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Are these cartoons racist?

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Are these cartoons racist?

Are these cartoons racist? If so, why? If not, why not?[LIST]
[*] blackface gags in Tom & Jerry and Tex Avery movies?
[*]the depiction of American Indians in Looney Tunes and MGM cartoons?
[*] Mammy Two Shoes of Tom & Jerry?
[*]Stepin Fetchit ("the laziest man in the world") references?
[*] Bosko and Honey?
[*] Felix, Mickey, Animaniacs: minstrel characters?
[*] Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips and other WW2 Japanese characters?
[*] Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarves?
[*]Speedy Gonzales?
[*]Pepe Le Pew?
[*]The Italian cooks in Lady & the Tramp?
[*]The crows in Dumbo?
[*] Apache Chief, Black Vulcan, and Samurai of Super Friends?
[*]The Harlem Globetrotters cartoon show, where the Globetrotters were the only black people on the show? The rest of the cast were always white.
[*]affirmative action in cartoons (cartoons like Captain Planet where there must be one white boy, one white girl, one black, one latino, and one asian in the cast)?
[*] Minoriteam of Adult Swim?
[*] am I forgetting any?[/LIST]Or is it the other way around?
Are most cartoons prior to the 1970s - Looney Tunes, MGM, Hanna-Barbera, Popeye, etc. - racist by default for never depicting racial minorities? By that criteria, would a cartoon like Coal Black be less racist than most other cartoons of that era?

Now this is a good thread. I don't have the time tonight, but I'll be back tomorrow.

You forgot the crows in "Fritz the Cat", a brilliant cartoon you're sure to hate.

I think Captain Planet is probably the most-racist of any of those cartoons, for the way they depicted individuals who happen to be - through no fault of their own - made out of garbage and/or chemical waste.

There's a big difference between stereotyping and being racist.
Carciaturing the way black entertainers acted in the 1940's isn't racist - it's making a joke of stereotypes, and it's all too often forgotten that those stereotypes were invented and perpetuated by the black entertainers themselves -- they made their money that way.
Did it cause emotional detriment to the black folks who saw those blackface gags -- or were they laughing just like everybody else?
Racism means holding that certain races are superior to others, or, likewise that certain races are inferior to others -- but in cartoons generally, but especially most of the ones like those that you mentioned, everybody is fair game -- everybody's caricatured. If everybody is inferior, nobody's inferior.

Except Pepe Le Pew - the French actually do leave a trail of stink that kills flowers and evacuates cities. :confused:
And as for the Super Harlem (hey! what?! shikkashikkaboom) Globetrotters, I'm always seeing darkies pull jetskis out they afros word :eek:

You seem to be saying that A) stereotyping is not racist and B) there is no such thing as a racist cartoon.

Is there nothing in the Jim Crow Museum that you find racist, given that everything there is based on a stereotype?

view: http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/cartoons/

You seem to be saying that A) stereotyping is not racist and B) there is no such thing as a racist cartoon.

Is there nothing in the Jim Crow Museum that you find racist, given that everything there is based on a stereotype?

view: http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/cartoons/

You need to define racist so one does not assume a definition. With multipul definitions, that would lead to confusion. I know that I am picking nits but if you are going to run with this hot topic this should be addressed first.

racism
n 1: the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races 2: discriminatory or abusive behavior towards members of another race

cartoon
n 1: a humorous or satirical drawing published in a newspaper or magazine 2: a film made by photographing a series of cartoon drawings to give the illusion of movement when projected in rapid sequence

Thanks and as for you question about your list, I have to give a very a big NO. All of those title depict race but are not in any way racist.

OMG, I just read through more of the Jim Crow images?, and that one about the "white baby" and the "black goat" made me laugh out loud. :~)

And then they've even put up R Crumb's "When The Niggers Take Over America", which I'm pretty sure was made as a parody of suburbanwhities' irrational fear of all chocolatefaces. :|
Those museum admins haven't a clue unless there's some little commentary somewhere that admits some of these cartoons are "racist for a good cause", which is a phrase I'm going to use at every opportunity from now on.

Oh, and this is great --

The little cartoon in the bottom lefthand corner?, according to the Jim Crow Museum, it's by the German Nazi Party...
...and so the cartoon that's undoubtedly the most genuinely racist is also the worst drawn.
And that just makes a point all its own. ;)

Guilty on Most Counts

I think most of those cartoons are racists as they are rooted in the Jim Crow idea of what a blacks and other races were. In general, black people mainly fell into a few roles, mammies, bucks and coons in that era. The intent was clear in those early cartoons.

When you get to the modern era of film and animation, you can see the affects that Jim Crow had on understanding other races. This explains the bland characters of the super friends and the Harlem Globetrotters. I don't think they were intended to be racists but rather exposed the lack of knowledge that the film industry had.

in hindsight and with the way society has involved they def are racist. but i think when they came out they probably only represented the thought of the day....

I can only tell if something is racist if it gives me a bad feeling when I see it.

If Pepe Le Pew is racist for stereotyping Frenchmen, then Bugs Bunny is racist for stereotyping New Yawkuhs.

I dunno. I'm white and my hero is a black man.

You could take that cartoon about the watermelon above, and substitute a thousand other situations that wouldn't be racist. For instance, there's a pile of money, a man says "That's a lot of money" and Scrooge McDuck says "It's not nearly enough." The only thing in that cartoon that bugged me was the physical representation of the black man while extra effort seems to have been taken to make the white man look "normal." I'm all for caracture. I wouldn't take offense at a large nose or big lips, but since they made him look like a monkey, that offends me.

It's all but impossible to NOT be racist. Political correctness especially in the media has become a fierce factor to reckon with (-and to my mind quite often borders on hypocrisy, but that's me-). These days, every human rights organisation can easily sue a body no matter what kind of quip gets cracked about whatever minority.
It's not all hypocrisy, of course, because I do believe societies in general have become, if not more tolerant, then at least more aware of issues of ethnicity. It's not even "easy" for me, someone born and raised in Germany, to freely use the word "race" because it was one of the Nazi regime's keywords to propagate their hateful "politics".
However, it's possible to just as easily use the German stereotype as something potentially racist: I'm the son of a Dutch mother, one of my oldest friends is Jewish, I'm bilingual (with smatterings of other languages as well), I am in constant contact with people from Turkey, England, America and Canada and yet there are places where the fact that I got the label "German" on me would invariably lead to some people calling me the nazi-guy. It's happened, it's extremely offensive to me, there's nothing I can really do about it.
In short, Everyone's A Little Bit Racist. Human beings have to think in categories to be able to process the huge load of information pouring in upon us every day and this fact leads to us having certain standardised ideas about things - and people. The real question to me is to what extend we let it guide our actions.

We have to take care when we judge imagery from the past by today's standards. If some of this material were produced today, it would be labeled racist, and for good reason. However offensive our current sensibilities find these images to be, it's important to keep in mind that ours weren't the sensibilities of the time when these works were produced. In other words, it was a different time.

If anything, I think there's a lot of inconsistency in how we deal with imagery of this nature. Uncle Remus isn't allowed to "zip-a-dee-do-dah" onto DVD due to concerns of racism, but Hattie McDaniel can exclaim "I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies!" and it's considered classic cinema, repackaged and reissued constantly. Her performance is every bit as much a stereotype of southern blacks of that era, but since it's in a "classic" film, we gloss over it.

One reaps what one sows.

EDIT:
All anybody has to do is watch Fritz the Cat and StreetFight/Coonskin, and then you start to "get it". That's all it takes. Thanks, Bakshi.

http://www.rotten.com/library/culture/banned-cartoons/

Here you go. A nice article on the subject.

If you want to watch banned cartoons, goto Youtube.com and you'll find most if not all. Watched Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips last night along with the Donald Duck ones mentioned in the article.

Phil

Good points by many. Wanted to mention that this is history. Whether or not it is allowed now without repercussions is another thing. But you can't erase what has come in the past. Also, it's not fair to hold back the history. If our culture is ever allowed to learn from things, they must be taught from the perspective of the times. How can you teach your children not to be a racist, if they're not even subjected to racism. So when a situation arises when the child hears a racial slur, they may repeat it innocently, not knowing that they're saying something wrong or frowned upon by society, and it makes the child and parents look bad.

For example, when I was a little boy, of probably 5 or 6, I used to hang out with my uncles, who were 10 and 12 years older than I was, making them teens. One of their friends was this dark, spanish guy. His nickname was "nigger". Everyone called him that, and it was a friendly term for him. But when I said the word around my parents, they yelled at me. My being so young, I was never subjected to this word and therefore actually believed it was the guy's name. So I got scolded for something I didn't know. And that was wrong. Children should know these terms, cartoons, advertisements, and books and other such media. If they are taught properly, and taught to be a good person not to use such offensive language, then they will hopefully never be put in a situation where they may get some type of punishment for using the language.

Phil

So when a situation arises when the child hears a racial slur, they may repeat it innocently, not knowing that they're saying something wrong or frowned upon by society

There's a great example of this in "Clerks II". It's played for laughs, of course, and involves a phrase one of the characters heard his grandmother use repeatedly. He never knew it was a racial slur until he uses it decades later.

Yup. It's all about intent.
I break it down this way:
"ethnic", "racial" and "racist".
Ethnic humour in these cartoons are like Yiddish accents and gags written in Hebrew in the Fleischer cartoons. Kind of an in-joke. More broadly, giving the New York flavour of these films. It is okay to make these jokes if you are a part of the identity group.
"Racial" and "racist" are not necessarily exclusive of one another but it is possible. They both do rely on stereotype. A typical racial gag is the explosion-black face gag. The infantile punchline being the character looks like a racial caricature. A racial gag may be ignorant by today's standards but directors back then may've seen it as harmless and had no agenda to keep a minority group down. Everyone and everything was made fun of.
Racist is really matter of intention. A racist cartoon portrays an individual or group as inferior or uses a individual or minority group as a convenient buffoon playing into the prejudicial notions of its time like Lantz's Lazytown or Jones' Angel Puss. Stereotypes are convenient. If , for example, it is commonly held by the majority viewing audience that a group is slow and dim-witted then little is needed for establishing that character and the director can go straight into action.
Defenders of these cartoons will always point to Homer Simpson or Elmer Fudd. They are stupid and White but these guys aren't stupid becasue they're White...that's the difference between these and the worse of the race cartoons.
Btw I love most of these cartoons and am not for censoring but certainly need to be shown in the historical context and the social climate of which they were made.
Anyway, that's how I slice it.

A friend is drawing a cartoon with lots of black characters, and said it's just about impossible to do a simplified, stylized, identifiably black character that SOMEbody won't find racist. Caricature is just like that.

You also have to take the time a cartoon was made into account before labeling the person who made it. A racist cartoon can be a fairly neutral statement that comes out of a racist era. Take Tex Avery's All This And Rabbit Stew. Shockingly racist by today's standards, but that was just a particular brand of comedy at the time.

.

.

It's even become a no-no to call characters "stupid" in cartoons because it's potentially offensive to "mentally challenged" people.
In nine out of ten cases, cartoons incorporate caricature and in nine out of ten out of the nine out of ten cases it's going to rub someone the wrong way.
All in all, it has to do with social acceptance. It was quite OK for Warner during WWII to portray Germans and Japanese in less than flattering ways; after all, they were the enemy. Apart from that, I think there are differences in quality, too: I found "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" extremely unimaginative and boring (-disregarding stuff like Bugs calling Japanese soldiers "monkey faces"-) whereas "Daffy the Commando" made me chuckle.

So, why are Homer and Elmer stupid?

they are stupid for comedic effect by what they say and do.
Homer exists among a diverse cast of white peopl....

waitaminnit.....
Homer's yellow!

Okay....Elmer exists among.....animals! waitaminnit!

Ok I guess Elmer proves humans are stupid. NOW I'm offended.

they are stupid for comedic effect by what they say and do.
Homer exists among a diverse cast of white peopl....

waitaminnit.....
Homer's yellow!

Okay....Elmer exists among.....animals! waitaminnit!

Ok I guess Elmer proves humans are stupid. NOW I'm offended.

Homer proves that bipedals CAN be stupid.

Which...........I don't have a lot of problems with.

"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)

but Hattie McDaniel can exclaim "I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies!" and it's considered classic cinema, repackaged and reissued constantly. Her performance is every bit as much a stereotype of southern blacks of that era, but since it's in a "classic" film, we gloss over it.

..that was Butterfly McQueen (sp?) actually.

...If your intent in drawing/printing something is to show how inferior (mentally, physically, spiritually etc.) "they" are compared to "us" , then you have created something with bigoted intent.

..that was Butterfly McQueen (sp?) actually.

Thanks, meriweather. That's what I get for relying on my memory...

I still can not wrap my brain around the idea that a characterization of another race is racism.

Some claim something is racist if it offends a majority of the race being depicted. Where others see harmless caricatures, minorities may see the same stereotypes that reenforced the kind of public opinion that lead to their respective holocausts.

Maybe a bunch of white guys - who generally aren't going to be personally offended by this stuff - aren't the best judges of how racist this material is or isn't.

Some claim something is racist if it offends a majority of the race being depicted. Where others see harmless caricatures, minorities may see the same stereotypes that reenforced the kind of public opinion that lead to their respective holocausts.

Maybe a bunch of white guys - who generally aren't going to be personally offended by this stuff - aren't the best judges of how racist this material is or isn't.

So unless we're offended by it, we have to be wrong - because we're honkeys? You so RACIST. :eek:

Yeah, I read a comic strip that had a black liking watermelon, suddenly I feel like burning a cross and lynching me a nigger.
Yeah, I just saw a cartoon where a Jew had a big nose and a funny hat, and suddenly I'm a big fan of Hitler.
That Italian cartoon character says "-a" after every word!, I think they should be drug into the street and shot.

I think the individuals within those minorities who are getting offended - and convincing other people that they need to be offended, who, in turn, constitute the rest of the offended apart from the aforementioned ringleaders - are a bunch of political types who, rather than do anything genuinely helpful for their nationality or ethnicity or - heaven forbid! - class, play up so-called "racism" to try to prove to their potential supporters that they're all on the same team. Regular black folks like StreetFight. Al Sharpton hates it. Get what I mean?
To act like cartoon caricatures are any kind of injustice worth consideration - in our era, in the world we live in, with all that's going wrong - is just completely disconnected from reality -- no "genuine" person, nobody who hasn't got some motive or a tendency to academic navel-staring, cares.

So unless we're offended by it, we have to be wrong - because we're honkeys?

I'm simply saying that
black people are going to be more offended by negative black stereotypes in media than non-blacks,
Jews are going to be more offended by negative Jewish stereotypes in media than non-Jews,
etc.
No group is more vocally opposed to black parodies than the NAACP.
No group is more vocally opposed to Jewish parodies than the ADL.
White people (the majority in North America) are going to be the least offended by negative stereotypes of ethnic minorities, because white people don't directly feel the social and economic impact of these stereotypes.
And if that still seems confusing to you, here's an extreme example:
In Nazi Germany, cartoon parodies of Jews, as evil blood-sucking rat-people, fueled the hatred of that minority. Non-Jewish Germans (so-called Aryans) were not being physically attacked, and were not having their businesses boycotted due to these representations.

I think Ecec's painting himself as a "honky" is both descriptive and definitive.

Racism is in and of itself a defense mechanism activated in order to belittle others that seem to threaten the one casting aspersions on another.

In order to feel superior small people have to paint others as in some way as inferior to themselves in order to feel powerful.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

ecec, you can have a discussion about race without resorting to racial slurs.

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Another Point of View

As a black man, I can’t look at those cartoons and simply dismiss the fact that they intended to perpetuate stereotypes of black people and other races. It’s easy to say it is just a cartoon drawing and means nothing but these are the same characterizations that the KKK and other racist groups used in their propaganda. These cartoons are directly connected to the reconstruction era ideology and are far from harmless.

The only use for those cartoons is to teach the youth about misinterpreting one another’s race.

I'm simply saying that
black people are going to be more offended by negative black stereotypes in media than non-blacks,
Jews are going to be more offended by negative Jewish stereotypes in media than non-Jews,
etc.

Making sweeping generalizations concerning the predispositions of entire peoples, are we?

RACIST. :mad:

:rolleyes:

Making sweeping generalizations concerning the predispositions of entire peoples, are we?

RACIST. :mad:

:rolleyes:

ecec, if you seriously believe that making generalizations is racist, then you need to review that definition of the word "racism" that I posted above. You and Wontobe seem to be very confused about what racism is - despite the definition being freely available on numerous dictionary sites - so let me explain it to you.

Noticing that certain people think and act differently than other people is nowhere in the definition of racism, anymore than noticing that men and women behave differently is in the definition of sexism.
Racism is the belief that some ethnicities are inferior to others. By extrapolation, a racist cartoon would be one that depicts a race of people as inferior.

I can see that this topic is just a big joke to you. You have no honest argument, just mindless hostility: schoolyard-grade taunts, snide sarcasm, and hyperbole. Perhaps you should leave this to people who want to advance their understanding of the issue, and go behave like a child elsewhere.

I can see that this topic is just a big joke to you. You have no honest argument, just mindless hostility: schoolyard-grade taunts, snide sarcasm, and hyperbole. Perhaps you should leave this to people who want to advance their understanding of the issue, and go behave like a child elsewhere.

And now you're making broad generalizations about children - saying that they all are dishonest, mindlessly hostile, snide and given to hyperbole. For shame, Harvey - does your outrageous prejudice know no boundaries? First the Americans can't "understand" anime so when they say it sucks they have to be wrong, then the whites don't care about the blacks or Jews, then the blacks hate cartoons with black caricatures in them, then the Jews hate Jewish caricatures - and now little children are designated, by you, mis-behaved monstrosities. You're sick. :mad:

The "big[gest] joke", of course, is that you don't know you've been it.

Have fun with Harvey everybody, he'll "advance your understanding" of his unassailable correctness - unless you're too confused/white to understand. ;)

First the Americans can't "understand" anime so when they say it sucks they have to be wrong, then the whites don't care about the blacks or Jews, then the blacks hate cartoons with black caricatures in them, then the Jews hate Jewish caricatures - and now little children are designated, by you, mis-behaved monstrosities.

I ask whether certain cartoons are racist or not, and you explode.
I make an observation about the nature of racism, and - having no rational response - you mock, attack me personally, and make up lies about things I've supposedly said.

Why are you personally threatened by this topic?

Why does the reasonable discussion of racism turn you into a raving lunatic?

Again, if you don't want to discuss an adult topic as if you were an adult, maybe you should just go scream on a street corner somewhere.

So according to Ecec Anime is a race now? I am confused.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

Oh, Harvey. :)

Here are some definitions for you. :)

sar·casm ( P ) Pronunciation Key (särkzm)
n.
2: A form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language and is intended to make its victim the butt of contempt or ridicule.

friv·o·lous ( P ) Pronunciation Key (frv-ls)
adj.
not serious in content or attitude or behavior

hu·mor ( P ) Pronunciation Key (hymr)
n.
1: The quality that makes something laughable or amusing; funniness: could not see the humor of the situation.
2: That which is intended to induce laughter or amusement: a writer skilled at crafting humor.
3: The ability to perceive, enjoy, or express what is amusing, comical, incongruous, or absurd. See Synonyms at wit.

Try to "advance" yourself some of that last entry. :) Try watching some racist cartoons, they've got lots of it.

Why just beat up on Harvey? I've questioned your motives as well.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

I would like for the tribal American to be included in the mix of to offen or not to offen. Umm...are we heading for a void of no race being use as a source for caricatures?

Someone in an earlier post pointed out that the racism comes from supporting stero typing of a group of people, like the are dishonest or dum.
Maybe if a character is being used to promote something negative then there might be rascism but if that character is give positive and negative trates then there is no rascism. Anyone watching "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy"?

hu·mor ( P ) Pronunciation Key (hymr)
n.
1: The quality that makes something laughable or amusing; funniness: could not see the humor of the situation.
2: That which is intended to induce laughter or amusement: a writer skilled at crafting humor.
3: The ability to perceive, enjoy, or express what is amusing, comical, incongruous, or absurd. See Synonyms at wit.

Try to "advance" yourself some of that last entry. :) Try watching some racist cartoons, they've got lots of it.

Who is laughing?
You're like the noisy drunk frat boy who thinks he's funny.
Acting like an idiot does not automatically make you funny. In your case, it simply makes you obnoxious.

Who is laughing?
You're like the noisy drunk frat boy who thinks he's funny.
Acting like an idiot does not automatically make you funny. In your case, it simply makes you obnoxious.

Have some repressed anger towards fratboys, do we? ;) What was it, Harvey? A vicious wedgie? A merciless hazing in your freshman year? Incessant ear-flicking? Maybe they called you a bad name? We'll be your shoulder to cry on.

You really have a terrible personality, Ecec.
I can't think of a worse punishment than you having to spend the rest of your life with the scumbag you see in your mirror every morning. :D

ECEC: What's the matter? You racist against scumbags? Uh-huh-huh-huh-huh. You're making generalizations about mirrors, you racist. Uh-huh-huh-huh-huh. Did some personalities beat you up? Uh-huh-huh-huh-huh.

I'm going to rise above it and put you on ignore rather than help you derail an interesting thread. :p

Ah, that's better. I suddenly feel liberated.

Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, I am free at last! :D

Ah, that's better. I suddenly feel liberated.

Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, I am free at last! :D

I been liberated for a couple months now, but then I pegged the kid pretty early.

"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)

Are you telling me niggers don't look like that? :confused:

naw but seriously :)
First of all, the people who run that museum are idiots. The crows in Fritz and the characters in Coonskin/StreetFight were reactions against the mainstream stereotypes, similar on the outside but very different in their substance - Bakshi was doing something for American blacks with those characters. The admins of that museum would seem to believe that any stereotyping is racist, which is ridiculous.

In that picture up-above however, it's clearly not the case that "everyone's fair game" -- whitey is pretty perfect, there, except his ascot could do with a little louche, if he's to follow Brummel's example (as we all should). He comes off as superior - to the nigger. This particular little cartoon is racist because of that -- but to be fair, a lot of black entertainers made their moneys acting just like that cartoonigger, shouting "sho nuff boss!" to a rigmarole of perfect, white, Hollywood leading men; the blame isn't solely on the artists.
In plenty of the other cartoons, it's not quite like that - the stereotype isn't set beside something far superior, but rather another stereotype of something else - or all by itself. It's a crazy part of an equally crazy world. Cows don't talk, and blacks don't really have lips that contain half their face -- but in the cartoons, you exaggerate.
American black entertainers have done themselves a real disservice over the past 100-or-so years -- but they perpetuated various images in the realm of entertainment (minstrel, shonuff, pimpin', gangsta, etc.), and so it's no wonder that within the realm of entertainment those images they've used are echoed and in cartoons they were, appropriately, caricatured and exaggerated. Were those blacks racist? No - they just acted like stereotypes. It's a matter of stereotypes, not racism.

I wish someone would play with the stereotypes of black American culture that prevail today - they'd stir up all sorts of shit, but the gangsta scene needs to be parodied and satired ruthlessly - it deserves it, just as much as the uncle toms who softshoed for Hollywood deserved these grotesque caricatures.

Except Pepe Le Pew - the French actually do leave a trail of stink that kills flowers and evacuates cities. :confused:

So I guess with your standards it is ok to paint all arabs as terrorist and suicide bombers. When Pepe Le Pew was created the French were considered allies and brave freedom fighters by the general public. It is only now that ignorant people forget those contributiions and focus on their protest of the call to war that was based on faulty or fabricated intelligence.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

The term "honky" refers to a white male, who would drive into a black neighborhood and honk his car horn. When the poor black families heard the sound, they would send their daughters out for the white men, who would have their way with them, and then give them money.

I used to think, "I'm a honky. It's cool." I don't think that anymore.

I'm an Okie (C.I.O - California Improved Okie), and I know it's a generalization, but every Okie I know is trustworthy. You could have an Okie starving to death, and if you dropped five bucks, he'd say "Hey, mister. You dropped your five bucks."

I want to ask my original question again - in detail this time - since I didn't get much response to individual cartoons and characters.
Don't feel obligated to answer every question. One cartoon or series would be great.

For those who feel that some of the cartoons I listed are racist, which cartoons are racist and why?
Have any of the banned cartoons been unfairly catagorized as racist, and why?

Mammy Two-Shoes - the maid in the Tom & Jerry cartoons - was excised from those T&J films in the 1960s, and replaced by a white character; but recently she's been reinserted into many of those cartoons.
What made Mammy Two-Shoes suddenly go from being a racist representation to not being a racist representation? Why is she now more acceptable than she was in the 1960s?
http://members3.boardhost.com/mammytwoshoes/msg/98.html

Adult Swim's Minoriteam is a superhero parody in which each hero is based on a classic racial stereotype: the Chinese character is a vampiric-looking Fu Manchu type, the Latino is a bandito, etc.
I have talked with people who feel this show is entertaining but racist. Is Minoriteam racist, and - if so - where is the racism? If it's racist, why has there been no major outcry against it? If it's not racist, what qualities have negated the racism?
http://www.adultswim.com/shows/minoriteam/

Bosko is industrious, hardworking, and talented.
Is he a positive black role model?
Or are Bosko cartoons automatically racist due to his physical features (i.e., blackface or minstrel look)?
Are huge lips on a black caricature racist? If so, does that mean that huge noses on white caricatures are racist?
Is it automatically racist to accentuate features that are unique to particular races (e.g., slanted eyes on Asians), or is there a tipping point (e.g., "do not slant the eyes more than 30 degrees," "do not increase the lip size more than 50%")?
http://bosko.toonzone.net/characters/bosko/

I had a conversation on this forum about the new Boondocks show where a forum member said he was offended by its stereotypes.
I hear few complaints about live-action stereotypes like the pimp in Superman the Movie, the regulars at the club in Animal House, the jive-talkers in Airplane, and most of the protagonists in Undercover Brother.
Are the characters in Clampett's Coal Black worse than all those characters in those live-action movies? When is it okay to use stereotypes that are specific to a particular race, and when is it not okay? Do cartoon stereotypes need to age a few decades before they become or are recognized as racist? Will Boondocks, Minoriteam, South Park, and Drawn Together be banned 20 years from now for their ethnic stereotypes?
http://www.theboondockstv.com/

BLACK JURY MEMBER (voiced by Seth Green): [I]Yeh, then the 5-0 plant the DNA evidence. You can't trust the po-leese. One time a po-leese take-a ma shoeshine box, beat me with it! Ma Loadie!
[everyone looks at him in horror]
What, every black man on the TV gots to be a posimative role model?[/I]
- Robot Chicken, episode "Midnight Snack"

Mammy Two-Shoes - the maid in the Tom & Jerry cartoons - was excised from those T&J films in the 1960s, and replaced by a white character; but recently she's been reinserted into many of those cartoons.
What made Mammy Two-Shoes suddenly go from being a racist representation to not being a racist representation? Why is she now more acceptable than she was in the 1960s?
http://members3.boardhost.com/mammytwoshoes/msg/98.html

I think with Mammy it was the timing of the characterization. The Civil Rights movement was at it's peak between 1955 and 1965. I think the US was obviously trying to revise stereotypical attitudes by removing her character in the sixties. It's been forty years now. Attitudes have changed. With the advent of hiphop and gangsta, this sort of characterization is probably seen as more nostalgic and less threatening now than other generalized stereotypes.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

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