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Amazon applies "racial prejudice" warning to Tom and Jerry cartoons
The lede on this story pretty much says it all.
A British professor of sociology, Frank Furedi, is quoted as saying that the warnings are a form of "false piousness" which judges people of the past by the values of modern society. Dr. James Joyner sees it slightly differently.
The story sounds too crazy to contemplate at first blush. If you're going to be putting parental warnings on video entertainment, cartoons which date back to before even I was born seem an unlikely place to start. It's a cat chasing a mouse who generally makes a fool of him. The violence is fake and there is, for the most part, no voice work. Yes, the depictions of the maid would never be shown today in a live action film unless it was a period piece, but that's how things were in the fifties. But I can also see where this is a protective measure.
On one level I understand what Joyner is saying, but for more reasons than social responsibility. It's true that there are probably any number of younger parents who want to be on guard against any form of social injustice, and if Amazon applying such a label helps to prepare them for a discussion with their own children about the cartoon's contents, I suppose that's fine. And I'm guessing that it doesn't really cost Amazon much.
But what could cost them more – and is not covered by the author above – is a lawsuit. Yes, I know how crazy that sounds. Who could possibly think they could successfully sue someone over the social injustice inherent in Tom and Jerry? And then I look around at the rest of the headlines making the news in 2014 and I remember that it's not crazy at all.Also read: Tom and Jerry Now Has a Trigger Warning. Must Comedy Have Disclaimers?
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