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[The following is from November Maxim.]
TOONS O' THE TIMES
The PC police pistol-whip beloved cartoons into submission.
Ever wonder why some of your favorite childhood characters up and disappeared one Saturday
morning? Chalk it up to their nervous corporate parents, who bowdlerized their own creations
for fear of damaging boycotts and lawsuits. But their solutions were no better than the
perceived problems:
Offense: The original edition of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory makes
reference to Willy Wonka's Oompa-Loompa workers having been brought over from "darkest Africa."
The illustrations depict them as caricatures of blacks.
Revision: The Oompa-Loompas are illustrated to appear more Munchkinlike (i.e., white).
They come from Loompaland, a mythical place with, presumably, no history of a slave trade.
Offense: In the 1944 short Bugs Nips the Nips, the wabbit calls his Japanese enemies "Japs,"
"slant-eyes," and "monkeys" and hands out grendades disguised as ice-cream cones.
Revision: Despite the red flag of a title, Nips somehow made its way onto the Golden
Age of Looney Tunes boxed set, and thousands had to be recalled. Years later the Japaese
took revenge by hypnotizing American children via Pokemon.
Offense: In Disney's Aladdin, the lyrics of Arabian Nights describe the scene
as a place "where they cut off your ear/If they don't like your face/It's barbaric, but hey,
it's home."
Revision: A dopey effort even by Disney standards: "Where it's flat and immense/And the
heat is intense/It's barbaric, but hey, it's home." In addition to internatioanl terrorism,
Arabs are now being blamed for their own harsh climate.
Offense: In MGM cartoons, Tom and Jerry's housekeeper, Mammy Two-Shoes, was seen only as a
pair of thick black legs and spoke with a weighty African-American accent.
Revision: A literal whitewash. Mammy's legs became Caucasian...but her vocals weren't
redubbed. Some astute five-year-old must have noted the inconsistency: Mammy's voice was
later swapped for an equally offensive Irish brogue.
Offense: Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean pissed off killjoy feminists who felt
that the robotic rogues were sexually harassing the animatronic women with their boorishness.
Revision: Welcome to Pussies of the Caribbean. Disney cut out the grappline and
negligee stealing; the wenches are now pursued for a meager booty of food, making It's a
Small World look titillating. Ar-r-r-gh. -- Trish Ryan
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