Amazon Slaps Racism Disclaimer on Tom & Jerry

Tom And Jerry: beloved children’s show, animated classic, promoter of racism…?

According to a new disclaimer on Amazon Prime, this is precisely the case. Or, in their words: “Tom and Jerry shorts may depict some ethnic and racial prejudices that were once commonplace in American society. Such depictions were wrong then and are wrong today.” The offending material includes instances where characters are burned or splattered with dirt and transform into caricatures of blacks in the same vein as an actor donning blackface, as well as the appearances of Mammy Two Shoes, whose name should make the stereotype in question blatantly obvious.

And this isn’t the first time Mammy has come under fire. In the 1960s, MGM inserted a rotoscoped replacement for her, transforming the character into an Irish white woman. In another instance, Lillian Randolph, the original Mammy voice actress, was overdubbed by Thea Vidale sans the possibly offensive dialect. Today, most reruns of Tom & Jerry simply delete the character altogether, although she can still be seen on the DVD releases, albeit with a video disclaimer from Whoopi Goldberg that refers to the prejudices as “a part of our history that cannot and should not be ignored.”

It’s worth noting, however, that there are no warnings against the scenes that involve one or both characters smoking, the use of weapons and explosives, or the abundance of animal cruelty on which the show is entirely based.

[via AV Club]