I interviewed Ralph Bakshi in late 2023. We discussed queer representation in his films and most recent short with his grandson, Miles Bakshi. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Ralph Bakshi (reading aloud the questions – followed by his answers): “Do I have a preference on how I create queer characters?”
No, I don’t really have a preference on how to create queer characters. I’m not interested in emphasizing design or voice or movement. What I’m interested in is creating a character. There was more of that involved with the various characterizations of what queers were like. Certain things that were quite obvious in the mainstream, the voice was very important. How a character talked, and how a character moved was very important. The emphasis was on making sure everyone knew [they were] a queer, and that the character worked in a movie. They’re queer because they look like this and talk like this, and they’re not ashamed of being queer. [Snowflake] was one of the main characters in my movie [Heavy Traffic]. So, for me, that was a very exciting push for animation.
The thing that I looked at, as a young man, was Milton Berle; he used to get dressed up on television as a woman all the time. And I thought that was hysterical, and he knew what he was doing. And there were pictures, Some Like It Hot, a great film.
My movies were involved with social interests, ethnic types, and I love Disney, [that studio] was the only thing going. No one cared about animation, and animation was dying because studios were closing. My goal was to create movies using animation the way Martin Scorsese or any live-action director would.
RB: Did the higher ups ever ask you to tone down queerness in your work?
No, for lots of reasons. First of all, I was working under a ratings system. I was working in adult animation; I was the guy who wasn’t going to do PG. So the queerness of my work was no different than the social aspects and the things I would say. The only people that ever asked me to tone down queerness in my work were from the animation industry. The guys who thought that I was destroying animation didn’t realize that I was just trying to push it into an area that might make more work for people. I’m also seeking adult animation that Disney and no other animation company has ever delved into. And for me, it’s as wide open as what I dare to do. Plus, they [the suits] didn’t care. Word on the street from the suits was that only Disney could make money, everyone else was garbage. And why is that? Because no one else spends the money they have. I was spending under a million. They couldn’t care less what I was doing! And when they weren’t looking, I did all the crazy things I did.
RB: Fritz the Cat inspired the adult feature length animation boom in the 70s. Do you feel much of the adult American animated films released afterwards focused more on the monetary, sensationalized appeal?
First of all, Fritz the Cat was a major animation explosion. Now, Fritz the Cat did what animation had never done. I was incredibly excited. It was about college kids, it was about hippies, it was about drivin’ across America—Jewish characters talking Jewish on the screen. It was such a major step forward for animation, whether its animation was quality or not (laughs). Fritz the Cat was never pencil tested. A breakthrough for animation, which was what I was trying to do—push animation somewhere else—and we won’t go out of business. I had to find another voice. I didn’t get the impression that the other [adult animated] films cared about ideas; they cared more about sensationalism. Animation bores me unless it’s got a purpose, it has something to say for adults.
I added sensational stuff in all my films, just for those people who like sensational stuff. I was more interested in the stuff around the sensational. To them, that was the movie; to me, that wasn’t the movie at all.
Fritz the Cat was a huge hit. I was asked to do Fritz the Cat 2. I wouldn’t do it. I had no interest in doing Fritz the Cat 2. I had no interest in doing a sequel. I had done what I had to do, and now I had to pick a next step. And what was the next step? Heavy Traffic. Adult people—no more animals, no more funny stuff that we take in either way. Real people, real stories, real problems.
With Snowflake, there were a few things that I could easily do, and everyone knew she was queer. The voice was, of course, definitely queer. In Heavy Traffic, the greatest character to me—the most positive character, the character who I love very much—was Snowflake. And why is that? She was queer and she didn’t care. She wasn’t ashamed of it. My Snowflake said fuck you I am queer and here I am. I see her as a person who stands on her own two feet. If you are queer, so what? I really feel that’s fine, that’s great. That’s how it should be; that’s what life is. Snowflake is one of my great characters. The picture says she’s queer, and you can’t miss it.
Bakshi’s “Snowflake”
Esther Bley: For me, I feel Snowflake is very underappreciated, Snowflake should be appreciated more.
RB: It’s all underappreciated! Didn’t you love the scene [in Heavy Traffic] where Ida is at home with Angie, who’s a Catholic, and she says “Catholics don’t get divorced. Big deal.” Could you imagine saying that in an animated movie?
I always put stuff that I learned as a young man into the films. Eva, the girl on the beach in Hey Good Lookin’ makin’ sandwiches, was [inspired by] my sister because if she did go to the beach, she’d make sandwiches all the time—she was too afraid of the water (laughs).
EB: For Snowflake or the [trans] characters in Coonskin were those based on people you saw in New York?
RB: I’ll give you the long answer. My films weren’t about those people; to me, they were just characters. The overall film was much more important to me. When you’re growing up in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, there are certain things that’s in the air. I’m not gay, and I used to go to gay bars in the Village — I’m not ashamed of it — because I loved the underground; I loved anything that was different from the average. When I went to lesbian and gays bars, which were hiding underground, very few non-gays dared to go inside.
There were certain ways they [the bar patrons] dressed, a certain way they looked. The most important thing to me was their voices. I saw a lot of crossdressers and drag queens in gay bars; I used whatever I could when designing the transvestites in Coonskin. Here’s the reason why I used it: The Godfather was a big hit. When you left The Godfather, the Italian mafia were heroes. They were smarter than everyone else; they did what they had to do to stay alive. Now, I don’t buy that. I don’t see any mafia group as heroes. So what can I do to show how much I dislike the mafia? I got it… make his sons queer. Basically, it’s a slap in the face to being a macho gangster if your son’s queer.
The Godfather with his sons
EB: Thank you. I’ve read multiple reviews, and no one knows how to classify these characters. It’s just a nightmare trying to figure all this out.
RB: You had no way of knowing. No one ever told you; no one ever researched it.
EB: I have one other question. You made such a wonderful short with your grandson [Miles Bakshi], Midwest (embed below). Are there any future projects you two are doing together?
RB: He’s doing another one now. Miles Bakshi loves animation. He did it on his own; I did not push him. I write poems. Miles and I are doing a series of poems in any style he wants. I’m not telling him how to do it, I’m not showing him how to do it, I’ve certainly, over the years, given him advice on animation. I love the kid very much; he’s very, very talented. And I’m not just a grandfather saying that!
Oh my goodness, what a treat to read! I’d always been kind of unsure of Bakshi’s stance on queerness, but this is fascinating. Like everything in Bakshi’s movies, the queer representation is messy and confrontational and definitely a lil taboo by today’s standards, but Bakshi very clearly is trying the only way he knows how, and that’s awesome. My respect for this man has increased tremendously today.
This is typical of the Bakshi interviews I’ve read: heavy on the braggadocio, using copious superlatives to describe himself and his work, yet with very little insight or substance.
When asked how he goes about creating queer characters, Bakshi said: “I’m not interested in emphasizing design or voice or movement. What I’m interested in is creating a character.” Yet in practically the very next breath he contradicts himself: “…the voice was very important. How a character talked, and how a character moved was very important.” Now, I can accept Bakshi meaning that he isn’t interested in design, voice or movement for their own sake, but only in the service of creating a character; but since the question itself was about creating queer characters, we can take that much for granted. So how does he make it obvious to the audience that a character is queer and not ashamed of it? Ummmm… Milton Berle?
Even if Bakshi had wanted to make a sequel to “Fritz the Cat”, I doubt that R. Crumb would have allowed it.
Given the subject matter of this interview, I couldn’t help but notice the line in Bakshi’s poem about “making the fallen snowflakes dance to their song. This is the America poems are written about.” The poem itself is too Whitmanesque for my taste, but at least it’s brief.
Little Pete, or whatever he calls himself after he becomes a star, is obviously queer. If there’d been a sequel to “American Pop,” he’d probably either die of AIDS or get busted for propositioning a cop in a public men’s room.