Tom and Jerry cartoons carry racism warning.

[JimB]

Sorry for poorly written text, my English is a bit rusty.

Of the two of us, only one of us accidentally left two words out of his post that changed its meaning entirely, and that one person ain't you, MrBaskerville, so it seems to me you have nothing to apologize for.

(Fixed my typo in that post, though.)

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

This was longer than I intended.

Shit, dude, if you can't go into an overlong rant on the internet, where can you?

Well, like I said, I live in New York and I'm a native of the Bronx. Complaining/Bitching is a Regional sport

 

[Snotnarok]

Look, I get avoiding showing kids this and such but tagging this stuff with triggers? Stop. Stop, stop, stop.

Why do people keep bringing up triggers? Seriously, did I miss something? Nothing in the article says the warning is a trigger warning; as far as I can tell, that was only brought up by the article's writer as a segue into largely unrelated material meant to stretch the article's length.

I believe I saw someone else say it in the thread, it TRIGGERED ME MAN!
No, I don't get it either. Wasn't it a serious thing that traumatized soldiers would use as a term? Now every self entitled whiner uses it as a term for everything.

 

[EternallyBored]

Look, I get avoiding showing kids this and such but tagging this stuff with triggers? Stop. Stop, stop, stop.

Why do people keep bringing up triggers? Seriously, did I miss something? Nothing in the article says the warning is a trigger warning; as far as I can tell, that was only brought up by the article's writer as a segue into largely unrelated material meant to stretch the article's length.

I believe I saw someone else say it in the thread, it TRIGGERED ME MAN!
No, I don't get it either. Wasn't it a serious thing that traumatized soldiers would use as a term? Now every self entitled whiner uses it as a term for everything.

PTSD, rape, and trauma victims in general, not just soldiers, when you use trigger warnings (or their original use from my experience at least), it's usually in a group therapy setting where you are trying to create a "safe space".

Ideally, a safe space is an area where the people in it know their specific issues or concerns can be addressed without worry of triggering panic attacks or flashbacks. Throughout the course of treatment, the goal is to get the person or people to open up and hopefully get to a point where the safe space is no longer necessary, thus also eliminating the need for trigger warnings.

This is not always possible though, in which case, trigger warnings remain in order to facilitate an area or group that can at least be somewhat relied on to provide an environment where people can go and participate without worrying about being triggered, hopefully improving their overall functioning outside the group or individual therapy environments.

EDIT: in which case, yes, the modern usage is a little baffling at times, becuase you can't really make unregulated areas into safe spaces. Although it seems like a lot of times people are just using the trigger warning label as a more pretentious way of saying content warning, or just warning in general. since in this context saying, "trigger warning: racism" is pretty much functionally the same thing as saying "warning, this video may contain racist subject matter that may not be suitable for all audiences".

 

[xaszatm]

I'm confused at everyone saying this is somehow censorship. It's not. It's acknowledging that some cartoons reflect the way people thought it the past. Some of these thoughts can be considered racist. Loony Tunes have been doing this for ages for their truly racist cartoons. In fact, I think their disclaimer is one of the best written things I've seen

[img=https://i.imgur.com/U8UZyVI.jpg]https://i.imgur.com/U8UZyVI.jpg[/img]

The Tom and Jerry disclaimer looks to be pretty much the same. I'm not seeing the "censorship" here.

 

[Netrigan]

For me, if the owners of the material feel compelled to slip in a note at the beginning to distance themselves from certain attitudes within, then it's their right.

Either way, they're going to get a certain number of people complaining at them. I went digging a bit and so far they mostly seem to be offending a certain kind of idiot with the disclaimer. The ones who seem to think that because they enjoyed this stuff as a kid, they're now being called racist... because they MUST BE OFFENDED BY EVERYTHING!!!

And if they're not offended by this, they'll find something else to be outraged by.

 

[hermes]

Honestly, this is the best way to do it. Leave history intact and have a disclaimer.

Yes... I agree.

These cartoons, like it or not, are part of our history. They should not be censored or tampered with, except for restoration proposes. In the end, people that want to see them now should be aware and able to put them in their proper context.

Everybody that is genre savvy knows those cartoons were not "politically correct". They were made in a time that was barely a thing, so it is unfair to hold that against them. Having a short disclaimer is probably the best way to handle it. Even the WB cartoons have a disclaimer in their DVD collections:

 

[Dragonlayer]

If you seriously need trigger warnings in order to safely enjoy an old cartoon, you deserve to be traumatized, in my humble opinion.

Uh, maybe I missed something in the linked article, but who said anything about triggers or traumatizing viewers? Where is that coming from?

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-29427843 It says right there, as a subtitle in bold: "Trigger Warnings". Isn't that the point of trigger warnings? To prevent people from accidentally stumbling across particularly offensive material that might set off or "trigger" unpleasant mental or emotional states or what have you?

 

[JimB]

[It says right there, as a subtitle in bold: "Trigger Warnings".

Is that an actual trigger warning? The way the page is laid out, I took it to be just the title of a subheading.

 

[Snotnarok]

Look, I get avoiding showing kids this and such but tagging this stuff with triggers? Stop. Stop, stop, stop.

Why do people keep bringing up triggers? Seriously, did I miss something? Nothing in the article says the warning is a trigger warning; as far as I can tell, that was only brought up by the article's writer as a segue into largely unrelated material meant to stretch the article's length.

I believe I saw someone else say it in the thread, it TRIGGERED ME MAN!
No, I don't get it either. Wasn't it a serious thing that traumatized soldiers would use as a term? Now every self entitled whiner uses it as a term for everything.

PTSD, rape, and trauma victims in general, not just soldiers, when you use trigger warnings (or their original use from my experience at least), it's usually in a group therapy setting where you are trying to create a "safe space".

Ideally, a safe space is an area where the people in it know their specific issues or concerns can be addressed without worry of triggering panic attacks or flashbacks. Throughout the course of treatment, the goal is to get the person or people to open up and hopefully get to a point where the safe space is no longer necessary, thus also eliminating the need for trigger warnings.

This is not always possible though, in which case, trigger warnings remain in order to facilitate an area or group that can at least be somewhat relied on to provide an environment where people can go and participate without worrying about being triggered, hopefully improving their overall functioning outside the group or individual therapy environments.

EDIT: in which case, yes, the modern usage is a little baffling at times, becuase you can't really make unregulated areas into safe spaces. Although it seems like a lot of times people are just using the trigger warning label as a more pretentious way of saying content warning, or just warning in general. since in this context saying, "trigger warning: racism" is pretty much functionally the same thing as saying "warning, this video may contain racist subject matter that may not be suitable for all audiences".

I wasn't looking to be too specific with the origins or whatever, but it's good to know really.

I'm just sick of hearing triggers from people with the only issue they have in their lives is being professional victims of nothing, when in reality their trigger being they have nothing to counter an argument.
Maybe it sounds inssensitve, I know there are people with issues, but many simply just ...don't but make it such a thing.

 

[Skull Bearer]

I'm fine with the disclaimer cause the cartoons in question does feature some problematic stuff, and it is worthy of discussion. But i will say that i never caught any of the problematic references as a kid, maybe the black face being the exception. I always kinda thought that the black woman in the house was the owner, only got it when i grew up and got a broader perspective on things. It shouldn't be censored out as it's an important part of culture history, as unfortunate as it might be. It's defineately better to acknowledge and educate than to censor and forget.

With that said, i would probably save a certain Tintin comic and less fortunate Bug Bunny cartoons for the history lessons instead of releasing them broadly om the air or in the book stores. Tintin in Africa probably don't belong alongside normal Tintin releases, or am i the only one who sees it like this? It's kind of a grey area, how exactly should we deal with this stuff?

I think you meant Tintin in the Congo, and I don't know how it is in the states, but in the UK it's sold in the adult history section with a warning on the cover 'Here be racist shit'.

I mean, most bookstores stock Mein Kampf in the adult history section, so getting wibbly about Tintin seems a bit redundant.

 

[Yokillernick]

People are getting upset over Tom & Jerry cartoons made over 70 years ago. Has interest from all other topics of life extinguished or are people way too sensitive. Whichever it is I really don't think there should be this much noise made over it. Also watching most of the Tom & Jerry cartoons I cannot say that I found them to be racist in any way, shape or form. But then again I may not be one of those sensitive people that if gets addressed with "You" instead of being called by name gets all angry about it.

TLR Stop being so goddamn sensitive and enjoy some cartoons, ffs.

 

[Blow_Pop]

Mammy Twoshoes wasn't a maid (at least, I don't think she was explicitly shown to be a maid), and at no point was shown to be submissive to white people. Which would probably make her one of the first, if not the first, completely positive example of a black person in children's animation.

Then again, I didn't watch a whole lot of those old episodes when I was a kid and she might have well been a racist caricature.

And leaving a disclaimer there disowning racists is much better than redrawing Mammy or any other black character, which they did in reruns. It looked... a little odd.

She was shown to be a racist caricature...There was an article or something I read about it a while ago....

The basis of the article (which I'm looking for) was that she's the mammy archetype that was based off of Hattie McDaniel's character Mammy in Gone with the Wind. Not to mention she is portrayed as using more of AAVE and IF I am recalling correctly, for some of them that was part of the joke (because we don't see AAVE-African American Vernacular English-as grammatically correct it's often a punchline. Also we is meant as white Americans). She actually is the maid and the owner of Tom (but to figure that out you also have to look into her character online and read interviews with the people who created her and such). <a href=http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/10/03/tom_and_jerry_racist_of_course_warning_on_amazon_and_itunes_is_appropriate.html>this is a relatively newer article about it

Personally, OT, I am happy that they carry this disclaimer on them. It's not censorship. It's letting people know that this is what it contains. In fact, I would LOVE it if I could get trigger warnings in books. Because going to read something that looks like mindless fiction only to find out it has a violent rape scene in it or something like that(for someone else) is horrible. Especially to someone who is triggered by the topic when they haven't had time to prepare for it. It gives people the opportunity to say "hey you know what? This isn't for me right now" And there's nothing wrong with that. And sexual content =/= rape for the record (because I've read books that I've been told just have "heavy sexual content" and then it turns out it's repeated violent rapes and let me tell you how much fun it isn't to relive your own while you're just trying to lose yourself in another world for enjoyment).

 

[shintakie10]

I think everyone agrees that we should see these cartoons through the lens of society as it was, not our own 21st century perspective, which has a real knack for making mountains out of molehills. We assume that heroic nudity is fine in discussing classical and Renaissance art, so why is a slightly different attitude toward race any less accepted in films from a different period? These cartoons were the craft of animation at its best, at a level it never has risen to since. And yet, probably 90% of the time I hear them mentioned, all I hear is the "racism" in them, when what they should be saying is, the (flawlessly voiced, scored and animated) lampooned and exaggerated attitudes of the time. Never mind that not only a fraction of the episodes even feature Mammy Two-Shoes, and whenever she does show up, she shows Tom who's boss. No one ever talks about that, they just have a problem with how her voice sounds. An exaggerated dialect in a cartoon film from 70 years ago, oh no, how awful.

To say that it's a sign of narcissism is right on the money, that we can't see another society's viewpoints other than by judging it against our own values, which we assume to be superior. These cartoons are wonderful, and the "racism" in them, which is really more caricature than racism, should be a footnote to satisfy people who otherwise wouldn't appreciate the cartoons in their own context. I don't have a problem with it being there as a disclaimer, but, really, it should stop being the only reason these classic cartoons are mentioned.

So I'm not pickin on you specifically, but I'm usin you as an example because I'm too lazy to quote everyone bringin it up.

Are people really so daft that they think that the Mammy Two-Shoes is the only racist thing in old Tom and Jerry cartoons? Like, seriously...is that the only thing you people think could be considered racist?

Goin back through old Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, plenty of things pop into my mind. Bugs in black face for an entire episode. Tom doing some extremely racist caricatures of Chinese people, complete with squinty eyes and that ridiculous mustache. There's episodes where they're dressed up in pilgrim and indian outfits. There's countless episodes about Asians. As a person with a heavily Latino family I'm always torn about where my feelings on the entirety of the Speedy Gonzalez character. On the one hand he's the hero and pretty fun, on the other he's basically every single racist stereotype of Mexicans you can think of.

There's tons of instances of just straight creepy shit in old cartoons. Its fine to exist, but the disclaimer is the least people can do.