An Honorary Spanish Diva, I am

There is a new DVD collection that just came out today. It's "Tom and Jerry: The Spotlight Collection Vol. 2". I never really payed attention to this until I saw it in the backroom at work, and noticed it had a warning "Tom and Jerry: The Spotlight Collection vol 2" is intended for the adult collector and may not be suitable for children". I was INCREDIBLY THRILLED by this! I loved "Tom and Jerry" and MGM Cartoon Shorts of the 40's in general growing up...and in fact I still have 10 VHS tapes I made where I have tons of these cartoons IN THEIR UNEDITED formats. What I mean by this is, that sometime in the "PC" 90's, Hanna-Barbera (the owners of MGM cartoons) decided it was "racist" to air these very blunt cartoons with "Mammy" (come on, who doesn't remember her voice yelling "THOMAS!!") and tons and tons of Blackface references.

Let's take a moment and review one of my favorite Tom and Jerry cartoons, and a perfect example of this so-called "racism". It's a short from 1948 titled "Mouse Cleaning", which unfortunately is not on any of these discs of this collection. In this cartoon, Mammy is stepping out of the house to do some shopping and she commands Tom to keep the house clean, and if she came back and the house was dirty, "we iz gon be minus one cat 'roun here!". So, all is going well, u know the standard "Jerry is a dick and fucks up the house to mess with Tom" routine...but at the end, when Mammy is on her way back, Jerry reroutes the coal being dumped by the truck (a 40's thing I guess for furnaces) from the basement to the living room, filling the whole place with coal. When Mammy opens the door, she is flooded and drowned out by all this coal. She gets up, of course not being able to see her face, and says "Boy! when I lays my hand on that no good cat, I'll make it plenty hot in here" and just as she says that, Tom's head peaks out from the coal, and he's completely black minus white lips. Obviously in black face and unrecognized by Mammy, she asks "Hey you! have u see a no good cat roun here?". Tom answers back, in plain Jimcrow slave talk and with enlarged lips..."No maam! I aint see no cat roun here! Nah-uh! They aint no cat, no way, no how, noooo ma'am", while walking away with his head squatted down with his big big lips. Finally realizing that this cat was Tom, mammy chases him down, throwing coal at him, and eventually lands one square on his head. The end! I'm sorry but I couldn't find a picture of this, you'll have to bear with me.

This cartoon has NEVER been seen anywhere on television anymore and I happen to have it on VHS. Everytime they air this cartoon (well at least when they actually used to play "Tom and Jerry" on TV), they would immediately cut from the coal spilling out of the house, to Mammy yelling "Thomas!" and throwing the coal at Tom. Racist? yes! Innaproppriate? Yes! Relevant to history? Yes! Does it deserve to be ignored? NO! I'm sorry, but this was and is a part of history and that's what the mentality was back then. It's not right, but white-washing history and pretending it never happened is not going to make it any better, it'll just make it likely to repeat the mistakes but with different scenarios. Take your pick at issues, sexual preference, financial income..etc and I'm sure you can agree that its still something that people are insensitive and ignorant about and make presumptions and unfair judgements about.

But back on track, about this whole "Tom and Jerry" business. There are tons of other references that have been edited from TV. Like the fact that Mammy had rum in the bathroom, the one cartoon where Tom was drunk. Oh and Asian jokes too have been removed. OH MY GOD, that reminds me...one of my all-time favorite cartoon shorts, "Magical Maestro" where a magician sabotages a tenor's concert by playing magic tricks during his act. Whenever they showed this on TV, they edited out soooo many "un-P.C.", where the Magician throws a cymbal on top of "Poochini's" head and he turns Asian and sings something in faux Asian gibberish...and another part where a member of the audience throws ink at his face and he turns black..and sings "honey chile, everything u has is mine!". I dunno what that meant, but it was still a cheap laugh.

You know, I watched these cartoons growing up and I grew up fine. I knew it was wrong to laugh at those jokes but I also never thought it to be an actual portrayal of black people. Cuz I was a smart little boy and not a retard! Seeing these cartoons, as long as they're explained to children or even young adults, CAN BE EDUCATIONAL and not damaging to a persons mind. We can't white-wash history like this. What's next, erasing "Slavery" from History books because it promotes hatred of white people for what they did to blacks?

Oh well...what can we do.