Sanrio, the company that owns Hello Kitty, has built its foundation on social communication, encouraging people to express respect and love for one another. In recent years, the company has taken a public stance on social issues, including the Black Lives Matter movement.
Sanrio has been posting images across many of their social media channels including Hello Kitty, Gudetama and Aggretsuko acknowledging and supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.
Their message is clear:
We stand for friendship, kindness and inclusivity.⠀⠀Sanrio was built on the foundation of social communication for people to express their heartfelt feelings of respect and love for one another.⠀⠀We stand united with our colleagues, partners, customers, fan community and all affected by acts of discrimination.
However, the company's history with representation, particularly regarding African American characters, is more complex. This article delves into the controversial past of Sanrio characters Sambo and Hannah, and examines the broader context of cultural sensitivity in the company's work.
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HELLO KITTY RACIST4? A CRIAÇÃO MAIS POLÊMICA DA SANRIO (SAMBO E HANNA)
The Controversy of Sambo and Hannah
Sambo and Hannah are a pair of Sanrio characters who are a human boy and girl created by Yuko Yamaguchi. They debuted alongside Bibinba in issue No.216 of Strawberry News in January 1986, where chocolates in the shape of Sambo and Hannah's faces were sold as Valentine's Day products of that year.
Their designs were originally based on the children's book The Story of Little Black Sambo, which is beloved in Japan and is not widely considered controversial there. Sambo and Hannah quickly grew in popularity, which resulted in more merchandise being made and the characters making regular appearances in the Strawberry News.
Here's a look at the characters:
- Sambo: The younger brother of Hannah who is a bit timid but kind hearted boy.
- Hannah: The older sister of Sambo who loves him dearly and tends to be a bit of a tomboy.
- Sambo and Hannah's Mother: A woman with a very upbeat and jolly personality but she can be pretty strict sometimes, especially with Hannah who can be quite a tomboy! She makes the best curry, mostly because it's the only thing she can cook while her husband is the better chef in the house. Her hobby is doing laundry; she loves to scrub the clothes clean with all her might and hang them under the sun to dry.
Other characters included:
- Bimbo: The tough and energetic island rascal who also loves exploring new places!
- Madonna: Bimbo's sister who is a very fashionable girl who loves to go shopping in the city.
- Kowanie: Bimbo's pet who is loved by everyone. He has a habit of biting things!
The packaging for the chocolates featured early design differences such as Sambo's pants being white and Hannah's dress having a white collar on it.
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In July 1988, Sambo and Hannah merchandise received international outrage when The Washington Post carried a story describing the popularity in Japan of black caricatures based on Little Black Sambo and mentioning Sambo & Hannah and Bibinba in the article.
At first, Sanrio attempted to defend the line, with Spokesman Kenichiro Ide saying that Sambo and Hannah merchandise was popular with children much like Bibinba and they "enjoy it with good will. They will not grow up to become racists."
A Sanrio representative in an interview with the American press stated, “Everyone thought [the Sambo goods] were cute. We didn’t think they were discriminatory”.
Ron Wakabayashi, then the national director of the Japanese American Citizens League, began getting furious calls from black citizens, including one caller threatening to circulate racist Japanese caricatures as retaliation. After so many threatening calls, Wakabayashi called Sanrio to tell them what was happening.
From there, an unusual collaboration began between a Japanese corporation and Japanese-American civil rights leaders to help Sanrio launch a widely heralded program of corporate damage control.
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A Children's Day festival took place that fall at Loyola Marymount University in California to share Japanese culture with black children while also tackling the problem of cultural ignorance through activities with the black community.
Sanrio maintained that it was unaware of Sambo and Hannah’s racist implications by publishing a six-part series in the Strawberry News to teach Japanese youth about America’s ethnic diversity.
Sanrio has continued to show regret towards Sambo and Hannah, Bibinba, and Boonchuka by no longer acknowledging them in any treasury books showcasing it's past characters and history, and plans for the aforementioned OVA were scrapped.
An example of Sambo and Hannah's exclusion in current Sanrio media is the magazine cover included in the gallery not being listed among other Strawberry News magazines in at least two collection books centered on the 1980s.
Given the similarities of both Alfalfas, it can be assumed both reptiles are actually the same character but so far no explanation has been put out in Strawberry News or any other source.
This is understandable because the latter would mean acknowledging a controversial character Sanrio never wants to bring up ever again.
Cultural Appropriation and Misrepresentation
The controversy surrounding Sambo and Hannah highlights the issue of cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation is, by definition, the pick-and-choose mindset of one culture when it comes to the perception of another, different culture.
Cultural appropriation is not directly tied to overt racism, it is still unacceptable.
In 2014, Avril Lavigne released a song called "Hello Kitty." The song and music video were criticized for cultural appropriation.
There is no need to try to find common ground with a Japanese audience via the perversion of a beloved cartoon character. The Japanese and, conversely, the Canadians, are not so exotic and wildly different from each other that one is not relatable to the other.
Her choice of subject for a song does much to illuminate which portions of Japanese culture she has chosen to fit her perception of ‘Japan’. While she wrote this song to target the Japanese market, she certainly did not write or perform it for her fans. She wrote it for herself-to boost her image and perform it for a culture she clearly neither respects nor understands.
While she filmed it in that place called Japan, that does not make her cultural appropriation any less real.
What if she filmed a video in China in which she called her Chinese fans ‘my best chinks’, or in Korea and called them ‘my favorite gooks’? Would we excuse her for her racism? No.
