Posted by Nat on 3/13/2009, 6:10 am, in reply to "Mammy is Racism"
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Mammy was a warm, smart and funny character, and I never perceived her to be a maid as a child, I still think the house is hers: “A party? At MY HOUSE?”. Why are people reading into it that just because she is black, she is a maid and she doesn’t own a house? Is that not racist in itself?
As for her head, aren’t people reading in to it too much? Surely it is just to show that the animals have a different perspective, because they are shorter than her? Other shows with animal protaganists and human owners play to this, such as Cow and Chicken.
I find it more offensive that because she was black, she had to be replaced by a more “acceptable” white couple. Surely they are horrible white stereotypes portraying white couples as bland, boring and materialistic? Surely it’s better to show different types of people rather than just a white nuclear, middle class family?
What I’m trying to say is that most cartoons employ stereotypes - that’s the point of a cartoon. We can read a million things into them, but essentially a cartoon is like a caricature - it exaggerates reality.
Maybe what the politically correct brigade should do instead is ban any sort of diversity on cartoons to prevent any type of offence being caused to anyone, and all we can watch will be middle class, materialistic, white heterosexual couples. Because that’s not offensive or discriminative, is it?
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