Some of my fondest television memories from back when I was a kid were binge watching hours upon hours of Looney Tunes shorts and Tom and Jerry, which prior to 1990 were pretty much filler on any local or basic cable station. That was before the Common Decency Police stepped and declared that imagery of cartoon animals and people drinking, smoking, shooting guns at each other and blowing things up with dynamite was too graphic for the precious minds of the millennial generation.
But beyond the violence, some of those early cartoons also contained just a smidge of racism, which is the reasoning for a new warning on Amazon Prime Instant. Prime users who opt to watch Tom and Jerry cartoons will now be shown the following disclaimer before viewing the content.
The classic cat and mouse cartoon from the 1940s now comes with a disclaimer on Amazon Prime Instant, saying that the animated series may contain scenes of “ethnic and racial prejudice.”
“Tom and Jerry shorts may depict some ethnic and racial prejudices that were once commonplace in American society,” the disclaimer states. “Such depictions were wrong then and are wrong today.”
Of course Tom and Jerry was a little bit racist. I remember being like seven-years-old watching it and thinking, “Hmm. Something’s not right here.” Tom and Jerry was also the inspiration for Itchy and Scratchy, so it goes without saying that it was a terrible show. But also isn’t that kind of what made it so great?
This isn’t the first time Tom and Jerry has gotten a racism warning. In a previously released DVD set for Warner Home Video contained the following introduction from Whoopi Goldberg about the contents of the series:
(Via The Wrap)