{"id":5619,"date":"2009-02-03T15:28:10","date_gmt":"2009-02-03T20:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=5619"},"modified":"2009-02-03T13:40:11","modified_gmt":"2009-02-03T18:40:11","slug":"before_cartoons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/03\/before_cartoons\/","title":{"rendered":"Before Cartoons were PC…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back when I was a kid, cartoons meant the Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera franchises rather than Dora the Explorer, Simpsons & Spongebob and they occasionally carried less than model minority stereotypes. <\/p>\n\n

A friend of mine recently posted this cartoon<\/a> on his facebook wall. Although originally published in 1971, I’ve got hazy memories of it still being on the air in the late 70s \/ early 80s (dating myself.. I know) – <\/p>\n\n

\n<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n\n
Classic animation short from Sesame Street’s third broadcast season. An Indian guru counts from 1 to 20 on his four arms, accompanied by sitar music and a lot of psychedelic visuals. As a bonus, there’s a recap in Spanish!<\/blockquote>\n\n

One other desi portrayal I remember from the era was Johnny Quest’s sidekick Hadji<\/a> – an arguably positive character. On a similar note, although mistaken for Afro-American, Little Black Sambo<\/a> was actually about a Tamilian boy but, AFAIK, was never made into a TV toon. A different, non-PC example I particularly remember wasn’t desi but definitely pushed ill Mexican stereotypes was Slowpoke Rodriguez<\/a> (Slowpoke was Speedy’s<\/a> less famous, less athletically-inclined cousin and although he appeared in fewer cartoons, for some reason I recall him a bit better).<\/p>\n\n

So, I thought I’d cast the net open and see if mutineers had examples of non-PC desi portrayals in TV cartoons back in the day? Before 3rd<\/span> grade name callers invoked Apu<\/a>, what other ill desi cartoon characters fed our childhood angst?<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back when I was a kid, cartoons meant the Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera franchises rather than Dora the Explorer, Simpsons & Spongebob and they occasionally carried less than model minority stereotypes. A friend of mine recently posted this cartoon on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5619"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5619\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}