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HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

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Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#61

Mouse in Manhattan is a wonderful short. The storytelling, the pacing, and the orchestral score are magical. But there is the small issue of Jerry falling into a vial of shoe polish and then popping his head out -- in full blackface. Yup, that's not allowed today. I hope they just correct that (but without messing up the music) rather than outright ban it.

"Correcting" seems just as dystopian as banning outright.

Put a warning label on it and people can choose to not view it.

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#62

Mouse in Manhattan is a wonderful short. The storytelling, the pacing, and the orchestral score are magical. But there is the small issue of Jerry falling into a vial of shoe polish and then popping his head out -- in full blackface. Yup, that's not allowed today. I hope they just correct that (but without messing up the music) rather than outright ban it.

So we're all going to go to the library and start removing (maybe burning??) all the books that are no longer proper?

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "correct" today will not be "correct" tomorrow. You don't reconcile history by pretending it didn't exist. 50 years from now, some young generation will decide that animal-sourced leather is a hate crime, and every movie you've ever seen will be banned to "correct" the social error of seeing shoes that aren't plastic.

Growing up, it was acceptable to shoot a Rodian before giving him a chance to shoot you. But blackface is clearly prohibited today. So there's two choices for art like this: edit it, or it doesn't get shown publicly again. I'm only arguing that I'd prefer the former to the latter.

There's a third choice - just show it unedited. Put a disclaimer if needed. You can still buy a copy of mein kampf and read the loonery Hitler wrote.

You don't learn from history by denying it's existence.

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#64

Mouse in Manhattan is a wonderful short. The storytelling, the pacing, and the orchestral score are magical. But there is the small issue of Jerry falling into a vial of shoe polish and then popping his head out -- in full blackface. Yup, that's not allowed today. I hope they just correct that (but without messing up the music) rather than outright ban it.

he accidentally falls in black dye though. Of course his face would be black. why is that bad?

Well it's clearly blackface, 100%. The lips, the wide smile. It's the typical cartoonish depiction of Black people at the time. That was the gag --> "Jerry falls into shoe dye and now he's a negro."

Incidentally, another favorite of mine from the 40s --The Spirit comics by Will Eisner-- also feature a character with the cartoon black face: huge lips, etc. Unfortunately, that limits the exposure the comics will get with modern audiences.

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#65

Couldn't they just show trigger warnings for controversial content? Disney does this with old classics[1]. This is historical animation, I think it's worth showing an accurate snapshot of the past. [1]: https://imgur.com/dkMC6gd

Couldn't they just show trigger warnings Or people could just grow up and realize that you can't judge people who lived a hundred years ago by today's standards. Imagine what ordinary things you do every day that people a hundred years from now will consider a social crime and want you banned or cancelled for.

I completely agree, but some parents might not want their kids to watch old stuff. A content advisory is a good middle ground, since it doesn't censor the past while giving the streaming service a free pass.

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#66

It all goes back to not owning you media. When you rent ("subscribe") and stream, it's not yours, and can be taken away for any reason, or no reason at all. For the last decade I've been buying up old DVDs and CDs of films and TV shows that I like from fleaBay, Goodwill, and elsewhere and archiving them in my own NAS for my personal use. It's astounding how much quality media has never made it to streaming. In my est…

you missed the part that says "So, to date, a complete, uncut Hanna-Barbera collection has never been released on DVD in the US"

you missed the part that says "So, to date, a complete, uncut Hanna-Barbera collection has never been released on DVD in the US"

No, I didn't. You missed the part of my comment which stated: "And even then, there are huge gaps in DVDs. Probably half of VHS tapes made it to DVD."

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#67
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purely devil's advocate would be someone along the lines of -- just because it isn't for sale now doesn't mean it might never be. Pirating it now deprives the owner of some amount of ability to make money from it in the future. Pretty flimsy, imo.

This is hard to get into without context. Copyright (and patents) exist "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The purpose is to promote the progress of science and useful arts for the public's benefit, the means is a limited time monopoly. The limited time rights are intended to be…

A very good comment.

I would like to point out to everyone that the correct expression to use in these discussions is rights holder NOT author.

Anyone still imagining this as a fight between pirate and "author" is strongly misled. Most people will happily support the author - just look at youtube/patreon. But most are also aware that buying or pirating a book ... has very little to do with the author in either case.

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#68
post #62

Mouse in Manhattan is a wonderful short. The storytelling, the pacing, and the orchestral score are magical. But there is the small issue of Jerry falling into a vial of shoe polish and then popping his head out -- in full blackface. Yup, that's not allowed today. I hope they just correct that (but without messing up the music) rather than outright ban it.

So we're all going to go to the library and start removing (maybe burning??) all the books that are no longer proper?

We're not talking about libraries, but private streaming services like HBO Max and Disney+. They've made their choice.

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#69

Mouse in Manhattan is a wonderful short. The storytelling, the pacing, and the orchestral score are magical. But there is the small issue of Jerry falling into a vial of shoe polish and then popping his head out -- in full blackface. Yup, that's not allowed today. I hope they just correct that (but without messing up the music) rather than outright ban it.

he accidentally falls in black dye though. Of course his face would be black. why is that bad?

Yes, that's what happens causally. But the gag is that the result looks like blackface. At least I'm 90% certain that was the intention of the writer / animator.

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#70
HBO Max has the worst web video player UI of all the streaming services. The most annoying anti-feature is that skipping forward 15/30 seconds takes almost as long as just watching those seconds. I also had to install an extension just to be able to skip via keyboard!

I really don't expect HBO to get anything right for streaming. Even Amazon has a better video player despite some of it's own major annoyances like constantly losing focus, so you can't use the keyboard. Both Netflix and Amazon skip forward almost instantly though.

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