I got the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Three today, popped the first DVD in the machine, and the first, very disturbing image that appears on my screen is the smug mug of Whoopi Goldberg. Now why, I wondered, recovering from my shock and nausea, is Whoopi here? Well, the answer presented itself rather obnoxiously. Whoopi was there in her cloying persona of Matriarch of Racial Sensitivity, to apologize for the cartoons’ racial and ethnic caricatures. No kidding; here I quote:
…However, the Looney Tunes and their irreverent brand of humor are products of their time. Unfortunately, at that time racial and ethnic differences were caricatured in ways that may have embarrassed and even hurt people of color, women and ethnic groups. Now nobody intended it, but that’s what happened. Now some of the cartoons here reflect some of the prejudices that were commonplace in American society, especially when it came to the treatment of racial and ethnic minorities. Now these jokes were wrong then, and they are wrong today. But removing these inexcusable images and jokes from this collection would be the same as saying they never existed. So they are presented here to accurately reflect part of our history. They cannot and should not be ignored….
You know, speaking of “products of their time,” this kind of humorless apology is a product of our time. I’m surprised they didn’t have Whoopi apologize for all the gun violence, smoking, talking animals or ? in this era of hypersensitive British Muslims ? pig caricatures. Anyone with any familiarity with the Looney Tunes would be hard pressed to find any group not skewered by the master wits behind those cartoons. Sheesh. Just back then, people apparently had an appreciation for humor and could laugh at themselves. Heck, one of my favorite Looney Tunes is when Bugs Bunny meets the Scotsman (my heritage is Scots), winds up irritating the stereotypically bad-tempered Angus MacRory, who shoots at him and then outraces the rabbit to retrieve the bullet (“It’s been in the family for-r-r year-r-r-rs,” he explains).
