I visited a blog earlier this evening called Stereohyped that had a cartoon posted, which I'm going to post at the end of this topic. It seems there were a bunch of cartoons that were basically banned because of the perception that they were racist, based on stereotypes, from the 30's through the 50's. Many of them were Warner Brothers cartoons, but they don't hold the monopoly on these types of cartoons.

The writer of the blog questioned whether these were really racist cartoons, and whether or not they should be banned. His point is that from a historical perspective they should be out there for the world to see, even though people at Warner Brothers are clamoring for them to be removed from YouTube and the NAACP has come out against them.

I'm of two minds. Part of me hates that these cartoons were made, but the other part of me absolutely agrees with the writer of Stereohyped in saying that this is history and therefore they should be judged for what they were. I'd actually seen a lot of these cartoons before, and I remember reading where the cartoonists for Warner Brothers had no bad intentions when they made some of them, saying that they actually had black actors in the cartoons and used a lot of black music, more in tribute sometimes than with any malice. Indeed, the cartoon called Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarves was a musical classic, if fraught with so many bad stereotypes that I'm surprised picketing ever stopped.

Still, one has to have these cartoons to open up a dialogue of what was and, hopefully, what is today. To be fair, the cartoonists picked on everyone, especially the Nazis and Japanese during the war, and to be even more fair, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam and others have to be stereotypes of someone.

So, why am I going to show this one particular cartoon here? Two reasons really. One, because it gives an example of the type of cartoon people are up in arms against, and it does highlight some pretty bad stereotypes here and there. But two, because it also copies a lot of things that I saw in a couple other Bugs Bunny cartoons with Elmer Fudd, and if you're a serious purveyor of Warner Brothers cartoons (that seems like an oxymoron, doesn't it?), you'll recognize many of the gags.

Without further ado, watch, then comment on, All This And Rabbit Stew, for as long as the cartoons stay on YouTube.