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05-01-2008, 09:35 AM
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Censorship and cartoons
As we all know, children can be rather impressionable. We see it when a teenager succumbs to peer pressure and experiments with drugs. We see it when your little toddler who is just learning to talk tells Grandma to "*censored* of."
Where do children pick up bad behavior? Could it be from the parents and other close relatives? Less than child friendly movies? Or, could cartoons possibly be the culprit? While I am very torn when it comes to the subject of censoring art and history, some censorship in cartoons may be for the better. An example of what may be very inappropriate for a child to see in this day and age include a Looney Tunes segment where Bugs Bunny appears in black-face and hysterically exclaims "Don't beat me Massa! Don't beat this tired, ol' body!" Disney is also the culprit for racism in animation, giving us such examples as the shorts "Little Black Sambo" and the parody "Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs." In "Fantasia" there was originally a short segment which has been edited out. It involved a lovely, Aryan female centaur. Grooming her (sticking flowers in her hair, polishing her hooves,) is a rather unflattering caricature of a young, black centaur. Really, it screams "slave." The little slave girl briefly appears later on in the "Fantasia" sequence, helping a drunken Bacchus climb a flight of stairs She is aided by other young centaurs, both black and white. All centaurs have been edited out of that scene, leaving us to see only a drunken Bacchus staggering rather unnaturally up the stairs. Another lost piece of cartoon history is a Betty Boop short called "Stars of the Future." In this short, Betty introduces the celebrities of tomorrow, little babies with remarkable talent. As the short progresses, she introduces the "Colorful Three". The Colorful Three are, as the name suggests, hideous and mocking portrayals of three black infants. The perform a little dance and soon bump into each other. After their little injury, they begin to cry and can only be consoled with a watermelon. Cut to the audience, and a black mother in trying to hush her crying baby who has grown jealous of the fact that the Colorful Three have gotten watermelons, and he/she has not. The mother immediately pulls a watermelon out of her bag next to her and the child is content. I believe that refusing to show our children horrid racism is the right thing to do. Yes, it was part of our past, but there's no need to start the past all over again. Breaking away from racism in cartoons, let's move on to vices of the flesh. Disney produced a film in 1942 called "Saludos Amigos." The film involves a handful of animated shorts that educate us about Hispanic culture. In one segment, called "El Gaucho Goofy," Goofy goes on to Argentina to learn about the famous gauchos. This segment was later edited to remove a shot of Goofy smoking a cigarette...or rather, attempting to smoke. In classic Goofy fashion, he chokes on the offending smoke. I am against this kind of censorship. It is rather trivial and sets a double standard for other animations. Now, let's talk about another classic Disney film...."Dumbo." From memory, I can recall a small handful of things that should be censored if you want to remove all offending parts of the film. 1. After Dumbo's performance with the clowns, he is seen sobbing quietly in his humiliation and his loneliness without his mother (who is still locked up after "attacking" a child.) So much does Dumbo cry, that he begins to hiccup, prompting his friend Timothy the mouse to offer him a drink from a nearby bucket of water. What they don't know (but is clear to us) is that the celebrating clowns have accidentally knocked a bottle of beer into the water. Dumbo drinks, gets hammered and sees the fable pink elephants. 2. Upon waking up the next day, they find themselves high up in a tree and meet a gang of jive-talking crows, obviously meant to portray the black community. 3. One of these crows smokes a fat cigar. 4. Harsh unfairness to clowns. Come on, it's there and you know it. One of the gossiping lady elephants proclaims in horror that Dumbo has been forced to become a clown and announces that they must disown Dumbo. Okay, so it's not a real example, but it's bound to offend some! See, now everybody's offended...but it still goes uncensored and shown to the public. In the Disney classic "Pinocchio," cigar smoking and beer drinking ran amok, especially in the "Pleasure Island" scene. These scenes are also left intact and public. Clearly, we have a double standard on our hands. So, now I turn to you. When is censoring cartoons acceptable and when is it silly and trivial? Just how impressionable are our children? When does the responsibility of animation company stop and the responsibility of the parents begin? Read, discuss, and think about it.
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Remember that, kid. Write it down on your hand if you don't trust your head. Warning: If you don't like to think, then stay away from my posts. Last edited by Calavera : 05-01-2008 at 09:39 AM. 
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 The following clown says thank you to Calavera for this great post:
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05-01-2008, 10:11 AM
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Let's not forget Disney's less than flattering portrayal of Asians as the Siamese Cats in Lady & the Tramp, or the Hispanic and African-American thugs in the Lion King. Come to think of it, Arabs didn't come across looking so sweet in Aladdin either. And both Lion King and Aladdin are fairly recent Disney productions!
My children probably wouldn't even notice this racist stereotyping if I didn't point it out, which I do. Children need to be aware that racism is alive and well, even in the 21st century so that they can be on the look-out for it and make sure it doesn't affect their own perceptions of different cultures.
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The following clown says thank you to Pickles for this great post:
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05-01-2008, 10:15 AM
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That's the felling that I get and if so, good on you. It's important for a parent to educate their children about how racism is all around them and that you shouldn't let stereotypes affect your perceptions.
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Remember that, kid. Write it down on your hand if you don't trust your head. Warning: If you don't like to think, then stay away from my posts.
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05-01-2008, 03:48 PM
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I feel people read to much into things such as Cartoons & Video games, Songs movies. ITs like blameing Video games & for people Stealing or killing. No matter what gose on in Games movies or songs people are still going to do these things its not the entertainement indastreys falt. I dont even beleave ads make people want to smoke or drink they are jsut to show that the stuff is there what people do is their own dang fault. even if games movies or songs didn't have anything about raceisum killings or stealing people would still do it they jsut wouldn't have anything to blame it on they would have to say " I'm just a stupid **** Head".
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The following clown says thank you to Willace-the-Clown for this great post:
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05-03-2008, 10:21 AM
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Amen willace you are right! Oh the columbine high school killings happend because they played X-box. BULL! It happened because the parents were not involved enough. Oh well the Virgina Tech killing happened because he watched a movie. Bull! It happened because people did not pay attention to the warning signs! There was ALOT less school shootings when Bugs Bunny was around ALot less Killing when Disney made those great cartoons. Oh yeah I forgot that was when families sat down to watch TV, Eat Dinner, and they prayed before they ate. What is this world headed to ?
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The following 3 clowns say thank you to Bonkers #361 for this great post:
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05-03-2008, 11:00 AM
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*bump*
Let's get some intelligent discussion on this topic, people. Don't be afraid to think critically. One more thing. If you're going to make outrageous claims, back it up with evidence.
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Remember that, kid. Write it down on your hand if you don't trust your head. Warning: If you don't like to think, then stay away from my posts. Last edited by Calavera : 05-03-2008 at 11:05 AM.
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05-03-2008, 11:13 AM
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Evidence look at the stats. When I was in school a fight was between 2 students not a group on 1. Kids did not bring guns to school except for the toy they recieved for christmas and the only mass killer I had ever heard of was Charles Manson. Now we can name a Mass Killer each week! Guns are in our schools! along with metal dectors at the doors and armed security. And families dont have time to sit down for a meal everyone eats at a different time on the run because Jr needs to go to conditioning for baseball sis has to go to dance. Dad is working overtime. That is Fact! I dont know what fantasy world you are living in but you don't know your facts!
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05-03-2008, 11:31 AM
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There is a reason I ignore you, but when you call me out, I have no choice but to respond to you. That's a big mistake you made, there. Now, before you accuse me of living in a fantasy world and not knowing my facts, perhaps you should A) bring your tangible evidence to the table and B) analyze your own amusing little anecdote. You obviously haven't taken into consideration all the contributing factors that make up the knowledge that we have of killings today. To begin with, we have much more advanced media coverage, so we hear of each and every little murder in the world. The history of the human animal has always been littered with violence, and yes, it always will be. It doesn't matter how much time mommy spends with poor little baby, it doesn't matter what movies poor little baby watches, and sitting down to eat dinner doesn't amount to anything. Man is unpredictable and will always break the odds. When you went off on your self-righteous rant, you conveniently forgot to mention mental illness, crimes of passion, and revenge as motivating factors. Those three factors have always been present. Now, tell me....with all the lynching of the blacks, the hate crimes against Asians, the prohibition killings, Bundy, Dahmer, Gein, Fish, Black Dahlia, Capone, Luciano, Anselmi, and all the other early serial killers and American Cosa Nostra......how were the times when we "sat down to eat dinner and pray together" any more peaceful than the time we live in now? Because I'm just dying to know.
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Remember that, kid. Write it down on your hand if you don't trust your head. Warning: If you don't like to think, then stay away from my posts. Last edited by Calavera : 05-03-2008 at 11:36 AM.
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05-03-2008, 04:37 PM
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Ok Bonkers, if you want to debate on this subject you have to refrain from using inflammatory language like telling people they live in a fantasy world etc. As you said, look at the stats... except you didn't provide any.
Calavera, don't take the bait, I know you can do better than answer in anger 
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05-03-2008, 04:46 PM
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Don't take the bait, aye.
__________________
Remember that, kid. Write it down on your hand if you don't trust your head. Warning: If you don't like to think, then stay away from my posts.
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