Cartoon
Tom an Jurry

Animal
unacceptable human being

Outfit: apron / old-timey waitress outfit / Caucasian body socks?

Tagline: "THOMAS!”

Plot summary: One of the unfortunate realities about race relations in the American 1950s is that black people existed and were often let into our homes for social situations or work. A harrowing example of this is "Mammy Two-Shoes," a headless African-American character in the "Tom and Jerry" childrens serial who works as a maid in the home of an unassuming white couple. Mammy, who is rarely wearing "shoes" at all (she wears slippers), is not only given money in exchange for services but also tasked with extermination, because the home of the white couple is infested with vermin. Whether or not this has anything to do with the presence of a negro is unexplained. As expected, Mammy is imprecise in her job of hitting the mouse with the bushy end of a broom and often swings wildly, hitting both cat and mouse.

By the 1960s, MGM animation studios and Chuck Jones finally realized how potentially offensive the idea of "black people" was to the day's impressionable youth and rotoscoped Mammy out of the cartoons completely, replacing her with a thin, white, Irish woman. This gesture instantaneously solved racism and enlightened a generation of young people. By the end of the 1960s, young people were enlightening each other about the head and neck, lower body, and asshole. Now we live in a utopia where there is no war and black folk speak clearly and stay on their side of the country.

A similar situation happened when Disney removed all the Jews from their cartoons as to not offend the Nazi Supermen who were their superiors. (more)

User Comments: But seriously, I guess it was important for the black lady to be removed from Tom and Jerry to keep young black girls from watching TV, seeing themselves, and then growing up to be headless maids in the 1950s. Mammy Two-Shoes was clearly inspired by Hattie McDaniel, the first black actress to win an Academy Award, and never really did anything "Mammy" other than being named "Mammy" and sounding like a black lady. I wrote here that I never noticed she was the "bad" kind of black lady. I just thought she was the person taking care of the cat.

I'm glad I got to grow up in one of the last generations allowed to see things and do things and make our own decisions. I was thinking about how Looney Tunes used to be all over the television, so much that when I saw the Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show coming on at 11 I knew that Saturday morning was "over" and I had to get out of there before Soul Train came on. But now you have to pay 60 dollars to get DVD sets to watch them, because they "aren't suitable for today's audiences." They were suitable for 60 years of audiences, just not today's. Like I said, I'm glad I'm not a part of today's audiences. I'm glad I got to watch Daffy Duck without having him stop in the middle of the cartoon, do a fucking Matrix parody, and tell me about how to save the environment.

Mammy Two-Shoes ruled. Even if she wasn't wearing a single shoe.

User Rating: 9.2/10 (2 votes)