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While at first glance Nemo and the Imp appear easily dismissed as a racial type and a racial stereotype, Flip is from the very first an equivocal figure.
The first cartoon image to appear in the animation sequence, Flip is oddly hybrid: an Irishman in a Pagliacci-style commedia outfit.
In one sense he is a double threat: two versions of the Catholic immigrant. Finally, the clown outfit is also reminiscent of pajamas, a late nineteenth-century import from India, and quite in keeping with European orientalizing.
The cartoon showcases a difference in the graphics that make up, on the one side, the Imp and Flip, and, on the other, Nemo. Nemo is a slightly plump art nouveau figure, while Flip and the Imp are cartoon exaggerations.
The cartoon showcases a difference in the graphics that make up, on the one side, the Imp and Flip, and, on the other, Nemo. Nemo is a slightly plump art nouveau figure, while Flip and the Imp are cartoon exaggerations.
But the most striking visual difference between Nemo and the other characters is occurs as a momentary optical trick, an anamorphic squeezing of the Imp and Flip controlled by Nemo as if by a magician.