The comic character Betty Boop is enjoying a renaissance, with new cartoons, a new trademark red lipstick, and women’s fashions on offer. Gabrielle Bellot explores the original inspiration for Betty Boop — a black jazz singer named Baby Esther Jones — whose signature voice and scat-inspired patter inspired not only Betty’s look, but her signature phrase, “Boop-oop-a-doop.” As Bellot says, Boop was far more than just a cartoon character — quite the opposite — as the first feminist depicted in animated film.

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