Excellent examples.
We went from casual fun and tolerance of the off color to tighter and tighter canceling by Karens, BLM and LGBTQ+ social media and entertainment censors.
Now an old TV show or movie may have a Cream of Wheat box on a shelf with Rastus holding out the bowl, or Aunt Jemima or even an Eskimo Pie (not Inuit) or Land O’Lakes butter with Mia on the package. And the movie Major League had the Cleveland Indians and Chief Wahoo, not the Guardians.
Here is the amazing story behind the Land O Lakes cover. The son of the Objibwe artist (US Navy veteran and an early Native American artist who designed and redesigned Mia 1928 ,1939 and again in 1954 wrote about this. He also worked with MGM and Disney and had fine art exhibited during his career.
The son, Robert DesJarlait, wrote in the Washington Post April 29, 2020:
“North Dakota state Rep. Ruth Buffalo (D), for instance, told the Pioneer Press in St. Paul, Minn., that the Land O’Lakes image of Mia went “hand-in-hand with human and sex trafficking of our women and girls … by depicting Native women as sex objects.” Others similarly welcomed the company’s removal of the “butter maiden” as long overdue.
How did Mia go from being a demure Native American woman on a lakeshore to a sex object tied to the trafficking of native women?”
41 years ago, I was invited to my NCOIC’s quarters on July 4th. I was the only white guy in my 7 man section. His wife cooked the best soul food. When I asked for seconds on chitlins, she exclaimed “Lieutenant, I didn’t know you liked soul food!”
I said “oh yes ma’am, but for some reason, I feel like dancing!” While her jaw was hitting the floor, everyone else busted our laughing.” That’s how we rolled back then. I wouldn’t dare try that today.