Ransby Responds

Bob Black's letter and his seeming affection for the little rabbit with the big ears is further evidence of the seductive influcncc televisión can have on immature minds. The letter does not, however, reflect a real grasp or appreciation for the serious issues I was attempting to convey in the article. Of course televisión cartoon characters are not the main purveyors of racist and sexist ideology in oir culture. That was not my point. The point was that in often subtle and some times blatant ways, children's popular culture reflects the racial, gender and class biases inherent in the larger society, and that our children are vulnerable to these messages. More specif ically , in response to Bob's rather short-sighted suggestion that we should not judge 1940's cultural products by 1990's standards, as a historian who has had many debates about this issue with colleagues, I could not disagree more. Of course, in order to understand something or someone, we must analyze it in its proper historica! context However, as we evalúate the contemporary value and impact of a given phenomenon we must judge it by current standards, utilizing and incorporating, rather than discounting the benefit of hindsight. For example, as long as George Washington is heralded as an American nero and icon, Americans must be reminded that he was also a slaveowner. The f act that thousands of other wealthy white men were also slaveholders in the 18th century does not lessen the significance of this fact or make it any less deplorable. The same applies to the cultural messages, historical inaccuracies and stereotypes perpetuated in movies, books and cartoons. As long as that material is distributed and consumed in contemporary times, it has an impact on contemporary culture and thinking, and should be critiqued by contemporary standards and values. The fact that Popeye was created at a time when it was more socially acceptable to denígrate women as weak, mindless objects of male interest or rage, and the fact that Bugs Bunny was created at a time when the ubiquitous image of África was as one of a big jungle full of subhuman barban ans, does not excuse these animated cultural conduits, or make them any more palatable or defensible or any less virulent today than they were two generations ago. Actually, the fact that the cultural brokers in this society still routinely offer up such images, widely and uncritically, for popular consumption, suggests that we really haven't progressed as much as Bob and many others would have us believe. As a footnote, regarding Bob's rather farfetched interpretation of Bugs Bunny (see The Philospher's Carrot) as a working class hero cause he lives a meager subsistence, refuses to work for a living, and violates the "petit bourgeois" property ríghts of Elmer Fudd - all I can say is - "What's up, doc?" Do you know any real workers or can't you distinguish stereotype fantasy from reality? Most workers do not want to escape "work" and sit around eating carrots all day; they want to escape "expío itation," none of which is alluded to in Bugs Bunny. And besides, the and 6-year-olds who watch Bugs Bunny can barely count, let alone grasp the complex class dynamics of modern capitalism. The more basic message they do get from most cartoons, including Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner, is that the dominant mode of human interaction is a vicious competition between the good guys and the bad guys and anything done to defeat the bad guys is justifiable. Later in Ufe they will be told more specifically who the bad guys are. Moreover, I am insulted that Bob, presum ably a "progressive" reader of AGENDA, would not even think it important enough to address the specific examples of racism which appear in the adventures of his beloved Bugsy, and which I mention in the article. I guess it's really more important to promote characters who in some amorphous and ill-defined sense "defy" an even more ill-defined "authority," than it is to confront very specific messages which they put forth suggesting that people of color ar& sub-human, uncivilized animáis. Bob exposes his own chauvinism and racism by condescendingly dismissing ing my concerns as "anti-sexist and anti-racist preoccupations." Maybe these issues are of so little concern to him, because Mr. Black is white and male. On the other hand, maybe I'm just too picky about that sort of thing. Maybe I need to be more laid back, like Bob. It's only fantasy, right? Finally, contrary to Bob's optimistic notion that children can successfully disiinguish fantasy from reality, there is ampie evidence that many adults cannot do this, so, why should we presume children always can? Children often do mimic what they see in the media, including bonking each other over the head on occasion in Crue "Three Stooges" fashion. I realize the frightening ex tent to which such negative and fallacious images help to shape young minds when my 6-year-old son rebuts my criticisms of Popeye's misogynist treatment of Olive by saying, "She doesn't mind"; or when another child inquires about my trip to Zimbabwe by asking "Do all the people live in the jungle, like on Tarzan?"; or when a child overhears a discussion about the bebop era in jazz music and thinks it is something negative because one of the NinjaTurtle viüains is named "Bebop." It is at these times that I am confronted with the f uil impact of the racist and sexist imagery embodied in the so-called "classics," as well as current children's media. And as long as such images threaten to influence my child' s visión of the world and the people in it, I insist upon the right to criticize and hold accountable those who have the power to produce, shape and propágate such images.