Baby Esther - Tumblr Posts

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

the promised image descriptions (+ the asterisked footnote bits) are in the Read More down below:

(*×1: "what was that about theaters being s3xüál?" well, there's not too many resources i can think of for the USA of this "phenomenon" (for lack of a better term), but look at the movie "Cinema Paradiso" and then look at the history of Italian cinema if you want to get into the s0ft-core p0ŕñ of early cinema that the USA tries to ignore that it ever could have even KINDA participated in pre-Hays code. but the USA did participate in that kinda stuff during early cinema. just. thats harder to research than Italy bc, again, we like to pretend we didnt do that. but Italy was way more willing to get graphic and hasnt been even half as shy about having participated in. but Betty Boop was part of the USA's participation in that, for sure. but yeah. in an age where p0ŕñ was kinda hard to get, $3x-w0ŕk3rs cost money, but movie tickets were p accessible, all pre-Hays Code?? yeah, American animators and filmmakers made money being a lil "spicy" as it were. again, i dont know a lot of USA based resources off the top of my head to confirm this besides "....look at Betty Boop's shorts" + "look at Italian cinema's history which didnt try to hide this part of its history, unlike the USA and Hays Code and whatnot". the film "Cinema Paradiso" has a whole montage and stuff about "yeah, people have been using movie theaters Like That beyond the trope of couples in the back-row". so. do with that as ya will. i usually stay away from it, personally, but im aware it Exists and am surprised not more people are aware too)

(*×2: "what is a 'gag in the margins'? what do they have to do with Betty Boop??" gags in the margins dont have to be sexual, as far as i am aware. but Betty Boop's always were. its basically just "things audiences will rarely notice, if ever; so this is a joke only animators on the team know of that made the final cut". for Betty Boop, that was a lot of p@ñtÿ-$h0ts and ñïp-$lïps that existed for exactly 1 cell of animation. it's such a mainstay for Betty that there even is a ñïp-$lïp in her small appearance within Who Framed Roger Rabbit)

(*×3: "....wait: what 'debate' about her age?" her age can get p gross sometimes, i wont lie. she is often a minor pre-Hays Code where she then got aged into being of an acceptable age-to-be-a-mother since she often was depicted as "mother-coded" during when the Hays Code was active bc... they didnt know what else to do with her if her shenanigans could no longer be sexy?? i guess? (she wasn't actually a mother, she was an aunt babysitting her nephew named Junior. but unless the shorts outright told people "this is her nephew" then most audience members assumed that was her son) lmao i personally either pretend she isn't ever a minor or i just remind myself of all the ways she parallels she has to Aphrodite's age questions. (which is basically questioning "hey, how old would the Ancient Greeks consider an adult woman to be since Aphrodite emerged 'as an adult woman' from the seafoam?". bc Athena was 'fully formed' and is non-sexual when she came out of Zeus' head; but Aphrodite came out of the seafoam as 'an adult woman'?? weird word-choice". esp once you know that the Ancient Greeks treated women, even in their legal system, in a p fucked up way; they had messed up ideas of consent and minimum age, esp for boys; and lots of other things. so, for Aphrodite, the answer generally is that she either aged up to being 18+ years of age or was always 18+ years of age, as most Ancient Greco-Roman art of Aphrodite shows her assumedly in line with contemporary expectations of what "an adult woman" would be: which is over the age of 18 years old. but i just personally have a lot of sympathy for the possible-adultification that may have happened to an underage goddess of love who was seen as a sexual being immediately after her birth.) really, Betty is "whatever age you find acceptable sexually". (which is basically the answer for Aphrodite's "adult woman is what exact age" question.) like, most audience members in the 1930s had no idea what her age was, much less that she often was as young as 13-going-on-14 to as "old" as 16 pre-Hays code; not unless the said audience member came across specific marketing (which i dont think ever advertised her age, but im not a Betty Boop 1930s Posters/Advertisement Expert) or the short itself outright said her age. like, there was a comic that said she was 16 at one point(?) in a very "I am 16 and I will always be 16" Edward From Twilight way (here is a link to the exact panel). but on other stuff, like some of her 80s TV-Movies, she owns a NYC apartment and has a job, all with no roommates or familial financial help, which implies she's probably 18+ or even 21+ years of age (at least to me). and, again, during the years in which the Hays Code was active really made her go the "Madonna side of things in a Madonna/Wh0rə complex" when she was a "mother"/auntie-babysitting, even though by the 1980s Junior had been discarded for classic Betty's design with her red dress for new media and merch (btw here is Junior's wiki page if you want to see him and Betty's Hays-Code-re-designed-outfit). and she is nowadays considered anywhere between 18 and early 20s. so like... Betty's age has constantly been in flux, and there's been debates about it for good reason

(and yeah, some people have been creeps, for sUUURREEEE, but i personally always found "oh Betty is being sexualized basically against her will due to various accidents" relatable and i found her clumsiness with said ñïp-$lïps and p@ñtÿ-$h0ts to be "she's just being thoughtlessly clumsy and isnt aware of people being gross" on par with Hayao Miyazaki and Kiki in Kiki's Delivery Service. like. Miyazaki tried to make Kiki as childish and non-sexual as possible while still showing she was just a clumsy and thoughtless kid while ALSO getting to do the dynamic flying shots he wanted, but people are sometimes gross about seeing her bloomers/"shorts" under her dress' skirt in spite of Miyazaki's efforts. i see Betty Boop as similarly "she's not trying to be 'a temptation' wtf is wrong with you", esp since so many Americans like Betty (and people around the globe, of course) have experienced similar with sexual harassment or worse. so the same way as people re-write Medusa as being a pillar against sexual harassment and SA, thats kinda how i specifically and personally see Betty Boop; as a tribute(? for lack of a better term??) to that experience within America. so im a big Betty Boop fan who sees her as akin to an American Animation's Aphrodite of "we project her to be a sexual being but she herself isnt", kinda like Marilyn Monroe. so thats how i personally reconcile with "i am a fan of Betty Boop" and "people have been gross about Betty (esp with her age)". but thats just me. you dont have to follow me. if you see Betty Boop differently, that's fair. i just ask y'all keep to that yourself lmao im in no mood to discuss or debate how i see Betty Boop, and this is by no means an invite to tell me about your sexual harassment stories or otherwise. this is just me explaining how i see and understand her age, and how i specifically am able to grapple with this gross part of her history while also being a fan of her. cool? cool)

anyway, onto the image transcriptions!!

first the images that were not the ones i added:

[image of Betty Boop with dark skin as fan-art, stylized well to the artist's preferred way of drawing rather than how Betty Boop is typically drawn. she is looking to the right with her mouth slightly ajar. her dress and heels are a very dark red with crimson red shines. she is wearing bright gold. her hair is a dark brown. she has moles. the background is a pale solid yellow. she is sitting on her knees. she is blushing with hearts in her eyes and hearts by her head. this image was posted, with the caption "boop-boop-a-doop", by @beebeedibapbeediboop. end of text; end of this image's description specifically.]

in reply to this, along with their own text and caption about Esther Jones and bringing her into the conversation, the user @rikareena posted a screenshot of google on light-mode (meaning white background set witb black text)

[the image has several photos, allegedly of Esther Jones though ironically none are actually of Esther Jones as my response goes into depth about, along with famous images of Betty Boop. the image itself goes into two articles' snippets. the first article is from Black History dot com and is dated to be from 2018, though this post itself is from 2020. the title of this article says "The Real Betty Boop Was A Black Woman... Before She..." and goes on to show an excerpt saying "Before She Was Whitewashed! PBS has confirmed that Betty Boop, the popular cartoon character introduced to the world by cartoonist Max Fleischer in 1930, was actually inspired by a real-ife African American jazz singer and entertainer from Harlem named Esther Jones". the second article is dated as being from 15 March 2017. it is acredited to The Cut. the article is titled "The Forgotten Black Woman Behind Betty Boop" and its snippet within the screenshot reads "Few have heard about 'Baby' Esther, the black cabaret performer who served as inspiration for Betty..." end of text; end of this image's description specifically.]

and now, we are onto the images i posted of just my DM with a friend. [this DM series is set in a black message-board with my response in blue bubbles that have black text, all alligned to the right while any replies to me would be on the left. you can see at the very top of the series the cropped bottom of that Betty Boop fan-art with the pale yellow background i mentioned before. this DM series takes up three images, so the text would not be blurry; otherwise i would have done it as one entire image. the messages i wrote read as follow, though i will add the words [/bubble breaks] to convey when a new blue bubble from me has occurred:

EEYYYYYY THE ART IS SO GOOD!! BETTY, MY LOVE! [/bubble breaks]

i do have mixed feelings about the misinformation under said art (i love that Betty Boop has been claimed by the Black community, and that Esther Jones lives on in her. but also: no Betty Boop was not intentionally based on Esther Jones; and PBS actually had to publish a correction about spreading the misinformation that Betty Boop was based on her, as well as that "she was originally drawn with dark skin as you can see in this hula short" like nah, no, that hula short was a one-off that happened WAY AFTER Betty's debut, in her first appearance she was a very uncanny and weird looking dog-girl and she was originally drawn with light skin in both that dog-form and her human form. Esther Jones was only tied to Betty Boop after a court case against Helen Kane. Betty Boop was absolutely a caricature of Helen Kane, and Helen Kane wanted to sue the studio behind Betty Boop for doing that. like Helen Kane even had a catchphrase that was "boop-oop-a-doop". but Flesicher Studios didnt want her to win. nc then that meant no more Betty and theyd have a big debt to pay Kane. instead, they insisted Betty was based off of flapper girls in general and named a bunch of actresses who look similar to Helen Kane, such as Clara Bow and even Betty Boop's voice-actress who i forget the name of, and that Betty Boop was based on an algormation of women. but that wasnt enough for the courts. so they ended up digging up some dirt that Helen Kane had been in the audience of an Esther Jones show. and it was revealed that Helen Kane based her baby-voice act off of Esther Jones, and that Esther Jones had songs including skatting (bc that was a Black performer originated talent in jazz and whatnot, and Esther Jones was really good at it, so of course she did it a lot as a Black performer) and even had a song that included the line "boop-oop-a-doop" that wouldve been sung the night Helen Kane attended this Black child's show. also, none of those pictures are of Ether Jones, we have only one confirmed picture of Esther Jones and it is of her as a child. the adult Black woman is speculated to MAYBE also be her but older, but theres no confirmation of that. and the sepia image of someone looking exactly like Betty Boop is a cosplayer, one that is contemporary to us and DEFINITELY not Esther Jones. but anybody can "be" Betty Boop.

Betty Boop was Indigenous Hawaiian for a short, Betty Boop has been Jewish in many shorts. and she even has a new Broadway musical showing right now and that Broadway Original Casting has a Black woman as the Original Broadway Actress of Betty Boop (and maybe her off-Broadway actress was also a Black woman, i forget. but my theory is part of the reason why she is being played by a Black woman is the people who own the rights to Betty Boop are ABSOLUTELY AWARE of how much Black people love Betty Boop and want to honor that representation). and ive already told you before how her age has varied in many different cartoons. she is an extremely fluid character. she can absolutely be claimed by Black people, and she can absolutely be drawn with darker skin. but Fleischer Studios dug up that ticket to an Esther Jones show to shut down Helen Kane. like. dont give them credit for something they didnt do, they tried to make Helen Kane feel like she was crazy when they made it VERY OBVIOUS Betty Boop was based on her (tho i also dont think Helen Kane should have copied Esther Jones' act and taken one of her skat lines. but also: Esther Jones didnt really seem to care. she said no to attending the court as she was touring in, i think, France at the time and gave no statement overall. she was uninterested in the whole thing, both Helen Kane and Betty Boop, as far as anyone can tell from her silence as there's no records currently even after her tour and whatnot of her feelings about either woman). so. again, mixed feelings about the misinformation in this post bc "uhhhh, no, thats not actually right, dont give Fleischer Studios props for something they didnt intentionally do" and also "yes, lets talk about Esther Jones and give some attention [/bubble breaks]

to her since so much of her work has become lost media; let's acknowledge that Betty Boop absolutely has connections to Black people through her shorts featuring jazz which is a Black-originated music genre and how Fleischer Studios did Betty Boop shorts featuring Cab Calloway (a Black man) and his jazz band specifically, her iconic "boop-oop-a-doop" line being skat originating from a Black woman, how she has been portrayed by Black actresses, and how Black people can ABSOLUTELY claim a character they feel represents them as Black people have had to make their own representation themselves or look at the largely non-Black media landscape that has existed for for hundreds of years with a Black lens to find their representation where they could" [/bubble breaks]

but also the art is really pretty and i love Betty Boop with dark-skin, i think it makes her hair and red dress pop really well ♡♡♡ [/final bubble's end]

theraby, the end of text; and the end of this DM series of images' description specifically.]

the first image i posted was a screenshot from google on dark-mode (so dark background with white text). [the screenshot shows a couple frames of Betty Boop in her initial anthromorphic dog design. she is pale-skinned with floppy ears and a black dot for a dog-nose, long eyelashes and dark lipstick. she has a head of curly black hair still cropped close to her scalp. she is in a black short dress still, but with a big white bow on the back. she has on gray stockings with gray heels. her design is uncanny and vaguely creepy, but well-intentioned. in one of these two frames, she is on a stage and singing to an anthromorphic black dog-man of fairly tall height. the text is attributed to be from the Wikipedia article on Betty Boop. the text "August 9, 1930" is highlighted from the overall passage. the text reads as follows: "August 9, 1930. Origins. Betty Boop made her first appearance in the cartoon Dizzy Dishes, released on August 9, 1930, the seventh installment in Fleischer's Talkartoon series. Inspired by a popular performing style, but not by any one specific person, the character was originally created as an anthropomorphic French poodle." end of text; end of this image's description specifically.]

and now we are onto the images i posted in tandem with my post, correcting some misinformation that has been spread by PBS

the second image is another screenshot from google on dark-mode. [the image is mostly text with a couple of tiny pictures. the two tiny pictures are of a frame of Betty Boop and a photograph of Dave Fleischer. Betty Boop is peering out of a window and we see her from below as she smiles while looking side to side out her window; this frame is in black and white. Betty Boop's appearance is her usual human one; she is pale-skinned with a small nose and lipstick, she has a head of black curly hair that is cropped close to her scalp, she has dangly earing, she is wearing her usual short dress (with no bow on the back), and her big bracelets. we cannot see her lower half due to the nature of the window. the photograph of Dave Fleischer is a black and white photograph of the bust of a bald, white man in a light-colored suit. as for the text within the overall screenshot from google, there is a red circle edited to circle around the information reading "January 2, 1932" and red text edited to be next to it reading "this was the first short Betty appeared as a human". the rest of the text, not edited and from the original screenshot (excluding any buttons reading "Overview", "Cast", "Videos", and whatnot), reads as follow: "Any Rags? 1932. Short. 11 mins. Rating 6.6/10 IMDb. 'Any Rags?' is a 1932 Pre-Code Fleischer Studios Talkartoon animated short film starring Bimbo, and Betty Boop, with a brief appearance by Koko the Clown. It features the song "Any Rags?", a 1902 ragtime schottische by Thomas S. Allen" with a link to read more of the Wikipedia article on the short before continuing, "Initial release: January 2, 1932. Director: Dave Fleischer." end of text; end of this image's description specifically.]

the third image i posted was a collage. [it featured three of these screenshots from google, on dark-mode, and one side-by-side comparison image, ontop of a white blank image with some black text edited in. the black text edited on reads "i wasn't sure which hula short got people confused so i included all the ones i could think of. 'Bamboo Isle' is the earliest hula short there is btw"

the side-by-side image is one of the bottom two pictures within this collage and has edited black text specific to it. the side-by-side image has Betty Boop in her usual human design, but now her skin has been tanned and she is wearing a grass hula skirt with a flower "belt" for the waist, and is wearing flower necklace that covers her chest. she has a flower in her right ear. she has flowers as anklets. Betty Boop is dsncing on the sandy shore of a beach with the ocean behind her and palm-trees framing her in by the sides. on the left side of this side-by-side is group of Indigenous Hawaiians of tan skintones. there is a row of male musicians with drums as a woman dances in front of them, dressed identically to Betty (or rather: Betty is dressed identically to HER) albeit with long hair. she and Betty are in very similar poses, with their knees slightly bent, arms in front, as they dance in this Indigenous Hawaiian regalia. the edited text pertaining to this specific image says "also! they not only rotoscoped in 'Bamboo Isle' but they also included live-action footage of the dancers!! i love that!".

now, in the three images within this collage that are all screenshots from google on dark-mode, there is one piece of information each that is edited to have a red circle. i will bring up what this circled information is per screenshot as we get into them.

the first screenshot within this collage, placed on the top-left of the four overall images, has the information "September 23, 1932" circled in red. it shows several frames of Betty Boop hula-dancing in Indigenous Hawaii as well as an overall title-card. the text information of the screenshot reads as follows (minus the aforementioned "Overview", "Cast", etc buttons): "Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle. 1932. Comedy/Animation. 8 mins. 6.7/10 on IMDb. 3.2/5 on LetterBoxd. Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle is a 1932 Fleischer Studios Betty Boop animated short, directed by Dave Fleischer." followed by a link to show you more of the Wikipedia article. Then there is the aforementioned photo of Dave Fleischer again, with the words "Director: Dave Fleischer" attached, and next to it are "Initial Release: September 23, 1932". end of text.

the second screenshot within this collage, placed on the top-right of the four overall images, has the information "July 14, 1933" circled in red. it shows another frame of a tan Betty Boop dancing the hula in the same regalia, but she is on a stage now with a poster behind her including sword-swallowing within the graphic of the poster, and dancing next to her on stage is Popeye The Sailor. Popeye is a pale human male dressed in a sailors outfit of a dark buttoned shirt with its sleeves rolled up, a pipe in his mouth, a white billed cap on his head, long white pants, gray shoes, and his bulging forearms each having mirrored anchors tattooed on them. next to this frame is the title-card cut in half. the information within this overall screenshot reads as follows (minus the aforementioned buttons): "Popeye the Sailor. 1933. Comedy/Animation. Rating 7.6/10 on IMDb. Popeye the Sailor is a 1933 animated short produced by Fleischer Studios and distributed by Paramount Publix Corporation. While billed as a Betty Boop cartoon, it was produced as a vehicle for Popeye in his debut animated appearance." with a link to read more of the Wikipedia article. Then it shows the same Dave Fleischer picture as before, with the words "Director: Dave Fleischer" and next to it says "Initial Release: July 14, 1933". end of text.

the last screenshot within this collage, placed on the bottom-right of the image (next to the aforementioned side-by-side of Betty and the Indigenous Hawaiian dancers; and directly below the Popeye and Betty screenshot), has the information "1937" circled in red. it shows a very small picture of some anthropomorphic black animal dancing on a small stage. there is no other frames of the short shown. this screenshotted information from google reads the following text (minus the aforementioned buttons): "Zula Hula. 1937. Animation/Short. 6 mins. 5.7/10 on IMDb. Zula Hula is a 1937 Fleischer Studios animated short film starring Betty Boop, and featuring Grampy." then it shows a link to read more information about this short on the Wikipedia. it then reads "Initial Release: December 24, 1937" before showing the same small picture of Dave Fleischer with the text "Director: Dave Fleischer" next to it. end of text; end of this collagef image's description specifically.]

the fourth image i posted is a snippet from a newspaper. [the newspaper clipping shows a side-by-side featuring four women. three of these women are on one side, all posed so their heads are vertically "ontop of" one another like a row of buttons as they look pleasantly at the camera. these three women all have dark dresses on, with short cropped dark hair that is curled, red lipstick, and a hat on. none of these women are made to match one another and a have individual aspects of their outfits and a different hat, but they do look very similar. the woman on the right is smiling at the camera as she poses in the middle of touching up her make-up on a dark wooden desk. she looks very similar to the other three women in terms of face, hair, and make-up. however, she is in a light-colored suit with a darker shirt or bow-ascot underneath, has a large hat titled to the left side of her head, very dark colored gloves on, and her purse lays on the desk as she holds a compact mirror and some powder or blush she wants to re-apply. she smiles pleasantly at the camera. above this side-by-side, the newspaper reads "WHAT PRICE 'BOOP-A-DOOPING'?" in bolded, all-caps. underneath the side-by-side is the text: "(Associated Press Pacte) Helen Kane, who claims to be the original 'boop-boop-a-doop' girl, is shown at right in a New York court where she is prosccuting a $250,000 suit for damages against Max Fleischer, creator of Betty Boop, the Fleischer Studios and Paramount Publix Corporation. She charges that Betty Boop, the animated cartoon character, copled, her style of 'boop-ing'. Three baby 'boopers', whose voices were used in the cartoon, are shown at left. Top to bottom, they are Mae Questel, Mary Hines, and Bonnie Poe. They may testify in the case." end of text; end of this image's description specifically.]

the fifth image i posted was of a Wikipedia article on light-mode. [the Wikipedia Article shows an image of a black and white photo of a Black girl of a young age, with short cropped hair (that maybe has a black beret to the side? hard to tell), dressed in a dark polka-dot dress or fluttery short-jumpsuit outfit. she is on her knees and wagging a warning finger at a dark-furred dog with propped-up ears. as she holds his leash. the photo is labeled "Baby Esther" is bold letters above with unbolded letters below the image reading "Li'l Esther, 1930". above the image and this text altogether reads the following text from Wikipedia: "Esther Lee Jones (born c. 1918, date of death unknown), known by her stage names 'Baby Esther', 'Little Esther', and other similar variations, was an American singer and child entertainer of the late 1920s, known for interpreting popular songs with a 'mixture of seriousness and childish mischief'." with a footnote linked in the article to the quote, then the text continues, "After gaining attention in her hometown of Chicago, she became an international celebrity before leaving the public spotlight as a teenager." end of text; end of this image's description specifically.]

the sixth image i posted is also a screenshot from a Wikipedia article on light-mode. [within the screenshot is a black and white image of a Black woman with short, curled cropped hair, smiling, with her head resting in one hand, dressed in an early 19th century layered dress of lace and beading with a pearl/pearl-likenecklace, holding a small bouquet, as she sits comfortably on a dark chair in a gray photoshoot background with a couple of other chairs around. under the image reads the caption "Do Tell by James Van Der Zee, c. 1930. The image has often been mischaracterized as depicting Esther Jones". the heading of the overall image and section of the article, in big letters, reads "Misconceptions". underneath the image and its caption, the article reads: "Baby Esther shares her original name and original stage name with Little Esther Phillips, who was also known as Esther Mae Jones. Both singers used the names 'Little Esther' and 'Li'I Esther', but Esther Phillips was of a later generation, born in 1935." with a linked footnote before the article continues in another paragraph, "Photos of the model Olya Gussy costumed as Betty Boop, taken by Russian-based studio Retro Atelier in 2008, are regularly misidentified as Esther Jones" with more linked footnotes before the article continues in another paragraph, "An older photo often purported to show Jones went viral when it was distributed by the official Betty Boop Checks website." with a brief linked footnote before continuing in the same paragraph that "The image was actually a James Van Der Zee photo of an unidentified woman." with a final linked footnote. end of text; end of this image's description specifically.]

the seventh image i posted is of a screenshot of goggle on dark-mode showing a collection of images featuring a pale woman cosplaying as Betty Boop's usual human design with her short, curly black hair, gold jewelery, heart-shaped garter, heels, and red short dress. this woman is standing in front of a curtain for a photoshoot. some of these images are in color and others are not, usuing different cameras and whatnot, but they are all of the same woman at the same photoshoot. edited onto the image in red text reads: "this is the cosplayer, Olya Gussy". next to two not-colored images, in a semi-transparent red bubble with white text, edited ontop of the screenshot with a red arrow pointed at each image reads "these are 2 of Olya Gussy's black-&-white, sepia-y photos among the ones that get misattributed to Esther Jones btw". most of the text within the screenshot, unedited, is irrelevant. nonetheless, that text reads the following clipped headings: "Модель Оля | BETTY BOOP Wik..." from the Betty Boop Wiki; then, "Kasbah Salome -💞Hello frien..." from Facebook; then, "The Real Betty Boop! - @dewi..." from Tumblr; and "The Me I Saw - Singer and ent..." from "shewhoworshipscarli...". the main cluster of text of mild importance is placed above all of these headings and images. it says "Модель Оля | BETTY BOOP Wiki - Fandom" followed by "Oyla P.is a very-well known model from Russia who is best known for her 2008 cosplay photos as Betty Boop by Retro Atelier. She has been modeling since she..." end of text; end of this image's description specifically.]

the eigth image i posted is an excerpt of a Wikipedia article in light-mode. [the screenshot is only text and includes no images. the big heading reads "Admission of mistake" followed by the article itself reading: In 2021, a 2015 article by PBS, which had been used as 'confirmation' of the 'Baby Esther was the original Betty Boop' story by many people, was removed from the PBS website. PBS retracted the story, admitted that the 'Baby Esther' portion of the article was never true, and apologized for spreading misinformation" with a linked footnote. end of text; end of this image's description specifically.]

the ninth image i posted is an excerpt of a Wikipedia article in light-mode as well. [the screenshot shows a closed heading in big letters reading "Kane v. Fleischer" followed by an opened heading reading "Legacy". within that opened heading reads the following text: "Baby Esther is most associated today with her connection with the Kane v. Fleischer lawsuit." with a few linked footnotes before continuing. "Jones' film has been credited with convincing the judge in the case that Helen Kane had copied Baby Esther." with a linked footnote before continuing, "Film scholar Mark Langer disputes this interpretation, which he says has become 'conventional wisdom'." with a linked footnote before continuing in another paragraph, "No confirmed recordings of Jones are known to exist." with a final linked footnote. end of text; end of this image's description specifically.]

the tenth, and final, image i posted is a screenshot from google on dark-mode. [the screenshot is a compilation of promotional material. all for the musical "Boop!" about Betty Boop which had stared Jasmine Amy Rogers and thereby includes her in all the promotional material dressed up in-costume as Betty Boop. Jasmine Amy Rogers is a Black woman; and her costume is in a short, curly, black wig, gold jewelery, a red dress and red heels, red lipstick, with a red garter belt. one item of promotional material includes a classically drawn Betty Boop black and white blowing a kiss to the viewer, with the title "BOOP!" helping hide the transition from this 2D bust into Jasmine Amy Rogers' legs. there's another piece of promotional material that shows Jasmine Amy Rogers in costume with a silhouette of 2D Betty Boop as her shadow against a gray-white pale background and a very small sign in black with white text reading "Stage Door" with an arrow to the right (as in "the stage door is to the right") on the right side of the shadow. another piece of promotional material shows a line-up of Jasmine Amy Rogers doing various Betty Boop-like expressions and poses with a gray-white background. another is a bust of Jasmine Amy Rogers to show a close-up of her face as she poses with her hands under her chin. and the last piece of promotional material is a distant shot of a small cropped Jasmine Amy Rogers set to a black background full of twinkling lights and a big set-piece in the air reading "BOOP!" in red and white letters with lights of its own. the headings of this compilation are of no importance, but they are the following: "BOOP! The Betty Boop Musical..." from the New York Theater Guide" is a headline twice; then, "With Broadway Hopes, New Bet..." from WTTW News; then, "Broadway-Bound Betty Boop..." from Deadline; and, finally, "BOOP! The Betty Boop Musical..." from Playbill. end of text; end of this image's description specifically.]

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boop-boop-a-doop