Arriba, Arriba, Arriba!

Posted in Tidbits on March 29, 2002

This story from Fox News explains why you won’t be seeing Speedy Gonzales cartoons on the Cartoon Network anytime soon. They’ve decided his portrayal of Hispanics is too offensive. Ironically, Speedy cartoons are very popular on “Cartoon Network Latin America.” Read more for my take on this…

First, let me say that I understand as well as anyone the importance of not stereotyping any group of people. There’s no logic to it — there is so much variance between people, even people of the same [insert group identifier here], that it is impossible to state any relevant stereotype that will include the entire group.

Second, I refuse to hear a bad word about classic Warner Bros. cartoons. In my opinion, they are some of the greatest entertainment ever created. They broke new ground in so many different ways, and you can still see their influence in today’s animated movies/TV shows.

Now, with all that said — if they received complaints, then I can understand not showing the cartoons. The article doesn’t mention that. And, considering their popularity on the Latin American version of Cartoon Network, the decision doesn’t really make sense.

I grew up on these cartoons — I saw how they portrayed blacks and hispanics, and it never registered they were sterotyping minorities. These were just individual characters in funny cartoons. What did register is my mother telling me all people are equal, and her descriptions of the kind of racism she saw growing up. Despite what some people think, television is not the only thing children learn from.

Maybe they could show these cartoons late at night, like all other networks do with material for mature audiences. Regardless of what they do, I hope these cartoons are preserved somewhere. Besides being a reflection of the times, they’re just funny.