Cartoon Violence and the Big Scissors of Society!

Hi all you blog fans out there and welcome to another one of my media blog posts. I’m never quite sure what to write on these things so stay with me here. I was just looking at a 1930s cartoon starring Mickey Mouse, made by the brilliant Disney. A cartoon named “Pluto’s Judgement Day”, in which the character of Mickey Mouse has become rather scary. Let’s just say, you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of the mouse. Anyway, on with the blog post after that pointless observation.

In watching this cartoon, I got to thinking about how some of these old cartoons get cut up because of political correctness. The cartoon with the biggest amount of cutting has to be Tom and Jerry. It was deemed so important that they broadcast that the vintage cartoons had been edited, mainly getting rid of smoking scenes between the characters.

While I agree that it sets a good example to today’s youth, it does not preserve history as it was intended. Sure there are racist things in these old cartoons but they should be left in to teach children about previous generations and the way they consumed media. I was quite annoyed to find scenes had been edited out of the Tom and Jerry DVD releases, plus some of the voices of the woman had been overdubbed with a “less offensive” voice. This really effects the authentic experience I expect when I watch a vintage cartoon from another era.

Luckily not all cartoons have suffered this fate, ones I have seen of Woody Woodpecker and the classic Disney shorts are all in one piece. Although I realise that while we all enjoyed them when we were young, they could perhaps be deemed too violent for today’s audience. This is probably why they don’t get any showings on TV anymore. One example of the violence in a Disney cartoon, Donald Duck throwing knives in a kitchen, well that just won’t do! At the end of the day, I think it is the parent’s decision to decide whether to show these aging cartoons to their children. I personally watched some of them and thought it wasn’t suitable for a very young audience. While I was struck with this impression, I still believe, as I have already stated, that they should be kept in the way they were originally intended.

So have you any opinions on this matter?  If you do, then please comment this. Everyone seems to have an opinion now on what is supposed to be shown to children. I find the programmes now are very tame, they don’t dare to go anywhere which might be on the edge, unlike the programmes aimed at adults! Look at Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, in my opinion, it just seems all education, education, education. I agree this is important for children but surely they need a bit of entertainment, perhaps with an educational message which is subtly hidden underneath the lashings of colour and movement in a cartoon.

Anyway, that’s my opinion on the subject, thanks for reading!