Eleven Warner Bros. cartoons that have been under lock and key for the past four decades due to their highly racist and stereotypical content recently surfaced on YouTube and now everyone is in a tizzy over what to do with them.
The “classic” videos include such gag/anger inducing titles such as ‘Tokio Jokio’ and ‘Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs’ and several were created (not surprisingly) as war propaganda during WWII. Many, including the NAACP, are calling for the videos to be returned to the vault while YouTube/Google are less inclined to pull the videos unless Warner Bros comes forward to claim copyright infringement.
A representative for Warner wrote in an e-mail message that “Warner Brothers has rights to the titles” in question and that “we vigorously protect all our copyrights. We do not make distinctions based on content.”
The cartoons, known as the “Censored 11,” have been unavailable to the public for 40 years. Postings no longer appear if YouTube is searched for “Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs,” a parody of “Snow White” and the most famous of the cartoons. But a search for “Coal Black” does find the cartoon.
Considering the viral nature of media these days, even if YouTube were to pull ever version of the offending cartoons it’s unlikely that they’ll truly disappear…so the argument is pretty much moot. But here’s the real interesting question that I pose to all you readers…and the real issue that I believe is at the heart of this controversy. How should we (as a collective society) deal with our racial history and all the artifacts that come along with it? Do we bury the offending materials and pretend they never existed or do we inject the materials into the ongoing public dialogue about race and racism in America? Personally, I’m for an honest examination of race in this country - even if that means making these videos publicly available.
Obviously Warner Bros. wants nothing more than these videos to disappear. But beyond that, what good is yielded from ignoring the existance of these cartoons? They were apart of our country’s history and a telling clue to how horrifyingly racist this country once was and, some might argue, still is. Critics will argue that these cartoons, when taken out of context and viewed without proper guidance, may serve as fooder for and exploited by racial supremisists and other seperatist groups.
What do you think?
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Concerned wrote:
You should reconsider your question. What is this collective society you speak of? Temporally? Geographically? Culturally? Things are relative and so is racism. ‘Racist things’ aren’t always so simple to outline and process. It’s not as simple as, “Should we keep it or should we ban it” or “Is this racist or is this not?” You’d best consider a way of thinking of things in terms of degrees. Posing questions like this only makes people take sides. It’s not about taking sides. It’s about discourse.
Posted on 28-Apr-08 at 12:56 pm | Permalink
Bo wrote:
Concerned, I understand where you’re coming from but in this instance I’m not going into the “is this racist or is this not?” argument cause in this case, these cartoons are decidedly racist. So my question stands, should we hide these and ignore them or should we allow them to remain in the public dialogue.
And by the way, in my world, discourse includes (at times) taking sides.
Posted on 28-Apr-08 at 1:08 pm | Permalink
Akrypti wrote:
The definition of “collective” is clear. Shared by ALL. Amassed together as a WHOLE. Applying to MANY taken TOGETHER. That seems to mean it encompasses temporal, geographical, and cultural spheres.
And some would argue it’s not about discourse; it’s about progress.
Posted on 28-Apr-08 at 1:53 pm | Permalink
historian wrote:
I remember seeing some of these on USENET years ago, and I am not a fan of the stereotypes, but I do think they are useful in understanding why people of a certain age might find it OK to call someone a racial epithet, or why they think certain things.
After all , if people grow up in a world where it’s perfectly normal and considered hilarious to portray African Americans like they are in some of those cartoons, you can begin to see why such people might also think it’s perfectly OK to treat people on a daily basis as less than human.
Likewise, with war propaganda from WWII, you can see what people were seeing every week at the matinee, making our enemies sub-human, and elevating our friends, the Soviets, to keep people going during the war.
I think if these are presented with some sort of explanation, they could be used to effectively fight racism today. Sure some wacko group might put ‘em on a website and say “see we are right” but those groups do that with things available TODAY anyway.
I will say this however - I have seen Coal Black and while I don’t like the style in which the characters are drawn, the content itself is really no different than if you had today’s hip hop stars spoof a Disney cartoon. In this case it was jazz singers and artists who were used to spoof the cartoon. If the characters themselves had not been drawn they way they were (i.e. more like a typical cartoon character), I don’t know that this would be considered as racist as it is.
Plus if you watch many of the other WB or old cartoons, even the ones that don’t have such obvious ethnic stereotypes have plenty of other things that make people uncomfortable today.
Likewise, there are plenty of things out there today that make people of all races look pretty bad - and they’re usually done by members of said races. There’s a thing out there now where african americans can make demeaning bad media - but since they’re african american it’s “ok.”
Start opening that can of worms and see where that leads you.
Posted on 28-Apr-08 at 4:35 pm | Permalink
Concerned wrote:
Akrypti. The definition of collective may be clear. But it’s usage in this case is certainly not. ‘All, whole, many, together.’ Right. I assume you mean EVERYONE, ALL HUMAN BEINGS ON EARTH. That’s problematic in that racism towards (in the case of the screen cap) Blacks is not something understood in ALL societies. Take for instance a monoracial Africa city. I gather they might not understand some of the unfortunate and racist things North American media has done in terms of Black representation in North America. And thus, in terms of a society like that deciding what should be done with a cartoon like this, they might not feel that urgency to have it banned or put away.
“And some would argue it’s not about discourse; it’s about progress.”
And some would argue that sentence is amphiboly.
Progress is process reliant on discourses. To answer to the reiterated baited dichotomized ‘hide and ignore OR allow and remain’ question: not one or the other. Like questions of race, it’s not that simple and is constantly changing.
Posted on 28-Apr-08 at 5:03 pm | Permalink
Bo wrote:
Concerned, I appreciate your queries but ultimately you’re debating semantics. For clarification by collective society I’m referring to North America and more specifically the USA - which includes all members of US society - immigrant and native born. I thought this was obvious in what I wrote but apprantly not.
And you’re correct to point out that questions of race shift but in this instance…these horribly racist cartoons commissioned by a major Hollywood studio…no one can say that racial discrimination towards black and asian communities have dissipated entirely. What do YOU think we should do with them? Hide them and try to erase them from history or allow them to exist in the public dialogue.
What do you think we should do with the cartoons?
Posted on 28-Apr-08 at 5:32 pm | Permalink
Concerned wrote:
I thought this blog maintained Asian Canadian perspectives as well.
Most North Americans would probably agree these cartoons are racist. Not in debate.
What should be done with them? Well, not only would it’d be tough to impose some kind of ‘all racist images should be banned/retained’ policy. But there is no organizing body to enforce it. ‘We’ can’t ‘collectively’ do anything. There will be media watch dog groups and there will be so called free speech defenders. They are both entitled. I didn’t think we were in need of choosing one or the other.
Posted on 28-Apr-08 at 6:37 pm | Permalink
Jun wrote:
if we hide these cartoons
then we should also take out all racist events in world history from every textbook.
And be i think people use the word “racist” way too often. I think many times when something is called “racist” its usually not specifically racist, but rather “ignorant”. Ignorant views many times hold racist undertones that can be solved by what “concerned” and “Bo” brings up, and thats by discourse and taking sides.
For example when Kelly Tilghman said Tiger wood’s opponents should “lynch” him; that was a very ignorant comment because her careless use of a word that has a heavy negative racial history. Is she a racist? I dont think so. And through discourse and criticism I think she realized the ignorance of that statement.
Same goes for these cartoons, I think they were spawned more through ignorant attempts at laughs (after all these cartoons were aimed at children) rather than ideals of racial superiority.These cartoons are very demeaning and hurtful to the cultures that were stereotyped but through criticism and discourse we can prevent (hopefully) them from happening again. If we can differentiate things that are “ignorant” and “racist” we can impact far reaching change. I am guilty, and so is everybody else, of holding, saying, and doing racially offensive things. But the fact that “racist” things I have said and done have spawned from ignorance rather than actual racist ideals just proves that I am a flawed human being that can progress. I have said and done racist things. Hitler has said and done racist things. And even though the difference between ignorant and racist products is a very fine line it can produce two totally different humans.
So i think through discourse and criticism we can stop ignorant things like these cartoons can be stop from being made.
I hope the jibber jabber I said makes sense.
Posted on 28-Apr-08 at 7:34 pm | Permalink
Concerned wrote:
That made sense.
Posted on 29-Apr-08 at 5:51 am | Permalink
Mike Belgrove wrote:
Juan over at Highbrid Nation did a nice piece on these racist cartoon showing up on the net. My opinion on the whole thing is that these cartoons need to be soon and should not be sweeped under a rug or locked in a vault. They are part of our history. Our society (Whites and blacks alike) seem to want to hide or “ban” anything viewed as racist. Whats the end goal? To say “look. no racism”. We need to look at things such as these cartoons so we can understand how deep rooted racism is and was. Only then can we move forward. Pretending like they don’t exist doesn’t help.
Posted on 29-Apr-08 at 6:20 am | Permalink
Simon Bao wrote:
Whoa wait a minute. Or, “hold the phone!”
Does anyone know with certainty that Warner Brothers “wants nothing to do with” these cartoons? Anyone know with certainty that what we want is to “hide or ban” these cartoons?
Warner Brothers has an absolute legal right to restrict the cartoons to any use they want, including no use at all. But it’s entirely possible that they simply recognize that YouTube is no place for those cartoons to be appearing.
The cartoons probably do belong in a museum exhibit. A physical exhibit or a virtual, digital one. An exhibit created by curators working on our racial history or media history. Where they can be viewed in a specific context, with understanding. There’s nothing to suggest that Warner Brothers would resist that. They’ve permitted the use of offensive cartoons in exhibits about World War II.
To insist the cartoons come off YouTube isn’t at all the same as pretending the cartoons don’t exist. It may well be exactly the kind of judgment we’d like more corporations to exercise.
Posted on 30-Apr-08 at 9:10 am | Permalink
Bo wrote:
Simon, based on the NY Times article my impression is that Warner Bros never really meant for these videos to ever get out and the company pretty much tried to ban the use of these cartoons for the past several years. Also, the NAACP appears to be all for the cartoons never surfacing in any context.
Jun brings up a good point about wiping textbooks clean of undesirable episodes of history…Alas, I think Japan has pretty much already done that regarding their roles in WWII and prior.
Posted on 30-Apr-08 at 10:26 am | Permalink
8Asians.com » Racist 1960s Comic?: An Asian American/Asian Canadian Blog wrote:
[...] the cover, I immediately thought about when fellow 8asians blogger Bo brought our attention to the Racist Propaganda Cartoons during the WWII era. 1960s as we all know was a precarious decade; communism, Vietnam, the Civil Rights Movement, [...]
Posted on 17-May-08 at 2:21 pm | Permalink