70 yrs of Pepe Lepew, 60 of Speedy Gonzales, Great Creative Cartoons or decadent racist propaganda?

Speaking as a Native Martian, I have to say that Marvin was an offensive stereotype.
Not all Martians want to blow up the Earth.

originally posted by: skunkape23
Speaking as a Native Martian, I have to say that Marvin was an offensive stereotype.
Not all Martians want to blow up the Earth.

You're from Florida...

Might as well be Mars considering...

a reply to: Thecakeisalie


I never found Speedy offensive, then and now. With a name that ends with an EZ, I'd have to be pretty thin skinned to offended by generalizations. I've experienced racism personally many times in my life, and this isn't one of them.

A Jeffrey Gacy WB toon? Not possible, but South Park would be all over it.

a reply to: Siddharta

Pepe LePeuw is a skunk who played off the idea of the French as famous romantics who chased women. He would always chase a black house cat who bumped into white paint, so he thought she was a skunk. And he spent the entire episode convinced she was playing hard to get while she was horrified by the smelly skunk chasing her around trying to romance her.

a reply to: ketsuko

Thanks for the explanation, Ketsuko.

Seems to be more of a macho problem, or maybe a stalker. Feminists will run on streets over here, if they get to know about it. For me more a parody to the stupid "Every girl falls on me" guy. Shoot away his balls ( as they used to do in these early cartoons) and forget about it.

It is not the way you call people, but the way you tread people.

a reply to: Siddharta

The Peace of God to all that belong to the Light,
Dear Readers,

I appreciate the multiple and so interesting, although not converging, answers to my questions in the opening post of the thread. I feel all the comments are very interesting, and clearly point in to two different ways to see this same cartoons, it is pretty interesting to verify how cartoons made for children are able to inspire so different feelings, thoughts and emotions in the public, depending on the background of who watch them.

Now, I remember many years ago, possibly in the early 1990s when Brazil was shaken by a terrible erosion of its own political life and institutions, it was the era of Fernando Collor de Mello, a President that was impeached, in which a lot of scandals plagued that nation, that people started to feel extremely disappointed with politics in general and pretty skeptical with politicians in particular.

So for the Election of Senator of the state of Rio de Janeiro some people in the media together with protesters decided to defy the status quo by Launching a campaign to elect the Hippopotamus of the local Zoo for that office. For incredible that appears the animal got more votes than all the other candidates in such election, being technically the winner.

search.archives.jdc.org...

Well Brazilians have a very special taste to see the world like a giant Carnival, so they have great talent for these kind of radical actions to express popular dissent , and that was not an isolated case on their History, in 1958 a Rhinoceros became elected Major of Sao Paulo, the largest city of South America:

historyofafricaotherwise.blogspot.com...

I am wondering if Pepe Le Pew and Speedy Gonzales could integrate a winner formula in the Next Presidential election, for President and Vicepresident respectively, as independent candidates, and how interesting could be to see those characters competing as a way of civilized and peaceful protest against the low level of politics in the nation.


Well one thing is sure Pepe Le pew can be seen as more clean than many candidates, specially the ones dealing with scandals like Mrs Clinton, and Speedy Gonzales can be a tremendous alter ego for people like Donald Trump and Jeb Bush that disagree if Spanish is or not a valid language to do campaign in the States, also since both characters were developed in America I feel they can qualify even considering that they portrait foreign cultures.

Le Pew - Gonzales have reached the needed maturity, as symbols, in the collective mentality of the American people of many generations that it is even longer than the political experience of many of the ones that are running right now for the white house.

What do you think on this fantasy? I know it seems like a dream taken from a book of Jose Zaramago, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez or Isabel Allende, but the thought is delighting.

Here a list of non human candidates nominated and even elected in History, including some cases in American History:

en.wikipedia.org...

Thanks for your attention,

The Angel of Lightness

People need to relax and be able to laugh at themselves.
We are all stereotypes to someone.
I remember this Canadian TV show what was run in syndication
in the U.S. John Byner's "Bizarre" that had an entire skit
based on a family of racial and cultural stereotypes. The premise
was that EVERYONE is racist so they grew closer together by
poking fun at one another.
This is just another one of those micro-rages that people have when they
don't have anything better to do. Be productive somehow, and
love everyone in your life.
Pretty soon everyone will be so scared to talk about anything, human
communication will break down, and society next....

a reply to: SynTheTixDJ

Yes I understand your point and I agree that sometimes stress make people to assume reality in a much worst way as it is indeed. Even a gesture of socialization can be misinterpreted as an insult or agression when somebody is under too much nervious tension.

Definitively cartoons are a way of relaxation and I don't think they really are intended as political or racist propaganda, they could maybe reflect points of view of the time and place they were made certainly, but they are primarily a response to a society that is asking for entertainment.

Thanks for your comment,

The Angel of Lightness