I really didn't know how to take this story when I read it this morning. The licensee for the Tom and Jerry cartoons in Britain has agreed to cut scenes that glamorize smoking. Initially it was “You’ve got to be kidding!! Who watches Tom and Jerry cartoons??” Then I thought about the message the cartoon in general was sending out. Violence is ok, but smoking is not?? It has become a bit of a trend (especially in the UK) recently to “politically correct” old forms of entertainment. Enid Blyton just had a going over with a whole raft of characters from “The Magic Faraway Tree” being renamed to “bring them in line with modern values”. And of course who can forget the homosexual/racism scandal caused by Noddy and Big Ears.
I get where these people are coming from, but I hope that original copies of all this work is being kept somewhere to preserve our history. To me it is a bit like removing depictions of endangered animals from cave paintings. Sure we don’t want to encourage the behaviour depicted, but does that mean we should forget it?
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