I love Tom and Jerry cartoons. In fact I watch cartoons most of the times I switch on the TV. I hardly watch movies. I do not have the patience to sit down and watch a movie for 2-3 hours. Also, there are not many good ones in the market. This probably has to do with my internal need to have something really light on my mind. When I open a newspaper, I certainly read the cartoon page. I sometimes go through a strip many times until I have enjoyed it fully. When I was very young, I was very much fond of reading the strip Phantom. If I could get hold of a complete book on Phantom cartoons, it was like owning a treasure. I could feel the excitement in all my activities. Then there were comic books of Archie. I just did not understand the seemingly fragile and on-off relationships of Archie, Betty and Veronica. Since there were hardly any Indian comics worth reading, my diet used to be Phantom, Mandrake and Tarzan. As I grew up, I began to read more serious stuff. And as I grow older, I can see a turn around. I am going back to the comics of children and loving the Tom and Jerry stuff.
And this is where I discovered a kind of racial overtone in the Tom and Jerry strips. I noticed that whenever Tom or, Jerry committed some mischief, a caretaker or cleaning lady often comes shouting in a thick voice “Tommm……”. And the lady would always be a fat black lady. Moreover, her face will never be shown. What will be shown would be an unkempt dress and a lady (without face) walking in a typical stagger. On the other hand, a white lady would always be a slim and beautiful woman who is dressed very neatly.
Having been in the US many times and also having lived there for a while, I know the status of black people in the country. Inspite of the hardships and the handicaps that they face, I have found most of them quite carefree and very humane. In fact they bond very easily. So the big question is, why the cleaning or cooking lady or house-maid is almost always a black lady who is so ugly that her face need not be shown. I feel rather sad about it. Even then my love for Tom and Jerry continues to blossom. I also admire the black American people that they have never complained about it and the whole thing continues to be taken in a light spirit, which is what it is meant to be. But it does show the deeply entrenched (and mostly hidden) feelings of the white people. I still remember a note full of abuses pasted on my car in Florida as I prepared to leave for University one morning. And I am only a brown person. I know that it takes time (even centuries) for such feelings to go away. Luckily most have already overcome these. But there still remains a small fraction which can play havoc.
I like Tom and Jerry an i often watch it, and you may be right. To be honest i never taught of this.
I think the americans are still facing a fog of racism, or at least they did in the early past. Tom and jerry cartoons where first produced in 1940.
Andy
http://tomandjerrycollection.blogspot.com/
Well the thing you need to understand is that those cartoons were made in the 1940’s way back when seggrigation was considered a valid solution to racial relations. in that era most blacks were depicted in service roles and as stereotypes often with exagerated features and mannorisms. Even when people like the young Stan Lee meant well by adding a black hero to one of his comics it turned out to be incredibly offensive by today’s standards. To be honest i think that the fat black lady in Tom and Jerry is one of the least offensive cartoon depictions of a black person from that time. And i’m glad that they never showed her face, because if they had the artists of that time would almost certainly have exagerated her features to be grossly offensive.