Tom and Jerry: Doomed To Repeat History
Warner Home Video released the final set in their "complete" Tom and Jerry DVD collection – and it ain’t so complete. It’s missing the cartoons "Mouse Cleaning" and "Casanova Cat."
In their official statement, WHV said they "made the decision to omit these two shorts because, regardless of their historical context and artistic value, the offensiveness of certain scenes containing inappropriate racial stereotypes would diminish the enjoyment of the Collection’s 35 other classic cartoons for a large segment of the audience." Like their Popeye and Looney Tunes series, the Tom and Jerry box sets are labeled for mature audiences.
Like so many other cowardly companies who make as if white-washing (literally) history is a means for effective change, Warners would prefer to ignore their corporate past by giving us a revisionist version of our culture, ignoring the old adage "those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."
Or maybe they’re just too damn cheap to commission a DVD documentary that puts all this into perspective.
As for me, I’m still waiting on a tribute to formerly legendary but now all but forgotten comedian Tim Moore, one of America’s greatest performers. Viacom/Paramount, you, too, are a bunch of spinless pussies.
Been my life for the past five or six years. Be politically correct, take everything out of context and by all means rewrite history to please the few. Thanks God the last episode of Dr. Who had the *!lls to stand their ground.
"*!lls"? Now we can't even say "balls?" Just try telling that to General George S. Patton (http://www.bob-west.com/PATTON-SPEECH.html).
Mike in an interesting typo, you wrote 'spinless' instead of 'spineless'.
I'm assuming those two cartoons feature the Mammy housekeeper? I don't know my T&J from memory as well as I do my Looney Tunes. On Cartoon Network they just dub in a slightly less stereotypical voice and occasinally color her legs so she's wearing hose of some type.That's an odd choice, as they chose to leave all the jokes in the Droopy collection, and put a big disclaimer card at the beginning of the menu, about how wrong the racial jokes were, but we're showing them anyway.
Ah, I see I was right, plus a couple of blackface gags. But still, they left all them on the Droopy cartoons. Odd.
The last volume of Looney Tunes I bought featured a disclaimer from Whoopi Goldberg. I'm not aware of any editing in those cartoons.
I read a discussion of Tom and Jerry somewhere recently, I bet Making Light…. Yes, these comments are women saying they and their kids think the black woman is the homeowner because they have no experience of hired help. So maybe today's kids wouldn't think those were racist, as long as their folks don't tell them.http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/009…http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/009…http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/009…
What next? Redubbing 'Green Pastures' and 'Cabin in the Sky'? Fixing 'Gone with the Wind'? No, it's history and should be kept in context. Like I said about the last aired Dr. Who episode, the 1913-era folks didn't even listen to Martha Jones and spoke to the Doctor. They didn't try to rewrite history. Hang on to those VHS copies of 'Song of the South'. You'll never see that movie again.
I disagree on Song of the South – it's readily available thanks to the great Japanese LD. Check ebay; right now there's ten or so copies, some in PAL and some in NTSC. Disney tried, OH how they tried, to put out an American edition a few years back. They were gonna line up every black actor they could lay their hands on, and do all sorts of documentaries. Eventually they just decided it wasn't worth walking through that minefield. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_South#Re…But give it a few years. Eventually the right ground will be laid, the right friends will be made and the folks at Disney will get paid. Don't forget, they still use all the characters from the film at the Disney parks, and if anyone really wanted to, they could raise a stink about that.
I'm not sure what there still might be to "fix" within the Tom and Jerry cartoons.When Ted Turner had ownership of both the MGM library AND Hanna-Barbera Studios (circa 1994) William and Joseph at their own expense went back and hired an actress to re-record all the Housekeeper's dialogue!While definitely not correct, politically or otherwise, today; H&B did try to address and correct the situation.But historically the Tom and Jerrys, as well as a whole lot of other cartoons, should be represented as is.
Thanks for the tip Vinnie,I was merely trying to say you're not likely to pick up you 50th anniversary copy Song of the South DVD art Target.:)
Vinnie—.Citing wiki as a source? Maybe 5 or 10 years from now, but not today. I think Disney just chickened out because they were afraid of Political Correctness.
Merely laziness on my part – heavily-hit pages like that are usually reliable enough for casual conversation.Fair enough comment tho – here's a couple from Jim Hill's site:http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/wade_sampson/archiv…http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/wade_sampson/archiv…(More on the reaction when the film was released)http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/20… (seek half way down the page, tho the Frog Pincess story is very enlightening as well
A couple more:http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/20…http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/20…http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/20…http://www.songofthesouth.net/
I find the censoring of classic cartoons due to political correctedness abhorrent. It damages the archival value as well as serving as a feeble attempt to sweep things under the rug.