Originally published at: Watch: An old Tom and Jerry scene accidentally predicted the Russian invasion of Ukraine | Boing Boing
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I thought I knew the Tom and Jerry shorts quite well, but I seem to have missed the part of this cartoon where the dog was constantly supplying the mouse with manpads, drones and anti-tank missiles, and that actually biting the cat would set off nuclear war, killing us all.
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- Almost 70 years old!
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I do actually remember this episode (I think). I know all metaphors are flawed, but even accounting for that and aside from your points, this is still a terrible metaphor.
In the episode, to my memory, Jerry was under the dog’s protection. He’d ring the bell, the dog would come and beat up Tom. Under this protection, Jerry became not only complacent and indulgent, but started bullying Tom. If Tom refused to serve Jerry, Jerry could just ring the bell.
Ukraine is not a member of NATO. They had not become lazy and indulgent relying on others to defend them. They did not and could not use that defense assurance to push Russia around. They could not expect a NATO response when they “ring the bell.”
Because of this, NATO is not tied up in such a way that they cannot defend a member state. They have not tried to bite back on a steel defense that leaves them toothless.
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Later in the cartoon the dog winds up his leash and hides it. He then erases the line in the grass (that indicate the dog’s range) and redraws the line closer to the dog house.
Tom then tries to tease the dog and is horrified that the dog can now reach Tom.
I’ll let you all decide the symbolism to the current events.
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If the dog is NATO, then who tied him up?
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Peace in our time!
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Thanks, you said it better than I could.
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The “Nazi appeasement” metaphors are way off base too for reasons that should be obvious.
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And will russia get to sing “Who let the dogs out”?
Like someone said on Twitter, when either the Russian embassy or the head of Roscosmos shared this as propaganda, you really have to have a blind spot about how Tom and Jerry cartoons turn out to think this ended well for Tom/Russia.
It’s also missing the part where Jerry is actually giving Tom black eyes, chewing off feet and ripping his nose off.
I remember a story a number of years ago about a snake in a Chinese (I think) zoo. The zoo keepers put a live mouse in the snake enclosure, as a meal. The mouse killed the snake. It jumped on the snake and bit it, and did this repeatedly until the snake bled to death. Whether the Ukrainians can destroy the Russian army in a “death by a thousand bites” remains to be seen.
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The part where the cat is metaphorically starving to death is missing.
Head of the Russian Space Agency tried to use an edited version of this, tweeted out with the caption “a brief description of the current geopolitical situation in the language of a cartoon, since our Western colleagues do not know or understand anything more serious than comics.” All of twitter jumped in to suggest he watch the full version all the way to the end, and the cat is a jerk, that always loses.
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