Posted on 10/01/2014 10:16:30 AM PDT by Pyro7480
Fans of the zany Tom and Jerry cartoons from the golden age of animation might be in for a shock, as the classic shorts now carry a politically-correct warning on Amazon's streaming video service. On Tuesday, BBC correspondent Sean Coughlan reported that on Amazon Prime, the "Tom and Jerry: The Complete Second Volume is accompanied by the caution: 'Tom and Jerry shorts may depict some ethnic and racial prejudices that were once commonplace in American society. Such depictions were wrong then and are wrong today.'"
Coughlan spotlighted the criticism of University of Kent professor of sociology Frank Furendi, who blasted Amazon's decision:
The warning was attacked as "empty-headed" by cultural commentator and professor of sociology, Frank Furedi, who said it was a form of a "false piousness" and a type of censorship which "seems to be sweeping cultural life".
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
The cartoons sometimes have a red-headed Irish maid (don’t recall her name). It may have been a 1960s modification on the theatrical cartoons. I’ve “heard” that sometimes the old soundtrack got “married” to the new footage but I’ve never seen an instance of it on video.
Speedy Gonzales was banned from Cartoon Network years ago until the outcry from the Latino community forced CN to put him back on the air.
In “Saturday Evening Puss” (1950) the house owner is black, depicted only from the neck down.
In 1957 new footage depicted the woman as white, but with the same Negro voice. Instead of playing cards at her social club when the phone rings, she appears to be dancing.
Anyway, I always liked this cartoon for the cats’ jam session with the postwar era “hot music” jive. Jerry’s frustration when the homeowner relaxes with the same sounds from the phonograph is priceless.
Sometimes race isn’t the issue, but humor is.
If the cartoons were “wrong then and wrong now” as the disclaimer says, don’t release them. Some major studios’s “banned cartoons” fell into the public domain in the 1960s when they stopped filing the copyright extension on them.
The “list” has existed for nearly 50 years now.
The Mammy-Two-Shoes cartoons were never part of that list.
Since they are all too willing to profit off of these “evil cartoons from a racist America”, they feel they must “shame” anyone who wants to watch them for enjoyment (thus the Whoopi Goldberg preface, etc.).
We bought bugs bunny and T&J DVD’s for the kids. Its so much better than the crap for kids on TV today. Maybe we need to queue some episodes up on Amazon later today.
I have an old book (1920s?) titled “Black Stories for White Children”.
It’s probably racist, isn’t it?
As part of my second grade school supplies, I had a Frito Bandito eraser that fit on the end of a pencil (if I recall, it came free in a box of eight individual-serving sized bags of Fritos.
On the second day of school, a black kid twice my size stole it from me.
Does that make me a racist?
There is one where Jerry leaves the country for the city. He ends up in Grand Central and gets pick ed up by the shoe-shine guy and gets his head dunked in black shoe polish and comes out in “black-face”. Yeah...that one’s a little on the edge of it, other than it’s just a smile. But, the black-face schtick was the gag, and the same scene where the black-face part is edited out, just doesn’t work.
lol...she always cracked me up...chasing Tom with a broom: “GIT OUT! O-U-DUBYA-T...OUT!”
Did you ever listen closely to the words Speedy Gonzalez sings when he sings “La Cucaracha?”
Translated into English they mean “marijuana is for smoking.”
http://www.amazon.com/Constitution-Declaration-Independence-Articles-Confederation/dp/1604592680
Disclaimer from the publisher;
“This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.”
____________________________________________________________
I am not surprised that Amazon would include nonsense warnings for things like a cat and mouse cartoon.
I did too—my favorite cartoon BY FAR!
Whoopie can pound sand....
I dare you to even find a “Heckel and Jeckel”.
Well Tom Sawyer & To Kill a Mockingbird are now labeled with the “horrid” R word now (along with edited PC versions)
My kids will still read the originals, I don’t care.
On my Best Of Looney Tunes DVD set, each disc starts out with Whoopi Goldberg warning that some of the cartoons have racist elements. God, I love fast forward.
Well, the couple I’ve seen didn’t indicate anybody else living there, so her being the maid would have had to be assumed.
I’ve seen some of the eps where we see Tom’s owner, she’s a pretty serious mammy, I wouldn’t begrudge anybody that found it offensive.
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