Yes, it’s obvious the cat doesn’t want it. But it’s also obvious that the protagonist of the cartoons is Pepé Le Pew, not the girl kitty. Pepé is normalizing the behavior, as in “Ha, ha, isn’t it funny that the girl kitty doesn’t like Pepé or want him to touch her but he does anyway!”
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Um… more like how your cat DOESN’T want to be picked up…
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Point taken. When I saw this as a kid, it was obvious to me that Pepé was being a jerk. However, your assertion that the cartoon is normalizing abusive behavior is a valid interpretation.
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I seem to recall being told it’s actually a somewhat nerveless spot- I had to give my poor girl regular saline injections and that’s where I did it. She found having a large volume of saline solution being injected under her skin much more disconcerting than the needle.
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I was looking to adopt a cat from a no-kill cat shelter. Picking them up was one of the sorting methods. To complicate things, my family has always picked up cats and cradled them on their backs like babies. You’d think they’d freak, but held right, they do fine. Unknowingly, we’ve been incorporating much of what this guy suggested, but with cat flipped.
The best example was when I went to pick up a 31 lb cat (not fat, BTW) and the staff started to warn me he doesn’t like to be held. But the big dude was cool with it. Nice cat, but the look of “I like you, but could kill you if I wanted to.” was a bit disconcerting.
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It’s a terrible thing, just like how Tweety and Bugs dropping anvils on people and cats has normalized anvil murder. My generation, that grew up on Tweety and Sylvester, murders people with anvils nearly every day, and it’s been so completely normalized it never even makes the newspapers.
Johnny Gruelle for the win!
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I SQUISH DA CAAAAAAAAT!
Yes, despite being simple-minded, it is a sentence.
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The fundamental difference there is that there are plenty of other cultural norms about not dropping anvils on people’s heads, stuff that kids are even aware of.
Many, many, MANY men (and some women) do not understand that forcing themselves on women who DO NOT WANT THEM TO DO THAT or cat calling or grabbing their asses etc is wrong. It’s a huge difference.
Women are harassed or assaulted LITERALLY EVERY DAY.
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I’m pretty sure we’re making the same point, so I must have done my @Modusoperandi badly?
America’s problems may be illustrated by a cartoon anti-hero, but they are not caused by cartoons.
It’s perhaps appropriate to consider that suppressing “Song of the South” did not bring one single lynch victim back to life. Not. One. It did allow professional racists to make a whole lot of money selling bootleg copies, and it did provide support to racist agitator claims that history has been censored. But trying to prevent its dissemination did not undo any harm at all - it just helped racists’ cause.
You dig Gruelle? I have a very large set of originals.
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It sounds as if Lloyd is cat-atonic.
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My, that’s almost cat-astrophic.
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Yes, you did your parody badly.
Song of the South perpetuated harmful stereotypes. Full stop. I’m sure you’re fully aware of that.
I’ve said this elsewhere, these racist groups have their constiuency, and we now have the ability to compare and contrast - free speech including racist speech vs. banning of racist speech. Neither effectively ended the problem of racist groups. Saying that Song of the South, of all things, allowed them to perpetuate racism and their goals more effectively is missing the larger picture, that in either case (the case of free speech or banning of some particular speech) has proven ineffective in ending harmful, racist views of the past. Since I spend most of my time on the front lines of trying to correct ignorance about the past (often to people who are, if not hostile, at the very least resistant to that), while showing complexity and nuance there, you really don’t need to explain all that to me. I am completely aware of the claims made by fringe groups. That’s not who I’m trying to reach. I’m very interested in reaching the broad public who has no engagement with history.
And yes, people DO model behaviors they see on TV from a young age, just like they model behaviors they see in their homes, at schools, etc. That’s how humans learn to be more human. It’s true that parents are the primary place for that sort of learning, but not everyone has the benefit of loving, attentive parents with progressive views of gender relationships.
And no one suggested BANNING that cartoon. I don’t know why that’s always where people go whenever these more nuanced conversations crop up, we always have to go there. How about maybe we’re just trying to point out that media does matter in our society in shaping our behavior, because it is so very prevalent. This is all we’re trying to say here. Yes, the cartoon certainly reflects a certain type of behavior, but to imagine that only goes one way is missing the larger effect of mass media.
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I think it’s worth noting that Disney chose not to release Song of the South on Home Video in order to maintain and cultivate their image and appeal to consumers. It was more of a financial choice than anything else, and the video version is still available outside of the U.S.
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In the cartoon “Wild Over You” Pepe courts an escaped wildcat who savages him at every opportunity.
It introduces kids to the concept of masochistic love.The animators were intentionally screwing with the censors with that one.
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Is that really the description?
I fucking despair of this shitty world.
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Its really wild. Once you get past the fact that it is practically an ode to masochism.
