Comments on: Bugs Bunny in Blackface: Politically Incorrect Cartoons

By: Vic Thomason

Vic Thomason — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:06:02 +0000

I agree with a lot of what has been said here. These cartoons aren’t appropriate for airing today (at least on television. They should be made available for dvd though…which I believe they are..). It is (if the parent is okay with it) a good tool to teach kids about the racism of the past (something that has been sanitized out of textbooks & classroom conversation). I do, however, feel that the politically correct fluff that permeates the airwaves today has gone too far. Cookie monster can’t eat cookies anymore (because it could teach children “unhealthy practices” and that it would be “okay to eat cookies all of the time.”…right..), Tom & Jerry are shown (severely neurtered of fun action scenes) on cartoon network. Buggs Bunny (already extrememly neutered as far back as the 80’s) is also being “edited” by Cartoon network. Saturday mornings are all but dead (with maybe two hours (on the regular networks) in the mornings. In the meantime, those time slots originally set aside for kids on weekdays (anywhere from 2-4 in the afternoon) are filled with programming really NOT appropriate for kids. Even at those times, programs with sexual innudenos/connotations & violence are easily accessible. We “protect” kids from “violence” in cartoons, but they are at more risk of seeing the garbage played out on regular television. Those type of programs should be moved BACK to the time slots they were originally in. In the meantime, we should let children be children; We need to stop sanitizing everything (instead of worrying that Jr. will copy his favorite cartoon character & chase his friends around with a stick). Before there were the action cartoons, there was zorro, Davey Crockett, etc. Kids are always going to act out the parts of their heroes. That’s part of learong about life. There are moral lessons in all of that, as well. It also gives kids a means of escape. Dindn’t we all want to live in another world for a while. They have plenty of time to let life’s reality draw them in. I’m amazed at the people who feel it’s their duty to dictate to everyone else what kids should watch, especially when many of these organizations are run by ppl who’ve never had children. They could have amnesia too…they forgot what it was like to be a kid.

By: Ginger

Ginger — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:40:16 +0000

Okay, I grew up watching Looney Tunes — “Sothern Fried Rabbit” was presented to me without the black face bit, but the rest of the cartoon was the same. I am SOUTHERN — not racist, born and raised in the South. I am a Christian, who attends a VERY culturally diverse congregation. I was told that Looney Tunes was taken off of the air because it was “politically incorrect” and “too violent” (Yes, I actually emailed Cartoon Network to find out why). To this I say, Are you freakin’ kidding me?!! Tell me what is “non-violent” about Ben-10, or Star Wars The Clone Wars, or any of the other drivel that they air these days!! They try and KILL each other!! And this (Looney Tunes) is/was SATIRE!! I owe my sarcasm to Bugs and Tweety — I never once tried to drop an anvil on my friends head. I never doned black-face. I never cross-dressed. I never tried to pull a con. But I would hear wonderful music that I can now identify as “The Barber of Seville” or “Flight of the Bumble Bee” and many others. I would ASK MY PARENTS about things that did not quite make sense to me in a cartoon — like where is Albuquerque and why is Bugs always saying he should have turned left there? Who is Leopold? Why is Yosimite Sam wearing gray? What is a Yankee? How did he know to call Bugs “Miss Scarlett?” As a result, I LEARNED alot!!! I got interested in other things and looked them up — not on the internet (as there was none in 1984) but in the ENCYCLOPEDIA! I agree that these are offensive as they appear here with racial slurs, black face, and stereotypes (at least racially — I am not offended by the Southern stereotypes at all), but what is wrong with the editted versions that were shown to my generation? Someone said that to display complacencey towards these cartoons was to say that you find some degree of truth in them, I do not AGREE with the truth that is represented here, but it WAS the way things were, it is a true representation of the national attitude toward the Japanese, the Chinese, the Mexican, the Southern, and the Black cultures WAS when these were made. I do NOT think that these cartoons should be aired as they appear here, but I do not understand why the cartoons of MY generation — the editted versions — have been pulled from the air. I miss Bugs,Daffy, and Tweety. My kids are being deprived of a great education in music, art and sarcasm. Instead, they “click! Take a pic!” with Diego and “Vamanos!” with Dora. How will they ever learn to take a joke? They’ve never really SEEN one!

By: nihil

nihil — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:47:06 +0000

A friend of mine, who is a hunter, told me a story about “Bambi” and when he took her, six years old at the time, to see Bambi when it was re-released in the late 80’s. During the scene where Bambi’s mother gets killed she not only pointed out that someone was getting a good venison dinner that night but also more importantly, Bambi’s mother was shot by poachers because it is spring and not deer season. So, yes, children can handle these films.

By: Mari

Mari — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:39:55 +0000

I’m 3/4 Japanese and 1/4 black and… I don’t know, I watched the first one and the Tokio Jokio one. I interpreted them as being satirical- I’m a huge fan of satire- but… the sad thing is that people actually believed these stereotypes….It’s sad that people can’t separate a nationality from an individual…

By: Mojojoelle

Mojojoelle — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:49:30 +0000

For anyone who thinks these kinds of program are “no big deal”, I’d like to think they don’t understand what it felt like, I’m sure, for people of minorities to have to watch this. To have turn to turn on the television, normally used for cheap entertainment, and instead subject themselves to watching their people ridiculed and paraded around like fools.
To think this is “no big deal”, in my opinion, means to find some grain of truth in them, where ideally there should be none.

By: Johnny Cat

Johnny Cat — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 04:07:43 +0000

“Scrub Me Mama…” has to be one of THE most waste-of-art/music/talent examples of the bunch. You can see what the writer was going for: hot summer day with nothin to do (we’ve ALL been there) and then the animators step in and make it completely racist. With good art, aside from the monkeys apparently there to represent humans, and good music, aside from it being stereotypically “Things White People Like” music.

By: Brooklynfemale

Brooklynfemale — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:01:43 +0000

“really though, if you can’t laugh at yourself then lighten up.”

Wow. That’s not right. If blacks, Native Americans and Japanese people had been making these images, then there would be a question of self-loathing I’d have. But black people at the studios in those days were the cleaning staff and cel washers, not the writers and animators. I highly doubt that any Native Americans or Japanese folks even set foot in the animators’ production office.

The voice actors took those jobs so they could get paid, but even then, most of them where white. The people who wrote and animated these features were white males making vicious fun of people of colour.

How in any way could that reality be construed as “ourselves” to be able to laugh at these images without thought? Ignorant, slow-talking, shuffling, gambling, drunken, whorish or warmongering stereotypes are not who people of colour are or were. Damn.

By: K. Zhang

K. Zhang — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:29:03 +0000

To Devin Greaney: I remember that, I saw it when I was really young but the scene where the last soldier drowned(?) in his blood, or something really stuck with me.

While I was never conscious that these cartoons were full of negative stereotypes, it was kinda amazing seeing the change between these and current cartoons. Though today’s cartoon stereotypes seem to be lacking in the funny. (Samurai Champloo episode 23, while entertaining, had nothing on these)

By: Devin Greaney

Devin Greaney — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 03:43:53 +0000

And I remember a weird cartoon where humanity kills itself off through war (the soldiers still had WW I helmets) and the creatures of the forest take over living in a peaceful world.

Sound familiar to anyone?

By: Devin Greaney

Devin Greaney — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 03:36:31 +0000

Thanks to Mental Floss for posting these and treating us like adults big enough to take this.