1
While films featuring biological bodies can be marketed for either children or
adults, American animation was presented as a wholesome family friendly medium
specifically for family units. The category of family friendly was not an accidental
creation but a purposeful decision involving extra-textual techniques such as marketing,
classification, rating, merchandising and broadcasting strategies (Brown 2012). The Walt
Disney Company played a pivotal role in positioning American animation as a medium
for children tasked with preserving ‘childhood innocence’ of the white middle class
(Ratelle 2018). The primary way animation embodied this notion of family friendly was
through the absence of explicit material displaying acts resulting in the excretion of
bodily fluids such as sex and violence accompanied by blood (Brown 2012). That is not
to say violence is completely absent from cartoons; rather, these animated bodies do not
experience any permanent or harmful consequences because of the violent acts they
endure. Instead of their bodies breaking, animated bodies contort and stretch while
remaining playful. The playful tone is marked by the cheerful music, laughter of the
characters and the lack of blood and death. American animation is packaged as family
friendly yet these animated characters carry problematic iconography, such as white
gloves, aligning cartoons to minstrel bodies; however, cartoons are not just similar to
minstrels, cartoons are minstrels (Sammond 2015). Under this mask of playfulness,
animation has sinister and hidden origins. Yet because of the family friendly façade of
these bodies, this lineage between minstrels and American animation is an
unacknowledged and unseen heritage.
Despite the invisibility of animation’s problematic origins, resistive modes of
looking exist within cinema for Black spectators. bell hooks examines the power of
2
looking in relationship to Blackness by tracing the power of looking back to slavery when
white slave owners punished slaves for looking (hooks 1996). Cinema offered Black
spectators the first chance to look with intention, resisting the systematic regulation and
lack of Black representation through the ‘oppositional black gaze’ (hooks 1996). This
gaze reclaims the original trauma inflicted on Black slaves by using cinema as a way for
spectators to look back at oneself and at one another (hooks 1996). Despite the existence
and use of the ‘oppositional gaze’, American spectators are still learning how to look, to
stare, at the legacy and replications of minstrelsy within American popular culture. The
Black body, specifically its cinematic mutations, must be seen because the Black body
has been problematically modified by cinema allowing these bodies to remain
unquestioned within past and contemporary entertainment. The current types of looking
do not yet allow or permit a gaze that highlights the historical and continued dangerous
contortion of the Black body originating in slavery and continued in popular media.
The Black body is an object which has constantly been bent by the entertainment
industry. The Black body began as a body with subjectivity and regulation; however,
slavery removed the Black body from its subjectivity and replaced it with forceful and
explicit regulation. The most overt example of the bending of the Black body is blackface
minstrelsy. Minstrelsy can be defined as the white reimagining and projecting of the
Black body onto white bodies. As America’s first form of popular entertainment (Cole
2013), minstrelsy is a particularly dangerous form of performance. Minstrelsy fed off of
the nostalgic longing for the “amusing” and “natural” days of slavery and used this
sentimentality to structure blackface performances. With each “amusing” iteration of the
Black body through minstrelsy, film, and then animation, the Black body has transformed
3
from a body into a comedic performative object simultaneously resisting and enacting
labor. By comedic performative object, I am referring to the objectification of the Black
body as a source of entertainment reducing it to flesh, an object without subjectivity,
disembodied from the body yet of the body. This use of the Black body as object was
normalized and popularized through minstrelsy. Despite its explicit and overt
misrepresentation of Blackness, minstrelsy has continued to be successful by obscuring
the spectators’ ability and willingness to see the contorting of Black body justifying this
performance as amusing and playful. In order to see the continuation of minstrelsy in
contemporary popular culture, an active looking equipped with knowledge about the
historical regulation of the Black body is required; however, this type of looking must
directly involve the participation of the spectator. While the historical significance and
continuation of minstrelsy has been examined by previous scholars such as Eric Lott and
Nicholas Sammond, I will be presenting the history of minstrelsy in a new way by
locating this history within the space of play within videogames.
Unlike Hollywood cinema’s directed looking, video games involve a mode of
looking requiring an active participation of the user (the player and the spectator). The
gaze in video games is still limited and constructed; however, the player is given the
ability to move the camera, the eye, within the virtual world unlike cinema. The video
game camera traditionally occupies two positions: First-Person Shooter (FPS), which
aligns with the player with playable character’s point of view, and Third-Person Shooter
(TPS), which aligns the player with the “Other” traditionally associated with cinema. In
video games, the movement and mobility afforded to the user by the ‘CG-Eye’ aligns the
camera/mechanical eye and the biological eye of the player (Brooker 2009). The video
4
game camera’s dependence on the player for movement creates a type of gaze associated
with the resistive power of hooks’ “oppositional gaze.” While scholarship on resistive
modes of looking in cinema have been examined and established, there is a distinct lack
of analysis on how the gaze manifests in video games. Due to this lack, I have created a
new term to identify the resistive gaze used in some video games: the gameic gaze. I
define the gameic gaze as an act of looking facilitated by the coded camera allowing the
player to move and look without the same restraints as cinema; however, the gaze is also
a liminal one because it is simultaneously of the body (the player) and of the machine
(the computer). The liminality and player based machine constructed looking gives the
gameic gaze a potent resistive potential to pressure the hegemonic presentation of
Blackness in entertainment.
In the video game Bendy and the Ink Machine (2017), hereafter referred to as
BATIM, the resistive potential of the gameic gaze is established and employed through
the sensory based inversion of the nostalgic diegetic cartoon characters into horrific
monsters. BATIM is a first person horror video game populated with cartoon characters.
The game is about Henry, a retired animator at Joey Drew Studios, the only playable
character, who is mysteriously summoned back to the studio by his friend and previous
employer Joey Drew. Aside from gender, details such as race, age, and other personal
identification are completely unknown. Even though the player never sees any part of the
Henry, the player must still help Henry (and the player) escape the decaying Studio
within the space of five episodic chapters: Moving Pictures, The Old Song, Rise and Fall,
Colossal Wonders, and The Last Reel. Each chapter highlights a space, physical or
economic or psychic, where the Black body has been further distanced from itself.
5
However, all these spaces located in the studio are unified through a specific visual style.
BATIM has a black and sepia color scheme creating a ‘vintage cartoon’ aesthetic
emphasizing the fundamental animated form of all video games (Pallant 2018). Due to
‘vintage cartoon’ aesthetic, the gameic gaze of BATIM is explicitly located within the
animated space, a liminal space that mimics its historicity. The liminal space of the gaze
is further compounded by the inherent liminality of looking within a video game. As the
player stares, the player looks through the eyes of Henry while simultaneously being both
separate from Henry and aligned with Henry.
While the primary objective of BATIM seems to be for Henry to escape the Studio
and survive, the game is actually about learning to see the sinister and hidden history of
beloved animated figures such as Mickey Mouse. The concept of sight and the ability of
the player/ Henry to see is directly built into the narrative as exemplified by the look-
glass contraption – a device Henry acquires in the fifth and final chapter of BATIM. With
this device, Henry is able to see previously invisible messages on the Studio walls.
Henry/player must seek out and make the invisible visible in order to escape; however,
this sight facilitated by the looking-glass is not a singular sight rather it must be repeated.
In order for the player to locate all the hidden messages, the player must repeat the game
after completing BATIM once. It is only through repeated play that all the secret
messages can be read. Repetition is essential to the resistive sight; however, the looking –
glass device is only one way the hidden becomes visible.
6
Figure 1: The looking glass contraption
The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the history of minstrelsy specifically
its relationship to the voice and the body, both biological and animated, are revealed and
resisted through the experience of play in BATIM. BATIM disrupts the problematic
portrayal of Black bodies by directing attention to the horror associated with cartoon
characters. In order to explore how BATIM transforms the minstrel iconography from
nostalgic into horrific, this thesis will be divided into four sections: bending, ink, the
body, and the voice. While scholars have examined the history of minstrelsy and its
continuation in cinema, an explicit examination of blackface minstrelsy and video games
not yet been explored; therefore, I created the term ‘bending’ in order to provide a
framework encompassing the intersection between animation, minstrelsy and video
games. Using my new term and framework ‘bending’, I will demonstrate the visual and
auditory fracturing/disembodiment of the Black body continued by entertainment and
how BATIM engages with this disembodiment. Just as minstrel performances distanced
the Black body from itself through parading the white body as Black (Jones 2013), the
animated body becomes distanced from itself: a fearful and violent process actualized
7
through bending in BATIM. BATIM embodies the intersection between the problematic
legacy of minstrelsy, the body as a regulated/governed form and a liminal object (mode
of being) caught between entertainment and culture, and the voice as sound, verbal
language (verbal expression) and identity. In order to use the resistive potential of a
specific type of looking in video games, the gameic gaze, BATIM actualizes ‘bendiness.’
Establishing the Lineage and Modes of Bending
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), ‘bend’ involves the
alignment of objects between other objects or part-objects. ‘Bend’ is derived from an Old
English term bendan which is thought to be related to the Old Norse term benda meaning
“to join, strain, strive, bend” (OED 2019). The term ‘bend’ relies on movement/contorted
object. Additionally, bending is a bodily act involving directing the gaze specifically an
“inclination of the eye in any direction, glance” (OED 2019) as well as a turning of the
mind. Bend is a directional and relational term involving outside force exerted onto an
object such as a body. Therefore, bending is a movement and an object oriented term
encompassing the primary concern of animation: the body.
Bending in BATIM is an act/action and a displayed process. The mechanical
understanding of bend is directly connected to Black bodies. According to the OED, bend
refers to a mechanical apparatus of a cotton-spinning machinery specifically the “curved
surface which sustains the chain of flats” (OED 2019) that separated cotton fibers. The
cotton-spinning machine was created during the Industrial Revolution known colloquially
as a ‘Spinning Jenny.’ The cotton industry in the United States was an industry powered
by slaves. The Spinning Jenny did not diminish the use of slaves as labor objects; rather,
the slaves’ labor was reoriented to the machine. Black bodies became an extension of
these cotton machines by fueling the machines through the act of bending their bodies in
8
order to pick the cotton (Lakwete 2003). Therefore, ‘bend’ has a hidden reference to
slavery and the oppressed regulation of the Black bodies.
Bending has been an explicit part of animation since its conception. Bending as an
act and displayed process requiring a doubleness of the body and of form. Animation
depends on repeated production of actual bodies; however, repetition is also a part of the
doubleness of animation. The ‘double sense’ of animation directly involves plasticity of
animated bodies, visual ambiguity, and double meanings (Hernandez 2008). Sight gags
and visual puns are a primary part of creating the doubleness since there are two
meanings hidden within a single act. The duality of animation also manifests as the
repeated but slightly varied images of bodies used to create two dimensional movement
on the screen. The regulatory qualities associated with the body become amplified
through bending. In addition to exasperating the ‘double sense’ of animation, bending is
also a mode of governmentality.
Michel Foucault defines governmentality in terms of its historical structuring and
relation to the body. Foucault claims governing people (specifically children) through
pedagogy originated in the sixteenth century (Foucault 2000). Since the body is an
extension of the soul for Foucault, the disciplining of the body regulates the subject (the
sense of self); one involving regulation/governing the body of the self as well as the
bodies of others with the goal of being the best possible regulator/governor (Foucault
2000). Foucault identifies “three fundamental types of government...the art of self-
government, connected with morality; the art of properly governing a family, which
belongs to economy; and, finally, the science of ruling the state, which concerns politics”
(Foucault 206). From these three modes of governmentality, governmentality can be
9
identified as an internal process (morality) as well as privately (the family) and publicly
(politics) practiced. Foucault states “to govern, then, means to govern things” (Foucault
210) suggesting people and their bodies are reduced into things (objects) through
governing. Governmentality removes the subjectivity of the body; however, the removal
of subjectivity of the subject (the primary symptom) is to produce convenience. Foucault
acknowledges the convenience factor in his definition of government “as a right manner
of disposing things so as to lead...to an end that is ‘convenient’ for each of the things that
are to be governed” (Foucault 211). Within governmentality, convenience means a
“proper” alignment with hegemony. Convenience is conformity. To govern means to
regulate the body; therefore, the object of regulation is the body.
In addition to the body being the object of regulation, the body is also a product of
culture. In Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body, Susan Bordo
defines the body in relationship to culture by borrowing Foucault’s term ‘docile bodies.’
In the original use of the term, Foucault examines how the soldier’s body is made docile
through discipline manifesting in attire/costumes, bodily gestures and diction. A body is
made docile/malleable through discipline, the ‘docile-utility.’ Bordo uses Foucault’s
‘docile body’ and applies it to the daily rituals of women such as dressing and eating.
Bordo identifies the female (feminine) body as a ‘docile body’ because these are “bodies
whose forces and energies are habituated to external regulation, subjection,
transformation, ‘improvement’” (Bordo 2241). These live ‘docile bodies’ are regulated
primarily through repeated images. Similarly to how the female body is made ‘docile’
through internalization of external images in order to ‘improve’ said body, the Black
body is made ‘docile’ through repeated problematic images of Blackness as lazy and
10
infantile perpetuated by the entertainment industry.
While minstrelsy and its use of blackface has been thought of as a performance
of the past, minstrelsy is still a very present part of contemporary popular culture largely
because of the purposefully unseen markers of minstrelsy these forms of entertainment
still carry (Sammond 2015). Minstrelsy originated as an imitation of slave performances
in New York markets (Kootin 2013). Since slavery legitimized the regulation of the
Black body for labor, minstrelsy legitimized the regulation of the Black body as an
entertainment object. Minstrelsy is an explicit bodily borrowing of imagined black
culture for white consumption which problematically confirms slavery as natural, right,
and entertaining (Lott 1993). Without the Black body, minstrelsy would not exist. One of
the most prominent features of minstrelsy is the use of the burnt cork mask. In order to
create the burnt cork mask, burnt and mashed champagne corks are mixed with water or a
petroleum jelly substance and placed on the white face as makeup (Mahar 1999): a
process known as “blacking up.” The burnt cork makeup explicitly exemplifies how
Black bodies were remapped onto white bodies by marking of white bodies with
blackface. “Blacking up” the white body worked as a ritual demonstrating the hegemonic
governing of the body. Through this marking, the performers become objects of
regulation and the burnt cork is a mask (and as makeup) signaling this regulation. In
addition to having a distinct deep black color, the burnt cork make up also had a greasy
and sticky texture due to the layer of grease (or cream) worn under the makeup (Post
2015). This ‘blacking up’ process depends on the textual stickiness of the burnt cork
make up.
By the term ‘sticky,’ I am referring to Sara Ahmed’s concept of ‘stickiness.’ In
11
Ahmed’s exploration of how happiness relates to biological bodies, she states “affect is
what sticks, or what sustains or preserves the connection between ideas, values, and
objects” (Ahmed 29). According to Ahmed, “happiness can generate objects through
proximity [through the] ‘hap’ of happiness” (Ahmed 36). While etymologically ‘hap’ is
connected to chance, the ‘hap’ of happiness involves a cultivated intentionality protected
and practiced by individuals. ‘Hap’ is also about the distance (proximity) to happiness.
The ‘hap’ of happiness suggests a cultivation, a curating of the object alongside the body.
Ahmed’s concept of stickiness arose from this idea of ‘hap’ because stickiness refers to
the actual process of transference from body to body via affective objects. Affect is sticky
because of the bodily alignment and transmission but without suggesting a causation, or
an origin, of this movement. Stickiness involves a promise of a certain bodily alignment
to an object (Ahmed 2010). While it seems this concept of “sticking” is aligned with a
protective, sustaining, and preserving process, there is a darker side to stickiness.
Stickiness preserves and connects while simultaneously contaminating bodies; therefore,
stickiness is an invasive and invisible process saturating bodies.
Just like happiness, minstrelsy is sticky. The stickiness of minstrelsy is derived
from its prevalence facilitated by a nostalgic justification; however, minstrelsy does not
just persist in popular culture, it goes through undetected. The invisibility of minstrelsy is
derived from this performance’s connection to nostalgia. In addition to cloaking
contemporary minstrelsy in popular culture, minstrelsy’s stickiness is symptomatic of the
nostalgia embedded within the performance itself. While nostalgia is traditionally thought
of as a longing for the past, the postmodern understanding of nostalgia is as a political
motivation reflecting the current state of society (Jameson 1969). Nostalgia is a longing
12
for a false past and this longing reflects how contemporary society views itself. The
fallacy of minstrelsy (the false displayed Black bodies) aligns with the problematic
sentimentality of nostalgia through the repeated bending of the Black body.The practice
of minstrelsy in the eighteenth and nineteenth century was already a practice of nostalgia
because this performance involves an auditory and visual longing for the slavery days: a
longing augmented when minstrel performances became a part of the film industry. The
nostalgia embedded within animated bodies of ‘cartoon minstrels’ is one transmitted via
the visuals and sounds used in cartoons.
Minstrelsy created a largely invisible division between actual living Black bodies
and those displayed on screen. The division between the actual and the displayed Black
body can be aligned to the division between the True and False Self identified by D.W.
Winnicott. The True and False Self are psychoanalytic terms describing the unconscious
internal division of the Self. The False Self, the projected and displayed self, has a
defensive function “to hide and protect the True Self, whatever that might be” (Winnicott
142). The False Self always exists as does the True Self; however, the relationship
between these two terms is crucial to understanding how personalities form and function.
While Winnicott is primarily interested in the development of the Self (particularly the
role of the mother in this development), the defensive nature of the False Self and the
hidden nature of the True Self mirrors the fracturing of the Black body by the
entertainment industry. The Black body is the actual biological body while the displayed
Black body is constructed by entertainment is a false projection. Minstrelsy fractured the
Black body into consumable parts while simultaneously presenting a representation of
Blackness as true; therefore, the division between the False Self and the True Self
13
becomes an externalized performance. Minstrelsy buries the True Self (the Black self)
and only legitimizes the False Self (the caricature, the coon, and the trickster); therefore,
minstrelsy parades the False Self as the True Self.
The regulation of the body particularly the Black body was intensified through the
advent of the Production Code. The Production Code (1930), derived from the Don’t and
Be Carefuls (1926), was created by the film industry in an attempt to avoid state and
national censorship as well as public outcry. The Production Code determined what
cinematic content qualified as appropriate for different types of audience; however, the
Code was particularly invested in regulating films for children and families. Since the
Code was connected to the Legion of Decency, a Catholic organization formed in 1934
(Vaughn 64), family friendly content meant conveying a Catholic moral narrative. As a
Catholic organization, the Legion of Decency swore to “boycott offensive films”
(Vaughn 64) and in turn defined the qualifications of the offensive film. The Legion of
Decency worked together with Joseph Breen, the head of the Production Code
Administration (PCA) to define family friendly as well as qualities of offensive cinema.
The primary objective of the Code became to maintain childhood innocence by regulating
cinematic images.
The family-friendly bending of the Black body allowed for the continued
regulation and repression of the Black body. The lack of concern for how the Black body
was presented, as long as the body was secondary to the white protagonist, highlights the
expected and accepted use of Blackness. For example, when Hedda Hopper leaked a
rumor about an alleged less than favorable performance of Stephen Foster in the Fox film
Swanee River (Sidney Lanfield 1939) a flood of public outcry followed. These letters to
14
the PCA begged for the preservation of Foster, a minstrel music composer, as a historical
figure respected by children. One letter from a protestor named Nancy Campbell stated “I
protest the release of the picture ‘Swanee’ in which [the] script calls for him [Foster] to
be inebriated in nearly every scene. This emphasis will smear his name in the eyes of
American children” (Nancy Campbell to John Hayes, 3 October 1939). Campbell
positions the fear of smearing Foster’s name (she means the nostalgia associated with
Foster) as the absolute “crime” against the American children. While the other letters in
this PCA file share a similar sentiment, none of the letters contained outcry for the use of
blackface in the film. These letters demonstrate the power of the family friendly facade
and the acceptance of blackface as a legitimate and unquestioned part of the
entertainment industry. Additionally, these letters demonstrated how innocence and
family friendly become problematically conflated through cinema. The conflation of
between innocence and family friendly are particularly evident in early American
animation.
While the façade of family friendly has broken down in recent years with
unapologetic animated television shows aimed at adults such as Rick and Morty (Roiland
and Harmon 2013) and Bojack Horseman (Bob-Waksberg 2014), the early American
animation industry, especially Disney animation, positioned the animated space as a
place and creator of dreams. The primary way American (children’s) animation used
dreams both as space and ideology was to cultivate and maintain the qualities of
childhood innocence. In order for animation to remain innocent, it must align with the
hegemonic constructions of childhood as an idealized state of being divorced from
reality, a dream like state of development. The didactic function of animation established
15
by Disney films supports “an ideologically conservative worldview based
unquestioningly on a narrow, hegemonic interpretation of middle [white] American
values” (Whitley 76). American animation’s capitalistic power is derived from its
fetishization and cultivation of childhood innocence: a mode of being reserved for
childhood unappreciated by children and longed for by adults (Whitley 2013). The use of
innocence in family friendly animation depends on the limited understand of “childhood
innocence as simply a symptom of adult nostalgia” (Whitley 77) because this
understanding of innocence does not allow for the transformative power of these
narratives to be realized. Rather, the ideology of dreams, the space of dreams, becomes
synonymous with childhood innocence.
In American culture, the term ‘dream’ has a decidedly capitalistic history and
implication especially when it is considered alongside the American Dream, the ideology
of Americans; however, this dream is one intertwined with the Black body as a labor and
an entertainment object. In Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul
of the Nation, Jennifer Hochschild defines the American Dream as “a new world where
anything can happen and good things might” (Hochschild 17). The American Dream has
specific tenets of success and regulations regarding who may achieve said success
(Hochschild 1995). The American Dream only acknowledges the dominant white
population as dreamers. Animation repeats this understanding of dreaming as limited
with tenets and practices this ideology within the enclosed animated space. Dreaming is a
space, an act and a capitalistic qualifier of success. Just as the American Dream (material
wealth and status) is mythos of America, dreaming (childhood innocence) is the mythos
of children’s animation. The magic of animation, the dream of animation, is that “any
16
object in an animated world has the potential to come to life, and any living thing or even
one of its body parts may be reduced to an object” (Sammond 234). Magic and dreaming
of animation is simultaneous possibility of subjectivity and commodification of the
cartoons. The ideology of cartoon (dreaming) is the ideology of capitalism (the American
Dream). The American animation industry as an extension of capitalism is demonstrated
by the extra-textual objects, the commodities, created beyond the actual animation. For
example, the cartoon characters are sold as toys, the setting of animation become theme
parks, and the animated films become animation television shows. Animation is a cycle
of production both outside and within the diegetic world of the animated space. The
inclusion and repeated use of the problematic ‘Black Voice’ in cinema exemplifies how
the animated space is an internal site of production and commodification.
Miriam J. Petty defines the ‘Black Voice’ when discussing Lincoln Perry’s
problematic stardom as Stepin Fetchit in the 1930s. Perry/Fetchit’s voice was how he
entered Hollywood; however, his voice also limited the roles he and other Black actors
played to the uneducated, unintelligible trickster and other “amusing” caricatures. The
‘Black Voice’ is a voice with oppressive origins limiting Black actors to stereotypical and
problematic roles (Petty 2016). The drawl of his voice and nonsense words he produced
mirrored his slumped and lazy postures reinforcing the images of Blackness perpetuated
by minstrelsy. Perry/Fetchit’s ‘Black Voice’ also extended into cartoons such as Disney’s
Broken Toys (1935) and through this connection the ‘Black Voice’ became an explicit
part of the ‘aural imagery’ of Disney animation (Telotte 2008).
17
Figure 2.1 & 2.2 Lincoln Perry/ Stepin Fetchit in biological and animated form
Telotte defines ‘aural imagery’ as the soundscape including noise, music, and voice, as
the auditory makeup specific to animation used to heighten or build up to a comedic
moment. The verbal expression and the overall soundscape was another way to govern
the Black body, live and animated. As BATIM is a horror video game, the diegetic
soundscape is essential to creating horror-play. There are three auditory components of
BATIM’s soundscape: ‘aural imagery,’ music, and the voice specifically the ‘Black
Voice.’ While ‘aural imagery’ is traditionally sound used to create comedy, BATIM uses
‘aural imagery’ to create horror.
As demonstrated by Nicholas Sammond in Birth of an Industry (2015), animation
provided another space to distance the Black body from itself. Sammond explores why
animators used minstrels to build the American animation industry. He uses two terms to
identify the lineage between live minstrel performers and animated cartoons: ‘vestigial
minstrels’ and ‘cartoon minstrels.’ ‘Vestigial minstrels’ carry tokens and performative
behaviors associated but not signifying minstrelsy while ‘cartoon minstrels’ are actual
minstrels (Sammond 2015). The primary difference between these two terms is ‘vestigial
minstrels’ are passive while ‘cartoon minstrels’ are active. The activity of the ‘cartoon
minstrels’ can be seen in the use of the hands. As is shown by early films featuring
18
animation such as Lightning Sketches (Blackton 1907) animation cannot be removed
from the hand of the animator. Blackton begins this film drawing a “coon” from the
written word “coon.” The word becomes hidden within the face of the cartoon “coon”
embedding the word within the body of the minstrel. The hand uses the problematic word
‘coon’ to label, identify, and structure the body of the minstrel. The title of film also
refers to a mode of performance known as lightning-sketch “a performative tradition in
which the live performance of animation centered on the animator’s deft hand as the
locus of skill and transformation” (Sammond 247). The use of the animator’s hand in
early animation also highlights “the animated character both as living and as made”
(Sammond 247). The animator’s hand disrupts the suspension of disbelief by drawing
attention to the construction of both the cartoon and the film (or live performance).
Figure 3: Blackton drawing (Lightning Sketches 1907)
Hands are an essential part of the process of animation as well as the animated.
The white gloves are motifs of both minstrels and animation; however, these white gloves
are more than an aesthetic choice. For minstrels, the white gloves are an amusing façade
of white gentile manners mocking the notion of class mobility and racial tolerance
19
(Sammond 2015). Additionally, the white gloves are a purposeful recall of the white
master’s hands. One of the most common motifs in animation are the characters wearing
white gloves, the same type of gloves worn by live minstrels. Figure 4 illustrates the
white gloves as a direct and visible connection between live minstrels and ‘cartoon
minstrels.’
Figure 4: The use of white gloves (Al Jolson, Mickey Mouse, and Bendy poster)
While white gloves were part of the “amusing” blackface iconography passively
signifying class and racial tensions, the white gloves have an undeniably sinister presence
in BATIM. In the fifth chapter, the player/Henry must navigate the Ink River where a
white gloved monster is located. This is the only time the white gloved monster appears.
Only one hand of the monster is seen during this part of the game, much like the one
hand of the animators such as Blackton. This large gloved hand pulls barges into the Ink
River; therefore, the hand is an object of destruction. Knowing the lineage of the white
glove from minstrel to cartoon minstrel, this destructive and even more oversized white
glove is a purposeful signifier of the destruction this symbol represents. The cartoon
characters in BATIM are ‘cartoon minstrels’ that frighten rather than entertain. As
represented by the white gloved monster, the ‘cartoon minstrels’ of BATIM amplify the
hidden connections between animation and minstrelsy by making the makers of
minstrelsy visible through by reorienting these playful objects into objects of fear.
20
Figure 5: The white glove monster
While play is a difficult term to define because of its inherent ambiguity (Sutton-
Smith 1960), play can be identified as an inseparable part of animation since the process
of animation is the process of play (Pallant 2018). Just as play is limited within the
workings of the ‘magic circle’ (Huizinga 2014) or the frame where play can be acted, the
process of animation occurs and moves within a frame defined by the hand of the
animator (Pallant 2018). Play can be defined as the potential for freedom but is still
restricted by the frame where play occurs (Pallant 2018). Play is an unbound practice
and/or display within a bound space. The concept of play is amplified in animation, an
amplification which becomes augmented through the inclusion of the player in video
games. Just like with animation, the play associated with video games can only occur
within a given frame, a ‘temporary world’ (Pallant 2018). In BATIM, the bendy bodies
themselves are playful while simultaneously requiring play; therefore, play is both an
action and a display (Galloway 2006).
Another essential quality of play is repetition. The process of animation, is the
process of repetition. Similarly to animation, video games depend on a repetition
beginning with the repeated reading of a machine. In video games, play requires a player,
21
someone engaged in play; however, play is a unification of two types of actions:
‘operator actions’ and ‘machine actions’ (Galloway 2006). ‘Operator actions’ are
decisions made by the player while ‘machine actions’ are software and hardware
decisions (Galloway 2006). The player is not the only source of play. There is another
language at work in video games: the language of code, a language distinguishing video
games from other media. According to Galloway, “code is the only language that does
what it says” (Galloway 5) because code is syntactic, semantic and mechanic. It is a
language requiring, expecting, and directing clarity in spaces. Code as a computer
language is dependent on repetition and varied repetition for clarity. The space of the
video game, the space of virtual play, emerges from the machine’s repeated reading of
code and displaying the language. Play within video games is dependent on the
mechanical reading of code. Play is not just an outward/external display, but it is also an
internal processing, a hidden yet essential language.
Play also complicates and amplifies bending as an act in BATIM. Since all the
antagonistic characters are cartoons, play is present in this video game even before the
player engages with the game because animation itself is a type of play. Play manifests in
animation through two specific terms: lichtspiel (light play) and ‘plasmaticness’ (Power
2012). While lichtspiel refers to the use of artificial technological light to create images,
light can also be thought of the traditional perceived tone of animation since play is often
thought of as light, the opposite of seriousness. Additionally, cartoons have a
‘plasmaticness,’ the lack of a single form, recalls how each cartoon body is formed from
multiple different stills of the body. However, the ‘plasmaticness’ of animation becomes
a fracturing process recreating distance between the cartoon and the biological form all
22
cartoons are based on: the Black body.
The multiplicity created by ‘plasmaticness’ is further augmented by the
multiplicity of play via the player. When the player begins to play the game, play
becomes an act facilitated by the player; however, the player use a specific type of play
which I will call horror-play. Horror-play is a player based play using fear as a type of
resistance. There are several layers of play present within this game. Streaming platforms
have afforded yet another way to play this game through the phenomenon known
colloquially as the play-through (located on streaming platforms such as YouTube and
Twitch) where gamers play the game and people watch the game being played by another
instead of playing it themselves. This play, which I will call facilitated-play, a passive
type of play because the spectator is not involved in act of playing. Bending is dependent
on this multiplicity of play because without engaging in play, the bending is not
witnessed. The multiplicity of play creates a multiplicity of access point into the space of
play. From this multiplicity, the space of play allows for bending.
Ink in BATIM
Within the video game, ink actualizes bending while simultaneously signifying
the process of producing animated bodies. Animated bodies would not exist without ink.
Since cartoons are minstrels, the black ink used to create these cartoons is “a distillation
of the qualities of an ideal blackness that began formless” (Sammond 108). From the
viscosity and bending quality, “ink was represented as the essence of their being and of
the blackness of their material base” (Sammond 108). BATIM uses ink, a thick black
liquid, to locate and actualize the sticky lineage between minstrelsy and animation
through the BATIM characters. The diegetic ink in BATIM appears in every part of the
game. The diegetic ink within and surrounding the bodies of BATIM is the only liquid
23
present in the game. The ink itself appears in two forms: a dried solid outlining the bodies
of drawn cartoon characters and a thick black liquid. The primary difference between
these two forms besides their state of being is the solidified ink is passive while the black
thick ink is active. The activity of the black thick ink manifests as a stickiness. In this
way, Ahmed’s notion of stickiness transcends the narrative of game and bleeds into the
actual play of the game. The second form of ink becomes a signifier, a visualization of
how the body is molded. Through its stickiness and pervasiveness within BATIM, the
second form of ink is a twenty first century signifier of minstrelsy in terms of consistency
and the way which ink forms and clings to the body of the monsters. When I refer to ink
throughout this paper, I am specifically referring to the second form of ink because this
ink signifies the intersection between minstrelsy and animation.
Figure 6: Two forms of ink
Ink also has an explicit mechanical origin connecting the diegetic ink to industrial
production. The structure and ordered production of ink highlights ink as mode of
regulation, a mode of production. The first objective in BATIM is to find the mysterious
Ink Machine, commissioned by Joey Drew and created by technology company, Gent.
The function of the machine is to pump ink to power the studio and create what Joey
Drew refers to as “living attractions.” All the objects in BATIM are dependent on ink for
power and movement. Ink powers the Studio, bleeds from the monsters, is the source of
24
monsters, and drips from the ceiling. Due to its movement, the ink also acts as an
obstacle, preventing passage and movement by flooding and blocking pathways. Through
gameplay, the player is conditioned to fear the cartoons covered in ink. Ink is the source
of biological and mechanical power (active), the site of fear (antagonistic), the source of
monsters (antagonistic), and the mode of regenerating both life and tools (productive).
Ink is not a static signifier; rather, ink is active in BATIM. In the game, ink is both a
bodily form of the characters and a written language displayed on the walls of the Studio.
Figure 7: the Ink Machine
Ink is also a specific written language used to highlight the tension between the
remembered (visible) history and the hidden (invisible) history of animation. The visible
history of animation is represented by a book by Joey Drew called Illusion of Living (a
book Henry must retrieve in order to fix the Ink Machine’s flow of ink). While the
contents of this book are never shown, the title is a clear reference to Disney animators
Frank Thomas’s and Ollie Johnson’s Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life (1981), later
re-published as The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation (1995) (Pallant 2011). In this
ubiquitous text about the craft of animation, Thomas and Johnson outline twelve
mechanical techniques Disney animators used to establish ‘realism’ which can be
collectively classified as pose-to-pose animation (Pallant 2011). Unlike the other
dominant mode of animation known as straight ahead action involving the spontaneous
25
work of an animator from start to finish, pose-to-pose animation is a highly industrial
process involving the lead animator tracing the dominant actions of the character and
then an assistant filling in the missing movements known as ‘inbetweens’ (Pallant 2011).
The use of the ‘inbetweens’ emphasizes the fragmented quality of pose-to-pose animation
because this process emphasizes efficiency over spontaneity. From the repetition of ‘in-
betweening,’ “the cartoon minstrel was an embodiment of this rapid rationalization, an
avatar of alienation” (Sammond 240). Animation becomes a product alienated from its
labor. Additionally, the inclusion of ‘inbetweens’ alludes to the broader concept of
liminality. As Bjorn Thomassen notes in “The Uses and Meanings of Liminality,”
liminality is “any ‘betwixt and between’ situation or object” (Thomassen 16). The
process of ‘in-betweening’ creates liminality within the animated character in terms of
movement and production. In order for the bodies to animated, they must be divided into
multiple yet slightly varied bodies. However, the distance created by this embedded
liminality of animation is not the locus of the official history of animation.
While Joey Drew’s Illusion of Living is an artifact of the animation’s official
history from the perspective of the animators, the ink writings on the wall also provide an
incomplete and unofficial history of Joey Drew Studios from unidentified cartoon
characters. The first ink message Henry encounters states “Dreams Come True”
referencing the dream mythos of animation perpetuated by Disney. These ink messages
counter the magically/playful and happy associated with dreams. The second message
found states “Who is laughing now?” Dreams become a curse through the ink writings.
Although the player/Henry never sees who has written all the messages, we do see a
protagonist form of Alice Angel in the fifth chapter writing on the ink messages while we
26
are locked in jail. This moment hints that the cartoons, whether that be just protagonistic
Alice Angel or others, have been the ones writing the messages.
In addition to being a written language, ink is inseparable from the cartoon bodies
specifically the bodies of Bendy, Boris, and Alice Angel. If the body is not directly
saturated in ink, the player does not see the body. In other words, the body must be
regulated in order to be visible within BATIM. For example, the player never sees the
body of Henry because his body is not directly produced by ink. The lack of Henry’s
body, even his reflection and limbs, places all the focus on the displayed animated
bodies. The objects of the gameic gaze are the contorted bodies of the cartoons that only
have the power/ability to destroy. The supersaturation and pervasive presence of ink in
BATIM allows ink to become a signifier and visualization of regulation. Not only does
ink construct the bodies of the cartoons, ink also writes how the bodies are to be viewed.
Foucault’s identification of the body as the site and method of regulation/governmentality
means the bodies of BATIM must be examined because their heavily regulated bodies (as
demonstrated by the excess of ink) are attempting to make governmentality visible. The
objects of the gameic gaze are the bodies of the cartoons and the process of bending each
cartoon body is subjugated to.
Voiceless Bodies
While Mickey Mouse is one of many ‘cartoon minstrels,’ Mickey’s legacy and
form is referenced throughout BATIM; however, the reference to Mickey is purposeful
because of his continued prevalence in American culture. On the surface, Mickey Mouse
is a partially clothed anthropomorphic mouse with a playful disposition, yet upon
reexamination, a more problematic origin of Mickey emerges - one possessing a ‘sticky’
legacy. Mickey has a signature look which is repeated in almost every cartoon he appears
27
in: white gloves, blackened body, large shorts and oversized shoes. His repeated outfit is
the same type of outfit worn by live minstrel performers predominately the white gloves;
however, Mickey’s minstrel origins extend beyond his costume. Mickey is historically
significant to animation history because Mickey appears at a moment of transition within
the film industry - the transition from silence to sound. This transition immortalized
Mickey as one of the first successfully sound cartoons. As noted by Sammond, “Walt
Disney Productions’ Steamboat Willie (Disney 1928) looms large...as the landmark for
the introduction of synchronous sound into the animation industry” (Sammond 117). The
transition to sound meant animation, “which had at that point a long - standing
convention history of celebrating its own performativity… disvow[ed] it's vaudevillian
roots and obscur[ed] the actual labor of cartooning” (Sammond 120). Before Mickey and
Steamboat Willie, cartoons such as Ko-Ko and Felix used the “vaudeville aesthetic...the
self-referentiality [associated with] the lightning-sketch” (Sammond 114). Sound was the
first moment the labor and the origins of cartoons became distanced from the actual
cartoon form. In addition to emerging during the transition to sound, Mickey is also
voiced by Walt Disney. Mickey is not just a cartoon; he is a nostalgic object signifying
the importance of Disney Studios in the animation industry. Mickey became a part of
mythic creation myth exemplifying the innovation and creativity of Disney. BATIM takes
up the power of Mickey and pressures his nostalgic power within American popular
culture through Bendy, the main antagonist of BATIM.
28
Figure 8: Mickey Mouse and Cartoon Bendy
Within the diegetic world of BATIM, Bendy occupies the same mythic status Mickey
occupies in contemporary culture; however, Bendy’s status becomes one of fear. While
Mickey’s mythic status is demonstrated through his place in animation history and his
continued presence in American culture, Bendy’s mythic status is demonstrated by the
saturation of Bendy’s image throughout the Studio. Bendy has two forms: his cartoon
form (cartoon Bendy) and his evolving corporeal form (the Demon); however, these two
forms occupy the video game space differently. Bendy’s cartoon form appears in posters,
sketches and pictures throughout the Studio; however, there is only one Demon. The
Demon is the cartoon entity hunting the player/Henry. As shown in Figure 9, the Demon
evolves throughout the game from a corporeal cartoon Bendy into a large ink monster
with sharp teeth. The doubleness created by Bendy’s two forms acknowledges the
‘double sense’ of animation “the duplication of a virtual image...a conceptual movement
that calls attention to the surface of representation, instead of its actual contents”
(Hernandez 1). Bendy’s doubleness creates an omnipresence fear that Bendy will appear
and attack the player/Henry. The “double sense” of Bendy’s body creates discomfort in
the form of fear and tension. While Bendy’s body is a powerful narrative object because
of his pervasive presence, Bendy is voiceless throughout the game. Bendy’s lack of voice
29
is similar to Henry’s lack of body: the focus is on Bendy’s bodily consumption via ink
and his lack of subjectivity, his lack of voice.
Figure 9: Evolution of Corporeal Bendy
Another voiceless body is Boris, a mostly protagonistic cartoon character who
accompanies Henry, whose body is continuously bent through the game invoking the
“double sense of animated images” (Hernandez 1) and the ‘inbetweening’ process of
animation. While Hernandez cites visual puns as an example of this dual language,
humor is the excuse/justification of the dual/double sense created by animation. By
humor as justification, I mean the doubleness, the exaggerated state, is done to create
humor. The double sense of Boris is not a humorous one, instead it is a fearful one
involving the grotesque display of the ‘inbetweens.’ Boris has multiple clones displayed
throughout BATIM; however, these clones are incomplete and often are inactive/dead.
The lack of voice for Boris places the focus entirely on his animated body. In other
words, nothing distracts from his autonomy. For example, the first body the player sees in
chapter one is the dissected and open body of a dead Boris; however, this body is not just
displayed, it is shown as a site of commodification. Boris’s diegetic body contains a tool
Henry needs in order to fix the Ink Machine. The lack of humor regarding Boris is
demonstrated during this objective. Since Boris’s exposed and static body is the first
corporeal body Henry/the player sees, the immediate objectification of the animated body
30
juxtaposed to the poster version of Boris becomes the first sinister moment. The doubling
occurs because Boris’s body is a tool while still being a cartoon. It was from this
doubleness the tone of mystery becomes sinister. Simultaneously, the doubleness of Boris
comes from his diegetic replication within the game. Throughout the game, Henry
encounters clones of Boris. Each Boris clone is slightly different; however, all are silent,
voiceless. Boris is a double object: his existence is one of multiplicity because his
character is cloned/repeatedly produced.
In addition to being a double object, Boris is also a liminal object. His clones are
visualizations of the ‘inbetween’ process of animation, of industrialization. With each
clone the internal machine (as represented by the wrench) becomes an externalized
process. The first clone of Boris is dead with a wrench emerging from his stomach cavity
while the next version of Boris Henry interacts with is alive. The third iteration of Boris,
the only antagonistic Boris, has machines attached to his outer body and it is this version
of Boris that attacks the player/Henry. The internal industrialization of his body becomes
externalized and antagonistic. When Boris has the machines connected to his body, this is
the only time Boris attacks the player/Henry. Liminality effects subjects though
experience and liminality is a temporal and spatial dimension (Thomassen 2009). Boris is
a liminal object because of the use of his body as a tool. The wrench Henry pulls from
Boris’s dead body forces Boris into a liminal state because he is ‘inbetween’ a body, a
character and a tool. He is dead (rather there are clones of him who are dead) but he (this
31
version of Boris) is also alive. The doubleness and liminal state of Boris is directly
confronted and lingered over in the game.
Figure 10: Dissected Boris
Unlike Bendy, Boris’s corporeal bodies interact with each other through the gaze.
Boris is forced to confront his double existence. The silent confrontation of live Boris and
dissected Boris represents a division of the True Self and the False Self (Winnicott 1960).
This is where the gameic gaze comes in – the type of looking facilitated by the video
game camera forcing the player to stare at the double bodies of Boris as Boris stares at
his own clone. Boris, who never speaks, stares intensely at the dissected Boris, the same
Boris the player/Henry retrieved a wrench from in the first chapter in order to fix the Ink
Machine. As Boris looks at his dissected reflection, the player/Henry also stares.
Therefore, the gameic gaze is conducted by both the player and the characters within the
diegetic and temporary world.
Talkative Bodies
While Boris represents the bending symptomatic of ‘the inbetween process,’
Alice Angel’s multiple forms and multiple voices traces the compounded fracturing of
the body by governmentality. Initially, the player/Henry is introduced to Alice Angel
through recordings of Susie Campbell, the woman who voices Alice Angel. In these
recordings, the distinction between Alice Angel and Susie Campbell is clear. However,
when the corporeal form of Alice Angel is introduced, there are two voices speaking at
32
once. The sonic doubleness of Alice becomes augmented by the appearance of Alice
Angel’s first corporeal form. This first form of Alice Angel has a split face, half is melted
and half is intact.
Figure 11: The multiple forms of Alice Angel
She constantly speaks of being an angel and the beauty required as well as her quest to
remain beautiful. In her quest to maintain her angel status, Alice Angel regulates her
body and the body of others including Boris and the dead. Alice Angel is the product and
enforcer of governmentality. Her regulation of the bodies around her and her own body
results in the demonization of Boris.
The antagonistic body, Sammy Lawrence, demonstrates how the regulation of
looking of slaves enforced by minstrelsy becomes a fearful and violent form of self-
governing. Like Alice Angel, there is a sonic duality of Sammy Lawrence. Sammy
Lawrence speaks in Biblical riddles in the first audio log but in the second audio log
Sammy Lawrence’s speech is completely divorced from this religious diction. Sammy
Lawrence refers to Bendy as “the figure of ink that shines in the darkness” recalling
Bendy as his savior whom he prays to by singing “those old songs” (BATIM 2017).
Music is explicitly linked to Sammy Lawrence’s mode of worship through his verbal
language. The use of Biblical language in the audio recordings is important for two
reasons. Firstly, the Biblical language is an auditory representation of the fracturing of
the replicated animated bodies. Secondly, the Biblical allusions facilitated by this type of
language emphasizes the relationship displaces the tension between the Creator and His
33
creations onto the Creator/Animator and created/animated. Sammy Lawrence is given a
duality, an internal fracturing of the self which is reflected in his multiple recordings
especially with the different tones in the first two recordings. Sammy Lawrence’s duality
is amplified through his Bendy mask. His mask allows Sammy Lawrence’s True Self, his
unseen self, to remain hidden by his projected self, his False Self. His Bendy masks acts
as a veil, an external and internal separation. In The Souls of Black Folk. W.E.B. Du Bois
identifies the division between white and Black Americans as a veil. Du Bois states that
“I was different from other...shut out from their world by a vast veil” (Du Bois 8). From
Du Bois’s description, he posits the veil as an invisible barrier causing Black Americans
to use a double-consciousness, a “sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes
of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused
contempt and pity” (Du Bois 9). Without using the psychoanalytic terms of Winnicott,
Du Bois identifies a process of fracturing similar to the True and False Self; however, the
division caused by the veil is one that becomes externalized by minstrelsy. The double-
consciousness inflicting Black Americans, is a source of amusement, entertainment
within minstrelsy. The blackface mask (and make up) is the physical form of Du Bois’s
veil because it is a symbol of the regulation of Black bodies as well as the separation of
Black bodies from white bodies. Sammy Lawrence’s Bendy mask is a veil in the Du
Bois-ian sense because the mask allows Lawrence to hide his actual self and perform
(Lawrence’s perform is one of the violence) without questioning. The Bendy mask
34
creates an external division just as the minstrel blackface, a mask of burnt cork, created
division between Black bodies as Black identity and as entertainment objects.
Figure 12: Sammy Lawrence with Bendy mask and without mask
During the player’s/Henry’s final encounter with Sammy Lawrence, the
player/Henry removes the mask from Sammy Lawrence. Even though this removal is
during an attack, Sammy Lawrence pauses his violent acts as he attempts to hide his face
from the player/Henry. The power of the mask is revealed through this brief moment.
Without his mask, Sammy Lawrence has lost his face, his means of communication;
instead, the black ink covering his body is visible. The removal of the mask is an
exposing and vulnerable experience for Sammy Lawrence, one resulting in the violent
death of Sammy Lawrence. Without the mask, Sammy Lawrence has no power. The
mask obscures the sight of the player. The maskless Sammy Lawrence means he can be
looked at, stared at, examined. The removal of Sammy’s mask is symbolic of the
visibility the gametic gaze allows for: one staring at the bending of Black bodies.
Disembodied Voices
While Alice Angel and Sammy Lawrence are both characters with bodies and
voices, there are also characters with voices but no bodies. A more complete hidden
history of animation is also revealed auditorily through the disembodied voices of the
employees of Joey Drew Studios. The voices of the Joey Drew Studios employees are
accessible through an antiquated technology: the tape recorder. These recorders are
placed throughout the game and provide a disjointed narrative about the happenings at
35
the Studio. These audio logs incorporate the labor of animation history and the minstrel
origins which became hidden through the creation of Steamboat Willie (Disney 1928)
which is further compounded by the fact that the audio logs are hidden throughout the
game. Additionally, most of these audio logs are not required for the narrative to
progress. The hidden history of Joey Drew Studios is buried in these fragmented
recordings and must be purposefully sought out much like the hidden history of
American animation. The visibility and its relationship to animation history is directly
engaged with by the tape recorders.
It is only through the convergence of the audio log and the diegetic moving ink
that the history of the Studio is revealed. During the final chapter, an audio log labeled
“Voice of UNKNOWN” is being played next to a puddle of bubbling ink. The screams
playing on the audio log are muffled as if the subject of the scream was drowning in a
thick liquid. Through this juxtaposition, it is suggested the employees of Joey Drew
Studios were transformed into the ink monsters attacking and stalking Henry throughout
the game. In fact, Joey Drew’s own recording to Gent confirms this notion. In said
recording, Drew states he owns plenty of souls to use in order to make living attractions.
The employees are never shown; instead, the player/Henry only hears the echoes/ghosts
of their voices before Drew sacrificed their souls to give life to his cartoons. It is this
process, the removal of souls from body and transformation into an object, that is a
sinister process. BATIM presents the commodification of both the animated bodies as
well as the employees associated with labor. While Joey Drew views his capitalistic
36
endeavors as a dreams, BATIM positions this type of capitalistic dream as a nightmare
consuming biological and animated bodies.
Figure 13: Unknown Audio Recording
Death and Dying by Ink
The bodies (both voiceless and talkative) and disembodied voices are bent until
they die (disappear); therefore, the consequence of bending is death. The cycle of death is
reminiscent of Sammond’s claim that the ‘cartoon character’s disruption of the animated
world of which it was a part marked the commodity’s conventional and compulsive
underlining (or delineation) and undermining of its own commodity status, the always
failing fantasy of its autonomy” (Sammond 255). As a “death-denying” culture, the
American animation industry also denies any pain associated with death and the finality
of dying through the reversibility of the cartoon characters’ deaths (Durkin 2003). BATIM
saturates the animated space with images of and experiences of dying. Through act of
repeated dying, the dream space of children’s animation becomes a space of deadly
nightmares. The process and act of dying is an essential part of play within video games.
When an objective is failed, playable character dies; however, like in animation, death is
not permanent. Dying is a cyclical process involving restarting and repeating. Like most
video games, death in BATIM requires the repetition of the failed objective. The
involvement of ink distinguishes the act of dying within BATIM from other games. The
act of dying is a process inseparable from the diegetic ink. Since the playable character is
Henry, the death of Henry is the most frequent death. All the characters, with the
37
exception of two clones of Boris and one clone of Alice Angel, attack Henry with the
intent to kill him. The characters, especially the ink monsters, originate from ink making
ink the source of the threat of death. Ink is also the indicator of harm. When these
characters attack Henry, the screen representing Henry’s and the player’s shared vision,
becomes covered in ink much like other FPS games use the splattering of blood (red) to
indicate the level of damage to the playable character. The more injuries Henry sustains,
the more ink covers the screen suggesting Henry is bleeding ink. Yet, ink is also involved
in the regeneration of Henry. Anytime Henry dies, Henry respawns from a tunnel of ink
and emerges from the nearest Bendy statue. Henry is killed by bodies of ink, bleeds ink
and is regenerated by ink; therefore, ink is the origin, the qualifier and the bringer of
death. As demonstrated by Henry’s repeated dying, ink is explicitly linked to a
particularly repetitive cycle of production (life and death) within the animated space.
Figure 14: Death of cartoons
Death is not limited to Henry; rather, all the characters are explicitly connected to
death. The act of dying and death are everywhere in BATIM precisely because ink is
everywhere. All the primary antagonistic characters, Sammy Lawrence, Boris, Alice
Angel, and Bendy die. Unlike the family friendly animation, death is a permanent state
for the cartoons. Even though ink replaces blood, these death of the cartoons are still
38
violent and gory. The disturbing execution of the cartoons opposes the family friendly
belief of cartoons as a source of happiness – a sentiment echoed through Wally Franks in
a recording where he states “these people gotta lighten up. I mean hello! You make
cartoons! Your job is to make people laugh ” (BATIM 2017). While each of these
characters die in a different way, their deaths are unified through the inclusion of ink. Ink
is always present. The repetitive nature of death is punctuated by the death of Bendy
(Demon) and continued through the ending of the game’s narrative.
Figure 15: the Death of Bendy
Just as death and the act of dying within animation are cyclical processes, the
game uses the final death and “escape” of Henry to solidify the inherent cyclicality of the
animated space: a cyclicality dependent on the continued bending of the Black body.
During the final chapter in the Ink Machine, Henry kills Bendy by playing the final film
reel labeled “The End.” After this moment, Henry is transported into a more realistic
apartment where the player sees Joey Drew for the first time. Unlike the other characters
in the game, Joey looks realistic. In the final scene, Henry steps through the door which
seems to be the exit; however, Henry reappears in the first chapter in the same hallway
the game started at. Henry is trapped in a cycle in which he must stay in the liminal space
of the Studio. The diegetic world of BATIM is a cycle of hell where Henry must repeat
the experience of fear in order to find hidden structures (writings) and learn more about
the Studio’s history. The cyclical nature of the game is important because it demonstrates
39
the inescapability of the commodification of the Black body if not addressed directly and
the frustration and fear created by this consumption.
Conclusion
Like Mickey Mouse, Bendy and all the cartoon character of BATIM are minstrels.
Through bending, the act and displayed process within BATIM essential for seeing the
images of minstrelsy, the mythos of animation as dreams is displaced by the largely
unacknowledged origin/history of animation, Black bodies. Joey Drew Studios is not a
place where dreams come true; rather, the studio is where nightmares come true. The
hidden and subversive qualities of cartoons is placed at the forefront of the game through
the fractured narration through tape recorders and the displaced ink. Joey Drew Studios’
history and decay is never directly stated, instead, the player/Henry must piece together
the narration through non-chronological fragments while other parts of the history are
inaccessible because of ink. The bodily contortion of the Black body into an
entertainment object, the minstrel/cartoon, also becomes accessible through fear. Instead
of looking to the cartoon as a source of playfulness and laughter, the player is condition
to fear the bodies of the cartoons because of their destructive power. The minstrel
cartoons become minstrel monsters with the space of the game. As demonstrated through
the play of BATIM, minstrelsy is not a performance of the past; rather, minstrelsy is a
contemporary performance hidden within American popular culture particularly cartoons.
BATIM legitimizes the problematic history of animation not through the justification of
the use of Black bodies as entertainment objects but by making the bending of the Black
body by the animation industry visible through the gameic gaze.
