If you want to know why CN is not airing those 12 Bugs shorts...

[J Lee]

Check out this link below to Wednesday's New York Post, and prepare to get mad:

Big Bad Bugs (http://www.pagesix.com/celebritynews/27129.htm)

Remember, the Post is considered the conservative, non politically correct paper in New York, so if you get an attitude like that in here, imagine what would spring up from other media sources there. This is why WNEW in New York began censoring the Warner's cartoons over 40 years ago, and why AOL Time Warner is so nervous about running the shorts -- much as I disagree, they have to be concerned about the least tolerant viewing areas since Cartoon Network is a national channel, and while at least 10 of the 12 cartoons would likely play without problems in 95 percent of the country, AOL/TW has to cover its butt to prevent stuff like this from coming from the other five percent of the nation.

[Brian Cruz]

Once again, no mention that the cartoons would have aired at 3am, or that most have aired regularly in the past few years anyway. I'm 100% this guy hasn't even watched the cartoons. But why would he? God forbid any of these "journalists" put facts into their stories. And he has the gall to presume that the WB animators were racist? He can take his misguided opinions and stick them where the sun don't shine. :mad:

[barnyarddawg]

That's obviously somebody who's never watched a cartoon in his life, and is ignorant of history. If a moron like him get's his way, a movie like Gone With the Wind would be banished. Come on, would we really miss it? It's not that imporatant.

[Jack]

Yeah, I mean, MGM made soooo many OTHER movies, who would miss Gone With The Wind.

I was thinking the same thing as the rest of you, it's astonishing how they EXAGERATE what goes on as if "big baboon" is equal to the "n" word, or as if Friz Freleng, Tex Avery, Robert McKimson, Bob Clampett, and Chuck Jones were members of the KKK.





Jack:eek:

[Patrick McCart]

That's just a bunch of bull!

I think Adam needs to actually WATCH one of those cartoons instead of making up stuff.

This goofball obviously thinks the "big baboon" comment was meant to be a racial slur!

Didn't Bugs call Taz a big baboon in one cartoon?

Sheesh, all this junk about the cartoons being racist is making me sick! Why can't they just EDIT some of this cartoons? Frigid Hare would be fixed with no work. Also, why can't they just substitute the Little Hiawatha cartoon clip from What's Cookin' Doc with something like A Wild Hare?

http://cztoondb.tripod.com/bb.gif

[snowpeck]

Well it really doesn't matter about What's Cooking Doc anymore anyway since that one is airing in the marathon after all.

gcb

[happyheathen]

So, what have we got? A heretic who thinks that maybe we ACTUALLY SHOULD THINK about the appropiateness of making such 'toons in the first place.
It IS a legitimate question, however you decide it.
This is a different question than censorship, in that it asks 'what were they thinking when they made that crap?'

In the words of an animation student who had just seen the 'censored 11' for the first time: 'HOLY CRAP!'. She went on to say that she could not believe that such garbage existed.
This from a college student (upstate NY, if memory serves).

How about it?
Should such racist crap been made?

I was raised to love the U.S. while hating about 90% of the people in it, for one reason or another, so I have heard about every offensive term (no, I don't care to hear any 'new' ones), but even I am offended by the term 'half-breed' ('Horse Hare, 1960).

so:

was it:

a. The directors, et al, did not know better.
b. The directors, et al, knew better, but decided to pander to the racist mentality of the time.

interesting choice


the times haven't changed all that much... (sorry, bob)

dave

[Larry T]

Here's a guy saying basically, "Well, the creators of these cartoons are NOT innocent because they were products of their times and therefore are NOT entitled to expressing their viewpoints"....."But here's MY my opinion, I have a right to express it".

Plus, you'd think that someone who was slamming someone else for what he defines as "a bunch of racists" would re-word his own opinon to state, "Among the caricatured groups who may be offended, according to Cartoon Network execs, are African-Americans, Native-Americans, Inuits, Asians, and Aryans. (these last two being deadly enemies of the United States at the time the cartoons were made)."

Hmm- sounds like someone trying to hide his own viewpoint by pointing out the faults somewhere else.......:mad: He obviously has watched enough "racist stereotyping" if he can identify the caricatures as "buck-toothed braves and the black characters in chauffer's or porter's uniforms shuffling their feet and bugging their eyes out. "

Methinks the only lame excuse here is the one that he submits on a regular basis to an online publication......
:rolleyes:

[laugh4me]

Originally posted by happyheathen
but even I am offended by the term 'half-breed' ('Horse Hare, 1960).

so:

was it:

a. The directors, et al, did not know better.
b. The directors, et al, knew better, but decided to pander to the racist mentality of the time.



Well, I think you missed an obvious possibility. Maybe the term "half-breed" was a neutral term that was used casually back then and had not gained the emotional baggage we now attribute to it? I suggest this because my grandmother was a "half-breed" and I recall family using that term freely without intending anything negative. It's also not an uncommon term from westerns of that vintage.
But times do change and since today we take offense at the term I do not use it out of courtesy.

It's always tempting to judge those in the past using our present biases and sensitivities rather than their contemporary ones. Some call this cartoon racist because if it were written today it would fit our current definition.
What if in 10 years or so someone decides the term "maroon" is a derogatory term for Native-Americans? Will we then have to exclude the Bugs cartoons containing that term, and will self-righteous revisionist journalists suddenly declare the writers of the cartoons to be racists for using this objectionable evil word?
(This example comes to mind because I actually heard someone voice this opinion once and she wasn't entirely convinced when I explained that it was just Brooklynese for "moron").

[Matthew Hunter]

Well, I don't particularly like the "half-breed" gag either. However, it's a CARTOON. C-A-R-T-O-O-N. NOT REAL. Something many people are overlooking here is that these cartoons are indeed based on ethnic stereotypes, but they are outlandish ones. They're supposed to be funny, not offensive. Not all Indians lived in tepees and shot arrows, nor did they all wear feathers and say 'ug" and "how". They need to give their audience some credibility to be smart enough to understand that. You have a stupid Indian, or in the case of "Horse Hare", a whole bunch of stupid Indians, and you're a racist director. What about the 'Lone Ranger", or any of the TV western classics of live-action? even Marhall Dillon of "Gunsmoke" and Paladin of "Have gun Will Travel" had some unpleasant run-ins with Native Americans at times. Cowboys and Indians is as much a part of history as it is Hollywood, it's a classic rivalry. Everyone played "cowboys and indians" as a kid at least once. Because someone made a cartoon about that rivalry doesn't mean he's a racist, it just seemed like a funny situation to place Bugs Bunny in at the time. A realistic Native American would be boring, so they put a FUNNY one in there. Geez. What are they gonna say next, that coyotes watch television, and that wile E. Coyote ought to be banned because he's offensive to coyotes? Speedy because he's offensive to-no, wait, that already happened.
-Matthew

[J Lee]

While I'm not under any misconception that times have changed and lots of things that were acceptable 50 and 60 years ago are not now, there's a certain pompousness to people who assume that their morality and sensabilities of 2001 should be the guiding light on how we judge people from the 1930s and 40s.

FDR never intergrated the military during World War II, does that mean he should be looked upon as a backward pro-segragationist instead of as a Democratic Party icon and one of the greated presidents of all time? No, and FDR even gets a begruding pass to this day for the Japanese internment camps on the West Coast during World War II because people still realize that times were different back then. The attitudes FDR had and dealt with were the same ones that led to the making of "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" and other cartoons like Famous' "You're A Sap, Mr. Jap," and should be taken in their proper context, not as though the conditions of 2001 existed in 1943.

I am not going to defend the characture in "All This And Rabbit Stew" -- aside from being racist, the cartoon's ending is also dull, since the picture stops dead in its tracks after the great log routine to show 20 seconds of two hands clutching dice from behind a bush -- sterotypical and boring. But outside of that, and the Japanse soldiers in "Bugs Bunny Nips The Nips" (where the hostility is understandable) I don't see any of the other 10 banned cartoons as having any deliberate maliciousness in them; if they did Bugs' adversaries would fare about as well as the Stepin Fetchit hunter from "Stew" who gets stipped naked by Bugs at the finish. Instead, look at how the other cartoons with the alleged racial stereotypes end.

1.) Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt -- Haiwatha (who's a characture not of an Indian, but of Disney's Ward Kimball anyway) paddles his canoe back and gives a suprised Bugs a taste of his own medicine with a big wet one on the lips;

2.) What's Cooking Doc -- After showing the Hiawatha scenes, Bugs is pelted by fruit and kissed by the booby prize Oscar.

3.) A Feather In His Hare -- Bugs faints next to the Indian after finding out the stork has a few surprises for him as well.

4.) Mississippi Hare -- Col. Shuffle gets beaten up, Bugs misses out on a romantic ending.

5.) Which Is Witch? -- Bugs jumps into the river to save Dr. I.C. Spots from the crockadile, then admires his new matching purse and handbag outfit.

6.) Bushy Hare -- OK, you got me on this one, mama kangaroo does push Nature Boy off the cliff. But in these politically correct times, doesn't Nature Boy, as a hunter, deserve to be pushed off a cliff instead of being a vegan and not harming our woodland friends? :)

7.) Horse Hare -- The half breed line is jarring nowadays (moreso than Avery's use of it in "Jerky Turkey" since the half breed term there is a set-up for a visual gag), but in terms of what happens in the cartoon, the Indians aren't the brunt of the gags, Sam is, including getting squished between the Indians and the cavalry at the finish.

All in all, I still think with a few proper edits (dumping the ubangi gag in "Which is Witch?" for example) all of the above cartoons could still be shown without any major protest. But as Mr. Buckman's screed in Wednesday's Post shows, the `R' word can get thrown around pretty casually by people who may be clueless about the cartoons but have a big soapbox to shout their ignorance from, and AOL/Time Warner doesn't want to have to deal with having the `R' word wrapped around their necks by people like him.