Tom & Jerry

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Mammy Two Shoes hitting Tom the Cat who's chasing Jerry the Mouse

Tom and Jerry is an American cartoon series created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Tom and Jerry join a long and developing rundown of old top picks that are unexpectedly denounced for failing the test of contemporary sensitivities. [1]

Synopsis

The cartoon focuses on the endless companionship and contention between the characters of a cat named Tom and a mouse named Jerry. Numerous shorts additionally include a few repeating characters, one of them is Mammy Two Shoes[2].

Controversy

Considered having generally excellent animation, there are some black stereotypes shown in the series as part of the comedy, which is viewed as questionable for some. On Amazon and ITunes, The Complete Second Volume is joined by the alert: "Tom and Jerry shorts may depict some ethnic and racial prejudices that were once commonplace in American society. Such depictions were wrong then and are wrong today."[3] .” In 1949 the NAACP started fighting the studio over Mammy Two-Shoes. By the 1980s fights by groups addressing communities of color against the lack of representation and a tide of misrepresentation became routine.[4]

In "Casanova Cat" and "Mouse Cleaning," two scenes from 1951 and 1948 has evident race references that had recently been censored on broadcast television. "Casanova Cat" highlights Tom trying to impress a beautiful female cat by darkening Jerry’s face with cigar smoke and make Jerry do a dance. In “Mouse Cleaning,” Tom uses his “blackface” to deceive Mammy Two Shoes. There are additionally a lot of other obsolete generalizations in "Tom and Jerry" to be pointed out.[5]

Reference