Golliwog Analysis

In the following essay, I will be conducting a research project, by examining golliwogs from the children literature – Noddy by British children’s author Enid Blyton. Published between 1949 and 1963 as children’s literature, and aired as a television show in 1955 for decades. I will be analysing the physical attributes of the golliwogs depicted in Noddy, in relations to other discourses of representation of humans, such as minstrel blackface performance from the 1840s in America and Europe. By discussing the history of the construction of difference, which was entrenched in both texts and imagery, through depictions of invented monsters. I will argue how the “monsters” were significant to introduce negative stereotypes, which unpins the characterisation
‘Golliwog’ was a term used to define Black dolls that represented Black people in the 19th century, adhering to the stereotype that "they all look the same" (Matthew Ellwood 2016). This visual stereotype for Black people is particularly demeaning, similar to old renditions of Othello (Matthew Ellwood 2016). Matthew Ellwood (2016) explains that racial associations and identifiers are ingrained at a young age and a golliwog doll, generally meant for white adolescents, would inform what children can assimilate about race. Nkosinathi Mhlongo (2016) affirms that introducing children to golliwogs was indoctrination, because “if you expose someone or a group of people to a certain set of ideas from a very early age, they grow up to believe
I analysed the physical attributes of the golliwogs, in relations to other discourses of representation of humans, such as minstrelsy. By discussing the history of the construction of difference in relation to the discourse of Otherness. I measured the narratives against the historical context of when Noddy was written, acknowledging that golliwogs are out of sync with people’s tolerances today. In order to deconstruct colonial narratives which still inform our lives and the filtering’s of one’s psyche, I interrogated the racial influence of golliwogs as they migrate to other contexts across the globe. By interviewing two black females, one black male, and two white males. I concluded from my research, that golliwogs are an inherently problematic notion and there is no possible positive intervention in a redesigning of the caricature. Golliwogs do not represent people of colour, because no “black” person looks like that. Blackness and whiteness are social constructs and golliwogs are a (mis) appropriation of “blackness”. I believe that there should be constant interventions for a revising of literature to overcome the disadvantages of colonial discourses, through a continuous critique of previous archives and representations. To attain objective depictions, we ought to understand the history of exploitation of women by men, and exploitation of people by race and consciously refuse a