Ehh! What’s up Doc?…….Well I’ll tell you what’s fucking up, the neo-liberal politically correct brigade are “whitewashing” parts of history they should just keep their hands off. Now don’t get me wrong I can understand that at the present time there are some monuments and statues that are offensive, but is getting rid of them all the right answer, is the furore surrounding the issue actually diluting the message being conveyed, particularly with reference to the Black Lives Matter movement. As an example Auschwitz is the scene of the most abhorrent war crimes ever to be perpetrated upon the human race yet instead of tearing it down it still stands as testimony to those times to educate people how man’s inhumanity to man once existed in the mass extermination of the Jews, Roma community and those who were less than physically perfect, the final solution the ultimate in eugenics.
Maybe it would be better to repurpose these things as educational tools and by all means label them with appropriate plaques signifying exactly what these representations of history really stood for. So in respect of Colston’s statue which was so publically removed from its plinth in Bristol and dumped in the river by the harbour, place this honorification of Colston into the Bristol museum labeling him as a Slave Trader and that his role as benefactor to Bristols wider community is tainted by his past. Future generations will then be simultaneously educated about the roles of people in colonial imperial England as well as how power and fortunes were built off the backs of the slave trade, particularly in the supply of Africans for the plantations of the Americas and the Caribbean. Also maybe the current conversation should encompass talks of reparation for the generations affected particularly given that as late as last year were when the final reparation payments were made to the slave and plantation owners, remarkable and crass I know….
Anyway back to the point in question Warner Bros have decided in their collective wisdom to take away the guns of Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam in the reruns being shown on HBO Max and other networks in the future. Yes you heard that right and in the case of Elmer Fudd they’re replacing it with a scythe, a bloody scythe for fucks sake. Yeah! He can chop Bugs Bunny to death in a frenzy of blood, guts and gore instead of dispatching him cleanly with a bullet to the head. Now correct me if I’m wrong but Elmer never came close to killing Bugs with his blunderbus as he couldn’t hit a barn door at three yards plus he gave him ample warning stammering out “you wasscally wabbit your gonna get it, be vewy vewy afwaid, say ya pwayers, huh-huh-huh-huh …” that’s at least ten metres headstart in my book. Given that neither Elmer Fudd nor Yosemite Sam were at all responsible gun owners maybe Warner Bros could put all their energy and financial input into anti gun legislation and lobbying against the NRA so that America doesn’t have to deal with the mass shootings that occur on a regular basis…Just sayin’.
These people are systematically pissing on my childhood memories, I get that some things like Tom and Jerry with its depiction of the black woman shooing Tom out of the kitchen has racist overtones and fully understand the reason to drop those particular episodes, however why try and erase some of the violence in the cartoons, if I remember correctly nobody ever actually died and I’m sure none of my friends or I ever re-enacted dropping a boulder of a cliff edge onto each other. I also can’t ever remember ordering dynamite or coiled spring contraptions from ACME Inc either. Can you envisage Wiley Coyote and Road Runner being re-imagined in a soft play area with Wiley trying to drown Road Runner in the ball pool or hitting him around the head with a foam wedge shouting “now say beep beep you bastard” No! Well neither can I, so I say this to Warner Bros leave my fucking childhood alone.
“Th-th-th-that’s all folks!”…….and cue music 🎶
©M.J. Sabine, 2020
For further reading:
CNN: Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam no longer have guns in new ‘Looney Tunes Cartoons’
‘We’re not doing guns’ : Elmer Fudd loses his rifle in HBO’s ‘Looney Tunes’ cartoon reboot
FrogDiva Thoughts 