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The Muppet Show: Disney+ adds content warning of negative depictions of cultures
- altcognito 6y agoWhat they ought to do is add a second audio track that explains and talks about the issues with the film.
- rbanffy 6y agoIt's fun we often pause older movies (80's "Clue" was the last one) so we can explain period stereotypes and prejudices to our 8yo daughter.
- drpgq 6y agoIs the Swedish chef offensive?
- draugadrotten 6y agoHilariously so. Bork.
- rbanffy 6y agoYou mean that's not actually Swedish?! ;-)
- KSteffensen 6y agoSorry to break it to ya, but there's no moose in a chocolate mousse.
- rbanffy 6y agoI'm shocked. My childhood was a lie.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoAs someone from Denmark I gotta tell ya, that guy is 100% authentically Swedish. I'm pretty sure the Norwegians will back me up on this. :)
- arethuza 6y agoI once had a sales call with the CEO of a fairly large Swedish consulting company about a potential project - he was saying how great their company was and how they have offices all over the world and then adds "But not Denmark, obviously".
- xwdv 6y agoWhat happens if this kind of content ends up being popular because people want to see negative depictions of cultures? Would they add more of it?
- wccrawford 6y agoDisney? Probably not. But there are plenty of people who would.
- jpm_sd 6y agoI adored the Muppet Show as a kid. Tried watching it with my daughters this weekend, since it just became available. "Dad, this is weird. This is really weird. It's not even a show! Just weird little scenes!" ["not even a show" = no connective plot] These kids have all kinds of precision-engineered laser-guided entertainment aimed squarely at their cerebral cortex. They don't need the Muppet Show like I did, I guess.
- michaelbuckbee 6y agoI think this is just a general change in entertainment. When media out was limited to fewer shows being created and the audience so much broader it was necessary to try and throw "something for everybody" into each show. The Muppet Show is kind of the height of this with celebrities, silliness for kids, sly asides for adults, etc.
- Hallucinaut 6y agoI'm not sure the Muppet Show was that; the very setting was a behind the scenes look at the operation of a live variety show of yesteryear, and iirc everything fit into that theme?
- michaelbuckbee 6y agoI was coming at this a little differently. Imagine that there's 75 jokes in the show. Muppets would maybe distribute them like: - 25 for adults - 25 for kids - 25 site gags for toddlers And media now is like: that should be 3 separate shows.
- lggy 6y agoAs if today's extremely successful entertainment didn't build exactly on the "something for everybody" idea. Take the insanely popular movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe as an example. Has mainstream media really changed in this regard?
- jp555 6y ago"...Just weird little scenes!" Does this not describe YouTube too?
- rbanffy 6y agoLet's be fair to them: their first musical number was a cover of a song from an Italian "pornumentary" movie about Sweden. In a children-oriented program. In the 70's.
- KSteffensen 6y agoThe same content warning has been added to 'Aladdin' (the 1992 cartoon, not the Will Smith shameless money grab). I'm wading into shark-filled waters here but could someone please explain the racist bits of Aladdin to me?
- christophilus 6y agoAladdin and the Muppet Show are both great. Maybe Disney’s warning system can be used as a filter for finding the best content on the platform?
- ironmagma 6y agoThat’s kind of like my “banned from Twitter” filter for deciding who a cultural leader is. (Not necessarily a good leader, but a leader nonetheless.)
- huntermeyer 6y agoSort of like r/ControversialClub
- virmundi 6y agoThe line “it’s barbaric but hey it’s home. “
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- AndrewDucker 6y agoA quick Google found me: "It mispronounces Arab words including “Allah,” depicts nonsense scribble instead of real Arabic script, and codes its characters to reinforce racist and Islamophobic tropes. Main characters that the audience is meant to admire, like Aladdin and Jasmine, have Western features, lighter skin, and American accents, while nefarious or impoverished characters like Jafar and shopkeepers have beards, hooked noses, and thick, Middle Eastern accents."
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- mocana 6y agoThis will be a good case study to find out how real "Cancel Culture" concerns are. Because if you are looking for a reason to be offended, the Muppets will give you one. Females being portrayed as pigs, Swedish chefs with speech impediments, depiction of mental disease for laughs, etc. Article also refers to situations such as Johnny Cash singing in front of confederate flag. Yet, there is not one ounce of malice or meanness anywhere to be seen. It is one big wacky party to which everyone is invited. We'll see what happens.
- drewcoo 6y agoI was always a little bothered by the casual violence on the Muppets. But that's not anything anyone wants to cancel.
- notmarkus 6y agoWill it be a good case study because it might expose "cancel culture" as non-existent, or because it might expose "cancel culture" as a tool used only to target those who don't toe the progressive line? In other words, if the Muppets doesn't get "cancelled," is that evidence that "cancel culture" is a hoax, or is it evidence that "cancel culture" doesn't actually care about things like Swedish chefs, it only cares about conformity to a progressive worldview, which the Muppets arguably conform to?
- kypro 6y agoWhat does it mean to have a "negative depiction"? Would that be a depiction that is viewed by the majority as negative, or is it assessed by some objective function? Sometimes I hear people talking about "negative depictions" and "negative stereotypes" I'm either not convinced they're negative (Apu from The Simpsons) or other times I find a stereotype being depicting as overtly negative yet seemingly it's acceptable because (I assume) it's a negative stereotype about some group society doesn't care so much about (the white police officer stereotype, the useless dad stereotype, etc).
- ojnabieoot 6y agoI am assuming you read the article in detail and simply forgot that they listed the actual examples: > a multitude of caricatured national costumes as part of a performance of It’s a Small World After All, including as a Chinese person with exaggerated front teeth and a long braid. > Peter Sellers appears in a segment titled A Gypsy’s Violin wearing a black headscarf with gilded trimmings, a red vest and a large red satin belt, and singing in a heavy accent It seems like almost everyone interested in a good faith discussion would agree that these two examples are offensive stereotypes that don’t really belong in a children’s show. Considering the episode’s aren’t being removed I can’t imagine why anyone would object to this in good faith. Unfortunately there are a ton of people who are fully aware that these stereotypes are offensive but, in bad faith, pretend that they are innocuous jokes and that this is just a moral panic. Although HN rules prevent me from accusing anyone of bad faith, I will suggest that someone who doesn’t have a problem with Apu from the Simpsons is someone who affirmatively supports using racist stereotypes. There are more examples here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Muppets/comments/lnwse2/muppet_show_episodes_with_content_advisories/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Muppets/comments/lnwse2/muppet_show...
- silicon2401 6y agoIf you take the Speedy Gonzalez example, negative depiction means whatever middle-class, urban Americans think they can be offended about on behalf of whoever is being depicted, even if the group being depicted has totally different views on the matter.
- kebman 6y agoHey, didn't Disney make those war-time toons where they made fun of Germans? I guess they'll probably slap a warning on them now...
- beervirus 6y agoNo warning needed. It’s ok to mock them if they’re white.
- rawfan 6y agoGermany here. We're fine being mocked for being white, thank you very much. Even my neighbors from Gambia, Spain or Columbia are fine with that as a reminder for our shitty history, to keep the remembering alive to never repeat that shit.
- beervirus 6y agoThere is no such thing as inherited guilt.
- BrandoElFollito 6y agoI think that Germany has gone too far with that. I am the third generation after the war (born in the 70's) and I have friendly feelings about Germany. I am French and our countries fought for millenia, and there there was Pétain and everything. My German friends told me that WW2 at school was presented in much details, explaining how Germans fucked up. Some people still expect Germans to apologize 80 years after the fact. If I was German I would be pissed off and I am not surprised that the are neo-Nazi waves because of that. The treaty of Versailles should have taught everyone a lesson. My children speak German and when they meet penpals from Heilderberg you could see that history was history for them (they child not care less, they had Instagram stuff to share). With this in mind, I still do not know what to make out of this : https://youtu.be/HMQkV5cTuoY https://youtu.be/HMQkV5cTuoY
- loudmax 6y agoGermans? If you're going to look into Disney wartime propaganda films, Disney made some anti-Japanese cartoons that in retrospect are pretty overtly racist. I'm not bringing this up to make Disney out as any kind of villain. These old films are a reflection of the times they were made. The nation was at war and Disney wanted to do their part to help the effort. Times change.
- falcolas 6y agoFWIW, I'd rather see a disclaimer about the show reflecting the time it was made in, than to have the show changed to reflect our current times.
- motohagiography 6y ago"Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real," is one of my favourite quote fragments. (Baudrillard) It should be updated to mention that content warnings are presented as meaningful to make us believe that criticism elevates us above an experience. The real point of the content warning is to indoctrinate kids into that particular critical framework.
- dmje 6y agoArgh. My dream is that one day people will understand that a really large chunk (probably the vast majority) of piss-ripping found in humour isn't actually racist or misogynistic but is actually the complete opposite in making a statement about the stupidity of the protagonists' racism or misogyny. Fawlty Towers 6th episode "The Germans" is a classic case in point. The entire premise of the episode was not "Germans are stupid" but "the idiot who is xenophobic who is being horrible to Germans is stupid". I don't know anyone - least of all any Germans - who are in the slightest bit offended by this. It's one example, but it happens time and time again. Literally the only people actually being offended are - who...? Anyway. Sigh.
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- mschuster91 6y ago> Literally the only people actually being offended are - who...? Those who have been the target of persecution, slavery, police and other systemic discrimination up to outright genocides for hundreds to thousands of years. It's not that hard to have fun without having to step on other people's toes, or to recognize that what was acceptable 50 years ago is not acceptable today, because society has progressed.
- prepend 6y agoWhat Germans have been the target of persecution, slavery, etc? Isn’t part of the joke that Germans are being discriminated by an innkeeper? And it’s the innkeeper who is in the wrong. Note of course German Jews and other subpopulations were horribly persecuted in the Holocaust. If this episode targeted those subpopulations then there is a real case.
- mschuster91 6y agoThat's the point of what I was saying: Yes, shitty jokes about Germans or Swedes are shitty. But we Germans don't care or complain because we Germans haven't been the target of relentless, historical injustice. For persons of color, for Jews, for Sinti/Roma the situation is different - every time some "comedian" uses their plight for cheap laughs, it's yet another slap in the face.
- sandworm101 6y ago>> ... and singing in a heavy accent lines such as: “Once his love gave him golden earring / And now the ears are turning green.” One has to dig deep and have a basic understanding of chemistry to understand that insult. If we are digging that deep for insults there are bound to be hundreds more. The Muppets are all in primary colors. Many of them do silly things that other characters laugh at. And they each display exaggerated characteristics that never really evolve. If we draw out venn diagrams of color/race, slapstick comedy bits and offensive historical stereotypes, surely we can find something more insulting than this. Swedish Chef would be in my crosshairs, excepting the fact that in one episode it is explained that he isn't actually Swedish.
- tosser0001 6y agoThis feels like the latest round of moral panic that we'll look back on with bewilderment
- ulucs 6y agoConcentration camps in China are apparently fine, but god forbid if someone makes an "edgy" joke.
- anoonmoose 6y agoNo one said concentration camps in China were fine The price for doing anything about the concentration camps in China is higher than anyone is willing to pay, whereas the price of putting warnings on tv shows is negligible
- ulucs 6y agoOn the contrary, not refilming Mulan would have saved Disney quite a bit of money and some respect from the fans of the original movie.
- anoonmoose 6y agoEvery remake disappoints some fans, and the biggest reason Mulan lost so much money was COVID, not the quality of the film.
- prepend 6y agoThis is where it gets confusing. If Disney puts these preroll notices in front of lots of content, does it mean content without it has been reviewed by Disney and they haven’t found a problem? This used to be crazy for me to think, but this article literally says Disney has hired people to review all content. Makes sense that they would review their recent blockbuster, Mulan, before Muppets episodes from decades ago. So it seems Disney is pretty much saying the concentration camps in China are fine. Or at least are more fine than Petter Sellers dressing as a gypsy. In the spectrum of messed up stuff, I think making fun of gypsies is on there. Maybe 3/1000 on the butthurt-o-meter (with literal Nazis carrying out Holocaust being 1000/1000 and Triumph of the Will being like 600/1000). So I would guess that just putting money into a region where people are rounded up, sterilized, retrained, etc must rate at least a 50/1000 right?
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- pyrophane 6y agoI don't like the excesses of cancel culture or what is described (at this point mostly derisively) as the "woke movement." Still, reading the descriptions of these episodes, I'm not surprised Disney added content warnings. The warnings are not for us, they are for Disney. Let's face it, a lot of Disney content has not aged well. The company has a long history of racist and sexist depictions of characters and cultures. Of course Disney wants to distance itself from that and say "hey, this isn't who we are!" Honestly, I'd much rather they do than just bury or edit the content. The real issue I see is that Disney has so much control over this content due to continual extension of their exclusive copyright. To crib a line from a noted (now) Disney owned character, these episodes belong in a museum! They are more valuable now as part of our history than as exclusive Disney+ content, and it shouldn't be up to Disney whether or not anyone gets to see them.
- JanneVee 6y agoAt some point these cultural sensitivities will cross a line where a majority of people will go "enough" and create a backlash. I do believe that somewhere in the future we wont get these content warnings even when they would be appropriate. Also that Disney does it rubs me the wrong way. There is so much content in that is not racist but affect attitudes and views of children in much more unfortunate ways. And I speak from experience when not keeping an eye on my child watching Disney Channel and having to undo that damage. I'm not sure that managed to undo it totally.
- foolzcrow 6y agoWoke = trendy bigot
- TakawaraJu 6y agoWouldn’t Disney (and all the other platforms) kill these disclaimer non-stories by giving subscribers the option to opt out of questionable content disclaimers? It seems like a simple and effective way that would allow one to have their cake and eat it too.