Since I would pay lots and lots of money to have CT play their anime/original shows instead of old WB and HB reruns late night, I’m not sure I care what they broadcast. It’s archival releases, like DVDs, that I’d be most worried about, and wouldn’t want to see released ONLY in PC sanitized format. This is about public access to things of historical import, race references and all.
However, that said, I also support the right of the copyright holder to bow to whatever demands they feel like and release their content in any form they please. I have a preference for accuracy, not a legal or moral right to demand it.
Since CN is a unit of Turner, which bought MGM, including its cartoon library, and Hanna-Barbera, including its cartoon library, and also the Warner Brothers cartoon library up to about 1948 (i.e. mostly stuff that’s many times as intolerable as it is intolerant), and then Time Warner, neé AOL Time Warner, neé Time Warner, neé Warner Communications, which had held onto the rest of the Warner cartoon library (i.e., the good stuff) even when it sold the earlier chunk to Turner (or maybe it was MGM, I’m not sure), seized the broadcast rights back to same good stuff back from Disney’s ABC network when that contract finally expired–
Airman- I’d like to re-ask someone else’s question, because I was curious as to what your answer would be, but you didn’t notice the question: Does it bother you when networks bleep “swear words”? The reason I ask (re-ask) is, I generally agree with you that such things would be better if left un-edited. In fact, I find bleeping to be even more offensive than the censorship you cited. In my opinion, the very idea that there are some words that some people just shouldn’t hear is extremely offensive.
But here’s the catch, I don’t resent (too much) such forms of censorship because I realize that different people have different ideas of what’s okay, and CN is just trying to please all of the people all of the time. And like most things, they don’t always get it right. But it’s one of those situations where you probably won’t notice it until they screw it up.
Have you seen “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips”? With the portrayal of the Japanese as all buck-toothed and bespectacled? It’s not because we wish to “not offend a country we were at war with”, it’s because some people are smart enough to recognize that that shit is offensive in general.
Jesus. People here are in a snit-shit because they can’t watch blackface comedy and horrible racial stereotypes? Get a fucking grip, people.
As for CN not being a nanny- well, good for you. Glad to see you’re watching your kid 24 hours a day, constantly eyeing what’s on the TV, and monitoring every possible item for content. Oh, wait, you’re not. Occasionally, you’re having a life. Or going to the bathroom. And making the- apparently stupid, from the way so many of the posters here seem to see the world- assumption that letting your kid watch T.V. will not fill his mind with racist images. But no, no, you goofed, now your son is laughing at the constantly-drunk Irishman who fights everyone, because some goon got all pissy that the “p.c. police” would let Paddy O’Pisser get censored.
Oh, come on. It’s not like “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips” was a historical documentary, important for children’s understanding of WWII. I don’t know what sort of educational value there is for kids in seeing Bugs handing out bomb-laced ice cream while saying, “Here you go, slant-eyes.”
I think these cartoons are important historically. They are a vivid portrait of the era’s racial tensions, and in that respect, they do have educational value. (My husband actually shows some of these cartoons to his Sociology students.) But I don’t think that young children will be able to understand them on that level.
Am I reading the OP correctly? Deleting stereotypically demeaning images from cartoons shown during childrens’ viewing hours is a bad thing? Is that really what he said?
I’m not sure how much blame should be placed on Warner…
Warner Bros. currently owns DC Comics. DC has been republishing a lot of old 1940s’ comics in Archive format, some of which also has blatantly racist portrayals. Case in point: I’ve got some Wonder Woman stories where, a la the aforementioned Bugs Bunny cartoons, the Japanese are short, bucktoothed, and idiotic. Likewise, the Plastic Man Archives has some shots of short black men with ungodly huge lips.
…of course, I admit that the difference here is that cartoons are accessible by kids, while DC’s Archives cost $50 a pop and are usually bought by discriminating adults such as myself. Hey, it’s still an inconsistency.
Side question: is there still anyplace I can find that old Donald Duck cartoon where he dreams he’s a Nazi?
It’s amazing. Where were you 20 years ago, chique? Now they’re stereotypically horrible? What were they when I was a kid? Oh, that’s right, they were CARTOONS, not some big conspiracy to oppress minorities.
You know what? They’re still funny. When I was a kid, I didn’t even know what “blackface” was. I just thought it was funny as hell to see Tom sticking his face in a teapot and having it blow up in his face, making it black with a sunflower shaped thing around his head.
And now, for whatever reason, even though they were good enough for my parents, even though they were good enough for me, suddenly they’re not good enough for my kids without some arbiter of right and wrong altering out the offensive images and leaving in what I consider even more offensive images? Give me a break.
anti-censorship people: admit that it would be wrong to show the cartoons that are anti-nazi/anti-japanese propoganda in kids show time slots because there is no good reason for it… its outdated and there is no longer a need to scare kids about nazis like that. and a show about bugs bunny calling japanese slant eyes isn’t something for kids. admit it.
pro-censorship people: admit that not everything that is censored needs to be, and jokes that are so obscure no kid that doesn’t already know about the subject can get are okay. and there is no good reason to cut out speedy gonzolis or every gun referance. admit it.
Airman Doors: So what do you think about cartoons that were deliberately written and animated in order to have humor at the direct expense of minorities? Yeah, nowadays most of us adults know that it’s offensive and don’t do it anymore, but those cartoons were products of their times, and set out with the express purpose of kicking the Japs or the niggers or whatever.
There’s a pretty big difference between those and a cartoon with one suicide gag. So what do you think of 'em? Who should be able to see it anytime?
Yeah, and now you’re supposed to be an adult and it’s two-thousand-fucking-three, not the Jim Crow era. If you think blackface is justifiable in this day and age have at it. I think it’s disgusting.
Thanks, John Corrado, for minimizing my own childhood experiences. Would you prefer I’d learned about stereotypes through my largely racist teachers and classmates – or even Iron Eyes Cody – or through non-confrontational medium, and dialog with my own father? Granted, it’s not a day down to the Art Institute, but it’s at least a start for a humble country critter such as Mr. B?
I saw a great analogy to my life through Airman Doors’s OP and you shat right on it without even considering the ways our lives were influenced by the Idiot Box around which a lot of us were raised.
You know what? I had a quaint little thing called a bedtime. I had a budget of 1.5 hours of TV per night, unless it was PBS. And my parents watched it with me until I was old enough to understand the crap the networks were slinging.
Yes, I hate it when they do bad dubs, or bleep stuff out, or whatever. Censorship is the biggest copout in the world. It’s a CYA measure that assumes that people are too stupid to know what’s good for them or their kids.
Take Jackass, for example. That show is indicative of all that is wrong with society right now. But you know what? I saw 10 minutes of it one time, realized how insanely stupid and bizarre it was, and shut it off. Other people watch it, emulate it, and die. That’s not my problem. If they derive some sort of enjoyment out of it, who am I to say anything? If they want to dive from the top of a building and smash themselves on the poolside, let 'em have at it. The responsibility for such actions falls on them, not me.
There is nothing that anyone can censor that I can’t self-censor better simply by shutting it the hell off. That is my responsibility, not yours.
What ever happened to personal responsibility and taking responsibility for your own actions and those that are in your care? That’s my counter-argument for censorship. It’s my problem, not yours.
Yes, they’re cartoons. So what? How does that make them somehow less offensive? If I’m a black guy, just trying to enjoy an afternoon of cartoons, why do I need a reminder of how much it used to suck to be black in this country? It’s not a conspiracy, for fuck’s sake, it’s a buzzkill.
For that matter, if I’m a parent, and I’m watching cartoons with my kid, I don’t necessarily want to use the experience as a launching pad so I can explain the evils of racial prejudice and why he’s not supposed to call little Billy Nakayama down the street a “nip,” even if Bugs Bunny did it. I just want to watch some fucking cartoons with my kid. If Cartoon Network can’t give me that experience, I’ll take my viewing time to another network. If enough viewers feel the way I do, Cartoon Network starts losing money. So what do they do? They edit the cartoons! Because that’s what the consumer demand is: nice, unoffensive cartoons where hypercephalic hunters are horribly mangled by woodland creatures.
I remember once, when I was a kid, I saw a Klan rally in a movie, and I thought all those guys in white robes looked really neat. It must be a lot of fun, I thought, to run around in the woods dressed up like ghosts. And then they have a giant campfire! It’s like Scouts! Except, of course, not. Yeah, you didn’t know about blackface when you were a kid, and therefore couldn’t know that the cartoon was intended to be derogatory. You’re not a kid anymore. What’s your excuse now?
Actually, they weren’t good enough for your parents, they weren’t good enough for you, and they aren’t good enough for your kids. The fact that these images were ever considered acceptable is shameful, but thank God, we live in a more enlightened society today. They should certainly be preserved, because, good or ill, they’re part of our cultural heritage. And they should be available to collectors and historians. But they should not be aired to children as if these attitudes are acceptable in today’s society.
So all the effort minorities put into getting those images off of television should be tossed out the window just because you think it’s censorship, and to hell with what they think?
Sorry, but…effort as an argument? That’d make about as much sense as a white supremacist group going through years of toil and millions of dollars to get the 13th Amendment repealed, and telling their protesters, “But they worked so hard at it!”
I can understand the arguments that taste and racial sensitivity should justify quietly putting the cartoons away…but effort? C’mon, you were on a roll before.
