- A long-running – seemingly endlessly iterated, in fact – conflict between enemies known as Tom and Jerry. Where else have we seen this? That’s right, the First World War, in which the Brits were known collectively as “Tommy Atkins” and they called the Germans “Jerries” (well, when they weren’t calling them “Huns”). Interesting, then, that it’s with Jerry – the historical loser – that our sympathies lie. Revisionist propaganda? Perhaps. Perhaps.
Come to think of it, weren’t the majority of these cartoons produced during and shortly after the second World War, in which Jerry (if you will) was once again the enemy? Posited: a subversive attempt to counteract the “all Germans are Nazis are Evil” propaganda then current – a sort of Don’t Let’s be Beastly to the Germans, without Noel Coward’s sarcasm.
-Contributed by Jeffie - You know, if you think about it, The Muppets were quite a sublime commentary on the human condition. None of the Muppets were good at what they wanted to be. Piggy wasn’t beautiful. Fozzie wasn’t funny. Kermit couldn’t make his show a success. The Swedish Chef could not cook, etc. They all constantly failed, yet kept trying.
-From Scott Kurtz’s PvP, 12/10/2008 - There’s one reservation I have about [The Rescuers Down Under]. Why does the villain have to be so noticeably dark-complexioned compared to all of the other characters? Is Disney aware of the racially coded message it is sending? When I made that point to another critic, he argued that McLeach wasn’t dark-skinned – he was simply always seen in shadow. Those are shadows are cast by insensitivity to negative racial stereotyping.
-From Roger Ebert’s Review of The Rescuers Down Under - The Count from Sesame Street shows classic symptoms of OCD.
-Contributed by Jim W. - In WALL•E, the span of years listed for each of the Axiom’s previous captains is ambiguous about whether it denotes each captain’s lifespan or the number of years in which he or she was captain of the ship. It should be noted that there is no overlap in the years for each captain. This leans towards the possibility that each person’s time as captain lasted an average of 133.2 years. Regardless, whatever each captain’s span of years denotes, they just happen to total out to 666.
From the first captain to the last one before Jeff Garlin’s character:
143+131+140+124+128 = 666
-Contributed by Joon K.
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For what it’s worth, Disney did the same “darker complexioned character” == “evil” in “Aladdin,” too, with Jafar being noticeably darker skinned than Aladdin, the Sultan or Princess Jasmine. I don’t think the “always shown in shadow” argument holds any water at all for that movie.
This is one of those times where I find that the one of the biggest obstacles to discussing race these days is that we have no relatively neutral terms for it in the language any more. “Racial stereotyping” or a “racist” decision carry a lot more connotation than is intended in many situations, and I think this is one of them. I have no way of talking about this succinctly without associating Disney animators with the KKK when that’s definitely not my intention.
RE: The count in sesame street having OCD symptoms: It’s deliberate. Vampires of lore are supposed to be obsessed with counting and have to count everything (i.e. the whole ‘throw a handful of rice at a vampire to stop it following you).
So in sesame street that he is a vampire count who counts shouldn’t be much of a suprise.