Merry Melodies: Racist beyond belief

[Typhoid]

Speedy's cartoons have come under fire in recent years for their alleged stereotypical depictions of Mexicans and Mexican life. Mice in the shorts are usually shown as lazy, womanizing and hard-drinking. Speedy is the only character capable of saving them from this lifestyle. His call "Arriba, Arriba" is likely to his fellow Mexicans, to get "up, up" from sleep. Speedy also wears an oversized sombrero and sometimes plays in a mariachi band (although Speedy's only real vice is implied to be a weakness for pretty girls; in one cartoon, other mice instigate a war to keep Speedy from stealing all the girls in town). Much of the dialogue between Mexican characters is in English , which is unrealistic. The small amount of Spanish that peppers the dialogue consists of basic greetings, goodbyes, exclamations, and misplaced references to popular Mexican foods. It was this criticism that prompted Cartoon Network to largely shelve Speedy's films when it gained exclusive rights to broadcast them in 1999. However, fan campaigns to put Speedy back on the air, as well as lobbying by The League of United Latin American Citizens, who argued that Speedy's cleverness and personality was a positive depiction of Mexicans, turned the tide in his favor, and in 2002, "the fastest mouse in all Mexico" was put back into rotation.

First of all, the only people who see this as racist, are racists who are overcompensating and trying to show how not racist they are.

Why does black and mexican racism always offend white middle class america? I didnt know so many of them had roots everywhere else other than Europe.

But anyways, theres 'racism' in everything. Look at almost every old cartoon, and TV show. And I dont mean 10 years ago, I mean the older ones.

Racism is what you make of it, though. Jokes are jokes. Racist jokes, are also just jokes. It's when you say racism in a derrogatory way to try put another down, that's bad. And somehow, I dont think a mexican mouse is at fault.

[Dyne]

Yeah, cartoons were definitely not for kids back in the day.

[Professor S]

In my mind there is a difference between stereotypical and racist. Loony Tunes and Meery Melodies used stereotypes, but those stereotypes normally were portrayed in a positive light, so I don't think they were racist (at least not in the modern definition).

Quite honestly, I've come to ignore claims of racism, sexism, etc. These terms are bandied about so freuently and without regard to context or severity of offense that they've lost all their power. They've also been abused to the point that they're used as a means of gaining power in the work place and as a means to intimidate others.

[Bond]

Speedy is so not racist. At the time I used to watch cartoons like this I had no concept of "racism" or anything like that. I'm afraid what is happening is that our society is in a phase where it is way too critical of things that might appear racist or sexist, and this is because previous to this phase our society enslaved blacks. So basically we were on one far end of the spectrum before, and now we're on the other far end. Eventually we'll find a happy medium... I hope.