Bad old cartoons

[Cope]

i think it was Bugs Bunny, dreaming he was living in Nazi Germany

Donald Duck.

[Ahaugen]

i think it was Bugs Bunny, dreaming he was living in Nazi Germany

Donald Duck.

When Der Fuehrer says, "We ist der master race"
We HEIL! HEIL! Right in Der Fuehrer's face
Not to love Der Fuehrer is a great disgrace
So we HEIL! HEIL! Right in Der Fuehrer's face
When Herr Gobbels says, "We own der world und space"
We HEIL! HEIL! Right in Herr Goring's face
When Herr Goring says they'll never bomb this place
We HEIL! HEIL! Right in Herr Goring's face

Are we not the supermen
Aryan pure supermen
Ja we ist der supermen
Super-duper supermen
Ist this Nutzi land not good?
Would you leave it if you could?
Ja this Nutzi land is good!
Vee would leave it if we could

We bring the world to order
Heil Hitler's world New Order
Everyone of foreign race will love Der Fuehrer's face
When we bring to der world disorder

When Der Fuehrer says, "We ist der master race"
We HEIL! HEIL! Right in Der Fuehrer's face
When Der Fuehrer says, "We ist der master race"
We HEIL! HEIL! Right in Der Fuhrer's face

[Rkolter]

I cannot speak to war or propaganda cartoons because I don't recall seeing them before. The Looney Era stuff (in America) that depicted minorities as people to caricatured as a way of mockery was offensive then as it is now. People who viewed these cartoons when they first came out and chuckled along I *think* knew full well that these "caricatures" (and this isn't even the appropriate word to use) were anything but. If your society says it's okay to be a racist and laugh at such things, it doesn't diminish the wrongness of the entire thing.

I think these weren't really offensive back then, because if they were, people would not have let their kids watch them, and they would not have been made. People took offense to things back then too just as they do today - that they didn't take offense to these cartoons suggests they weren't as offensive then as we find them now.

I think these cartoons were more funny back then, instead of offensive. We can (and do) watch a JibJab flash-toon where George Bush talks about nuking the towel-heads. We laugh at Stewie Griffin when he stops Johnny Quest's muslim friend from boarding an airplane. We giggle when South Park has a chinese character who disarms crowds of angry people by reminding them that asian penises are small.

I think that so long as the funny overwhelms the offensive, society accepts the cartoon. It's only now, when the humor has been lost, that the cartoons reveal how ugly their offensive side was. Probably in 20 years, some of the things society laughs at now won't be tolerated either.

I'm not so sure about that. It is possible that back then, there were less offensive for (speaking, for instance, about racist cartoons) white audience because white audience was less concerned about problems of black people, but for black people they might have been as offensive as they are now - it's just that opinion of black people didn't matter much, and they probably weren't considered important target audience for that kind of production. Certainly those things have more effect on the one that is the target of the stereotype (which is kind of the reason why I started the thread - to see how much those things offend people that were their targets, and to test my hypothesis on why war cartoons offend me more than racist cartoons).

I think we're talking around the same point - I agree that a racist cartoon is going to upset the people the racism is against. But if society devalues that group, then society will accept the cartoon, find it funny and not offensive, and air it. Like they did during WWII with the Japanese, or in the days of black-face cartoons, or now, with muslims. And it is only later, when the society as a whole moves past seeing that particular group as ok to poke fun at, that the cartoon is condemned.

I didn't know that war cartoons offend you more than racist cartoons. You say that the targets are more likely to be offended; but you're neither Japanese nor German (as far as I know). Why do the war cartoons offend you more?

The WWII cartoons bother me more than the racist ones too. But I think that is because they seem more vicious to me.

[McDuffies]

I didn't know that war cartoons offend you more than racist cartoons. You say that the targets are more likely to be offended; but you're neither Japanese nor German (as far as I know). Why do the war cartoons offend you more?

There was a media war between Croatians and us back during the war, I've seen episodes of old children cartoons where characters suddenly turned political and fought "evil Serbs", talking about destruction of childhood icons, Calvin/Hobbes slash fanfiction is nothing compared to that. I guess I can identify with some Japanese kid who, out of the blue, finds a cartoon where Bugs Bunny mercilessly torments Japanese.
For a short while there we were Hollywood's designated bad guys as well, watching those films can really give a new perspective on things: nowadays even films with default German Nazi bad guys annoy me if they're not actually set in WWII or based on some actual facts. It seems like most of history average man receives today comes from entertainment, so you have a ridiculous situation where Hollywood is writing popular history.
I don't know, racism is, or soon will be, a thing of the past, but propaganda, media war, xenofobia, are strong as ever.

[KWill]

Of course the thing to remember is that in the States, these haven't really been 'censored' since censorship implies government intrusion. It's the companies that are self-editing their own works and the companies' decisions to stop circulating certain things.

Doesn't have to be the government, actually. Anyone can censor things, though its usually some authority, in this case the United Artists and successive owners.

[RPin]

I believe we still air the Bugs vs Japs cartoon from time to time, with no warning whatsoever. Though the dialogues in portuguese don't actually mention WWII or use racial slurs. I admit I find it funny.

[Isukiyomi]

I cannot speak to war or propaganda cartoons because I don't recall seeing them before. The Looney Era stuff (in America) that depicted minorities as people to caricatured as a way of mockery was offensive then as it is now. People who viewed these cartoons when they first came out and chuckled along I *think* knew full well that these "caricatures" (and this isn't even the appropriate word to use) were anything but. If your society says it's okay to be a racist and laugh at such things, it doesn't diminish the wrongness of the entire thing.

I think these weren't really offensive back then, because if they were, people would not have let their kids watch them, and they would not have been made. People took offense to things back then too just as they do today - that they didn't take offense to these cartoons suggests they weren't as offensive then as we find them now.

I think these cartoons were more funny back then, instead of offensive. We can (and do) watch a JibJab flash-toon where George Bush talks about nuking the towel-heads. We laugh at Stewie Griffin when he stops Johnny Quest's muslim friend from boarding an airplane. We giggle when South Park has a chinese character who disarms crowds of angry people by reminding them that asian penises are small.

I think that so long as the funny overwhelms the offensive, society accepts the cartoon. It's only now, when the humor has been lost, that the cartoons reveal how ugly their offensive side was. Probably in 20 years, some of the things society laughs at now won't be tolerated either.

McDuffies already got at some of the the stuff that I wanted to respond to so I'll just add on ^_^

I think of these cartoons as a matter of its producers and its consumers in the proper historical context; as McDuffies said the target audience would think of these cartoons as something to be chuckled at and the people being laughed at had no real power to challenge the stereotypes.

The Family Guy example you give is something that I *personally* don't think is funny because when I saw it what I got out of it was "wow you're telling me that anyone who even *looks* Arab is automatically a terrorist?" which is troubling b/c it promotes or advocates a continued "steroetypical" American isolationist world view and a violent one at that >_> Once again a fear of the "Other" is at play here.

The South Park one for me once again *personally* is not as offensive as the FG one b/c there is no implied threat of violence and it's one about sexual inadequacy and thus is not a life or limb sort of thing. The South Park example is just a continued storyline of portrayals of Asian men in American media as under-sexualized i.e. lacking an ability to be sexually dominant over women or lacking the ability to satisfy one.

I also think it matters which character in the cartoon is engaging in dishing out the stereotypes which I think greatly shapes the context.

[Cope]

I haven't seen RKolter's Family Guy example, so correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like it's making fun of ethnic profiling more than it's making fun of Muslims.

[Isukiyomi]

I haven't seen RKolter's Family Guy example, so correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like it's making fun of ethnic profiling more than it's making fun of Muslims.

I think you're right about the ethnic profiling thing because that's a big no-no here in the States. But after 9/11 the whole airline security thing has been struggling with just basically using racial profiling on flyers which would get them sued for discrimination. I think Israeli airlines use ethnic profiling http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6382.shtml b/c of the whole history of that region

And Hadji's Indian so when I saw that episode I didn't get the message that what Stewie did was wrong b/c he was mistaken about Hadji's ethnicity. The implied message was that if Hadji was an Arab, would everyone be okay with stopping Hadji from flying?

I guess I can't watch a cartoon without deconstructing the social context behind it

[McDuffies]

I find that South Park more than anything challenges stereotypes and mocks trends of offensiveness. Of course it's a double-edged sword because when you ignore the irony, what you get is the same stuff, but I find that when South Park insists on being offensive, it tries to do it to such extent where there's no further to go, to show how pointless it is. Most of stereotypes and bigotry turns back and targets those from whom bigotry origins. If two Chinese, for instance, disarm American army by flattering the size of their penises, it's actual Americans who are being portrayed as macho and sex-obsessed.
A thing of importance is also, when you're trying to be controversial, you have to attack things that are taboos in your time. Excersizing your power to speech is pointless when noone is denying you that power in the first place. Dead baby jokes aren't "pushing the envelope" nowadays because they've been done, like, in 70ies. More controversial is, for instance, the scene where a museum guide gives a long lecture about tolerance, but then abuses the guy who tries to light a cigarette in front of the building in the same way people would abuse minorities in some other times. It's controversial because it talks about topics that are actually a matter of discussion right now.
I think that it's most obvious in comparision with "Drawn together" who never have context or statement, but rather do offensive stuff for kicks, because everybody else is doing it.
Dunno about Family Guy, I could never stand an episode enough to think about it.