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My biggest internet pet peeve has got to be when people repeatedly regurgitate some thing they read somewhere until it eventually becomes widely accepted as fact. This is a detriment to all of us. So here's a lesson: BETTY BOOP WAS NOT BASED ON BABY ESTHER. (1/11)
Baby Esther was a child performer active during the Jazz Age, and the pictures of various adult women that articles and blogs indicate are her are actually not. Betty Boop was created as a caricature of a flapper most likely modeled after singer and actress Helen Kane. (2/11)
Allegedly, the artist who designed Betty Boop used a photo of Helen Kane for reference, and various Helen Kane soundalikes were hired to voice her in cartoons. (3/11)
When Helen Kane tried to sue Betty Boop creators for infringement, the defense argued that Helen Kane's appearance and voice were not unique to her. (4/11)
Most notably, Baby Esther's former talent manager testified that Helen Kane had appropriated her signature singing style from Baby Esther after seeing her perform. Baby Esther was known for her "baby" and scat singing styles. (5/11)
Although Baby Esther had a successful career as a child in both the Americas and Europe, she seems to have disappeared from the public eye after the early 1930s, when she would have been around 13. It's assumed she retired from performing, but who knows. (6/11)
To recap:
Betty Boop was definitely not based on Baby Esther. She was probably based on Helen Kane.
Helen Kane's singing style was appropriated from Baby Esther.
Therefore, Baby Esther is only tangentially related to the origin of Betty Boop. (7/11)
Betty Boop was definitely not based on Baby Esther. She was probably based on Helen Kane.
Helen Kane's singing style was appropriated from Baby Esther.
Therefore, Baby Esther is only tangentially related to the origin of Betty Boop. (7/11)
However, Betty Boop, as an extension of Helen Kane, does play a role in the conversation about white entertainers historically profiting off of things they've copied from black entertainers. (8/11)
Helen Kane's incorporation of scat singing into her songs was wildly popular, but she never admitted to co-opting the style that's immortalized by Betty Boop. And Baby Esther has been nearly lost to history, with no known surviving recordings of her voice. (9/11)
It's important to celebrate the accomplishments of black women in history, but garbling the facts, however unintentional, is not the way. Bigots will use misinformation to their advantage in order to discredit figures like Baby Esther and whitewash history. (10/11)
Act judiciously. Don't spread narratives without fact-checking. Remember Baby Esther as Esther Lee Jones, the talented young black performer who delighted audiences across continents, not simply as "The Black Betty Boop." (11/11)
