The Hypocrisy of Warner Bros. Regarding Racially Insensitive Cartoons on Home Media

One thing that was commonplace in Golden Age cartoons was racial stereotyping either of Asians, Mexicans, Native Americans, and most commonly, African Americans. While stereotypes are not funny, they are still part of cartoon history and should not be ignored, because to ignore them would basically be saying they never existed. What these cartoons should serve as is a history lesson as to how far America has come and that these gags are not acceptable today. On several DVD and Blu-ray releases that have cartoons with racial stereotypes, there is a disclaimer on the back cover that reads: “Intended for the Adult Collector and May Not Be Suitable for Children” and sometimes before the main menu pops up, this disclaimer appears: “Some of the cartoons you are about to see are a product of their time. They may depict some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that were commonplace in American society. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. While the following does not represent the Warner Bros.’ view of today’s society, some of these cartoons are being presented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed”. So with the disclaimer on the back cover and the disclaimer before the main menu, they have put out cartoons with racial stereotypes before and have done recently (most notably 1959’s “China Jones”, which features Porky as an Asian stereotype, being restored for HBO Max in 2020 and later put on the Looney Tunes Collector’s Choice Volume 3 Blu-ray set in 2024). Unfortunately, for some reason, there are cartoons they refuse to have restored and put out on disc (most notably the Censored Eleven and other cartoons that contain racial stereotypes or even cartoons that have only ONE gag that is racially insensitive such as 1942’s “Fresh Hare” or 1948’s “I Taw a Putty Tat”). And they have done that with other cartoon series as well such as with Tom and Jerry as two of their cartoons, “Mouse Cleaning” (1948) and “Casanova Cat” (1951) are considered “no-no”’s to put out on disc for racial stereotypes yet they had no problem restoring other Tom and Jerry cartoons that have racial stereotypes (most notably 1951’s “His Mouse Friday”, which has been banned from television due to black stereotyping but was restored for the long-cancelled Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume 2 Blu-ray that would’ve collected all of the Tom and Jerry cartoons from “Mouse Cleaning” to 1953’s “Life with Tom” and was supposed to be released in 2013. However, it ended up being indefinitely cancelled due to “Mouse Cleaning” and “Casanova Cat” being pulled from the set, but they were somehow fine with “His Mouse Friday” being on there). They also did this with Tex Avery’s MGM cartoons when Warner Archive released three volumes of Avery’s MGM output on Blu-ray in beautiful new restorations. Volume 1 contained 1944’s “Big Heel-Watha”, which contained Native American stereotypes as well as 1950’s “Garden Gopher” which had a brief blackface gag. Volume 2 contained 1952’s “Magical Maestro”, which has a few stereotypical gags. Volume 3 contained 1944’s “Happy Go Nutty” which also has a brief blackface gag. Somehow, though the upper management is refusing to put out other Avery MGM cartoons like 1946’s “Henpecked Hoboes” and 1948’s “Lucky Ducky”, which both contain only one blackface gag. In conclusion, it DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE as to why Warner Bros. doesn’t want to have cartoons with racial stereotypes restored and put out on disc (or even cartoons that only have one racially insensitive scene) but are somehow perfectly fine with other stereotype-filled cartoons like “China Jones”, “His Mouse Friday” (which is available for purchase on iTunes!), and “Big Heel-Watha” being restored and put out on disc.