I never saw any of the WWII era Looney Tunes either, but I've heard about 'em. South Park once did a Looney Tunes parody with Bin Laden, and when reading some info on that episode, I found out about WWII-era Looney Tunes. Apparently, Bin Laden's line "Terrorists is da cwaziest peoples!" is a reference to a line by Hitler from WWII-era Looney Tunes: "Nazis is da cwaziest peoples!"
Quote:Or the germans. I remember Wolf Hitler, with Hitler the Wolf chasing down the three little pigs, and one of them was France or something. It was very political, and also there were tanks exploding in the wolf's face.
The thing is, that show exxagerates stereotypes of EVERYONE. They hate everyone EQUALLY!
You can be pretty sure if they were actually talking about actors I've heard of, maybe even ones alive today, they would not be spared the most extreme of charicatures. And oh yes, let's not forget EVERY white male is ALWAYS half the height of his wife and constantly getting beaten about the face and neck while saying "Yes dear".
White people cannot be racist against Germans. And I see what you're saying, but anyone black or asian in the oldest Looney Toons were really, really racist.
But Speedy Gonzales? Come on, he was great!
Quote:Nope. I guess you need to watch more WWII Looney Tunes... it becomes quite clear. Germans are mocked. Hitler is a fool. They are evil yes, but in a silly way... with the Japanese it is quite different. They are made to look evil, conniving, sneaky... they aren't mocked, they are denigrated. It's to be expected, as nearly all Americans were racist to Asians back then, but it is most defintiely there and it is quite different from how they treat Nazis. Of course the Japanese were racist towards us at the same time, but still...
As for Speedy Gonzales, I don't really think that it's racist and it seems pretty foolish that it isn't on the air. You don't exactly hear much protest towards it from the Hispanic community...
Well said.
'Twer different times.
I've seen of few of the WW2-era Loony Toons episodes before and, yeah, they were fairly crazy.
All I'm saying is that society, by and large, was much different back then than it is now and we can expect things like this from that period. We could probably debate whether or not the characterization of the Japanese/Germans/Italians as being patently evil helped the war effort in American, but, yeah, it probably wasn't exactly a good thing to do.
Quote:And I guess I never saw those Looney Toons with the evil Japanese...
You won't see any of them on TV, that's for sure... Disney doesn't want the majority of the public to see that stuff and really see what the mindset was back then. But they are out there and the difference is stark. Hitler the silly fool and Tojo the evil little yellowish guy...
Quote:White people cannot be racist against Germans.
Wha... of course they can! Unless you have a different term for the same event when the people are the same color?
Disney... DISNEY?! YOU ARE THE GREATEST OF FOOOOLS!
It's from WARNER BROTHERS!
Quote:Wha... of course they can! Unless you have a different term for the same event when the people are the same color?
I personally do not, but the English language does. You cannot be racist towards your own race.
Quote:racism
n 1: the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races 2: discriminatory or abusive behavior towards members of another race
Quote:All I'm saying is that society, by and large, was much different back then than it is now and we can expect things like this from that period. We could probably debate whether or not the characterization of the Japanese/Germans/Italians as being patently evil helped the war effort in American, but, yeah, it probably wasn't exactly a good thing to do.
That's like saying that the KKK were alright because back then peope just didn't know better.
Quote:That's like saying that the KKK were alright because back then peope just didn't know better.
I never said it was right. Doi.
Well you said that it was to be expected, which still doesn't make any more right.
Did you not read the end of that paragraph? Anyway, the KKK is a much different level than those Looney Toon cartoons. They're both racists, but not for the same reasons. The Looney Toons cartoons were racists because...well...they were propaganda during wartime. The KKK are racists because they're losers.
I know, and I'm not saying that you're saying that it's alright, but whatever the circumstances of the time there really are no excuses.
The circumstances of the time explain things... are they excuses? Tough question. The fact is that to the majority of Americans in the 1940s it wasn't racism. Racism was whites and blacks... look at the book of cartoons "Dr. Seuss" did during WWII -- he was strongly anti-racism but made a few cartoons that were racist towards Asians. It was ingrained and unconcious in many cases. Does this excuse it? Not really. But it explains it... and also, you have to be careful about applying today's morals and beliefs to earlier periods. They don't always fit. Obviously here people should have known better, but it didn't happen... it was wrong and bad but it's the way it was.
FINALLY! About times someone understands what I'm trying to say...
Yeah... it's a very tricky issue. It's hard to look at history and say 'why were things so unfair for almost all of human history?' Even with a specific case like this it's hard... because humanity as a species hasn't changed. We are built the same way we have been for thousands and thousands of years. So in the right circumstances those people could have understood... still, the fact remains that they didn't. Racism against Asians just wasn't on anyone's radar (except the persecuted Asians, that is)... but the hard question is how much can you say 'it was a different time and things were different then than they are now' and how much can you blame them for being wrong. It seems that both sides of that are correct... on the one hand they are inarguably wrong. So are racist people and things today. But on the other hand, it was much less of an issue then... and if even someone who knew about the issue like Theodore Geissel (or whatever Dr. Seuss's real name was, I think it's something like that) didn't jnotice, then to some degree we can excuse it to the differences of the time... while condemning it for being wrong. Ideally they should have known better.
You can say that about anyone who is ignorant about anything. Yes, those racists in the south today are simply ignorant and don't know any better just like many people in the 40's did, but does that excuse it in any way whatsoever? NO.
I'm saying that because of certain circumstances that were prevalent in that time period we can, to a point, understand WHY such a thing occured.
Yes, and the reason is ignorance. But that's still not an excuse...
It wasn't just because they were ignorant that they made stuff like that.
Well, they didn't just start making stuff like that because they woke up someday and felt like doing something racist. It was a time of war, a fairly big one, and either a.) decided on their own to create propaganda to help the war effort in America and to keep most everyone united or b.) were asked by the goverment to do that. It's hard to say which. The goverment would not be able to do something like that now, but I don't know about back then.
Then why did you keep on refuting that...?
Are you discriminating against people from the 40's? You're a timecist!
...what?
Arthur: This message is brought to you by total-irrelevant-crap-that-interrupts-a-repetitive-debate!
Quote:Then why did you keep on refuting that...?
...
Quote:but, yeah, it probably wasn't exactly a good thing to do.
Quote:I never said it was right. Doi.
Quote:we can, to a point, understand WHY such a thing occured.
And the why is ignornance, but then you said it wasn't... or something.
Oh who cares.
IGNORANCE WASN'T THE ONLY REASON THEY MADE THOSE!!!
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Yeah, you're right. Who cares. People from the past were stupid anyway.
Ignorance was the only reason! Every other reason you came up with was a reason rooted in ignorance.
I've already more than explained why it isn't, but whatever. Let's just agree that people from the past were dumb and get back to watching Zelda and Mario.
Quote: Let's just agree that people from the past were dumb
Yes, that's precisely my point! Ignorance, Johnny,
ignorance! Ignorance is the cause for most prejudices in this world.
Ha! You said "most"!!
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Actually, I don't care anymore.
Tammy: ...who...
Arthur: Dude, I thought you were dead.
Tammy: They don't have beer in hell. I guess it really is as bad as the priests described it.
Arthur: So how did you return to Earth?
Tammy: I bitched at Satan until he sent me back.
Arthur: Wërd.