the initial scripts stated that Disney's first ever black princess Tiana, (played by Anika Noni Rose a black woman) would be given a white boyfriend, Disney responded by giving her an apparently non-white boyfriend but he was played by the white actor, Bruno Campos.
In all Disney's 90 year history they have never given any of their white princesses a black or non-white boyfriend ? So why the sudden insistence on a mixed relationship for the first ever black princess ? Maybe the directors had flashbacks to the days when white men had sexual access to black women whether they liked it or not and black men were lynched for just looking at white women.
Those who thought that Princess and the Frog meant that Disney had embraced black people would only be disappointed with their next movie Tangled (2010) A modern take on the Rapunzel story which featured a blonde princess with super-powered hair and of course, a white boyfriend. Not a single black person can be seen in the 84 minutes of the movie
In 2013 Disney released the blockbuster hit Frozen. Yet again we see that even in fantasy environments where young ladies can freeze entire countries and build ice castles with a wave of their hands, it is impossible for Disney to put even one black person in their movie. The interest in portraying mixed relationships has also vanished.
The most recent version of Tarzan is a German production but it would be naïve to think there will be an authentic black presence in it. Given the source material one wonders why there is such a sustained interest in resurrecting this colonial figure of white supremacy in the 21st century.
Warner brothers have scheduled their version of Tarzan starring Alexander Skarrsgard and Samuel L Jackson for a 2016 release. The plot involves a Tarzan based in Victorian London who sheds his clothes to go and fight greedy explorers in the Congo.When will the promotion of white male supremacy in Africa via childrens' cartoons and movies stop ?
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