It’s easier to erase than to fix
Comment on Apu sitting in the corner out of picture
FatVegan@leminal.space 4 days agoI just thought about the whole pepe thing last week and i don’t really get it to be honest. I loved looney tunes as a kid, don’t really care for it now, and have no reason to defend pepe at all. But ifeel like removing him was just a weak ass attempt to pretend to be the good guys. He was certainty problematic and all, but that was the whole point. He was never the good guy, or the funny guy. Even as a child i realised that he was scummy and odd. I’m oly going off memory here from a show i watched over 30 years ago, but he was never really endorsed or bugs bunny never told him that he’s cool and he ahould just continue to force himaelf on that cat. He was a caricature of a slimebag that probably every girl and woman at least once in their lifetime encounters. Removing him is just like saying these people don’t exist, don’t worry. I know it’s not that deep, but to me it feels like when they removed the D&D episode from community where señor chan painted his face black because he was a dark elf and then felt good about themselves because they solved racism.
Jarix@lemmy.world 4 days ago
BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world 3 days ago
There is this whole whitewashing propaganda thing, like in a two wrongs and a rights, or visa versa.
Like, how do you even begin?
Jarix@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Sorry to answer a rhetorical question but I think it begins with education and empathy.
We don’t care about a cartoon, but if Pepe was a real person, then it’s a lot harder to just say erase them. And we are essentially seeing that with fascists and immigrants.
If problems actually exist it would be easier to discard the people causing those problems, than to challenge ourselves by confirming that the perceived problem is actually happening, to them rehabilitate the person causing the problems, and then forgive them for their trespasses. Because this requires risk, effort, and a developed sense of community, not tribalism.
It’s not easy to allow people who did “bad things” to walk around your friends, neighbours, family etc, once someone does something that is felt to be across a line. But we can if we learn enough. we can if we care enough.
That’s a tall order when the world is in a state of everything sucks, and is getting suckier all the time, we are all having our ability to spend resources, be it time, material, or money, to help those that need it, and also just doing anything that isn’t just trying to take care of ourselves.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that when you have the time and means to help a complete stranger, and choose to do so, it makes the world a better place. It makes it harder to build that hate towards strangers or just people that we don’t agree with.
But religion and the reigns of power have been in it a lot longer than anyone reading this comment have been alive, and is why building momentum is so necessary to change anything because it has to start pushing against those long held and abused powers, very hard to be a 1 person movement with enough juice to get things done. Possible but incredibly unlikely
Dookieman12@piefed.social 4 days ago
The truth is, he just wasn’t that popular of a character. He had literally one gimmick and it got old, fast. I don’t think I ever heard anyone say he was their favorite. People skipped his episodes so they needed a reason to get rid of him and the whole “me too” thing was a good way to score political points with the public while also getting rid of a one-dimensional character most people didn’t care about.
andros_rex@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Imagine being a little girl growing up watching that. The message is that someone sexually harassing you and refusing to take a “no” is common and normal. Just an annoyance.
zarathustrad@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Back then it was common, and if not normal in all places, certainly something everyone just had to “deal with”.
Unfortunately a major political movement is normalizing it again now. Probably better to remember the trope and discuss it rather than bury it. But, it’s a kids show, so it doesn’t need to be in the rotation in every kid’s constantly running digital baby sitter I suppose.
andros_rex@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I think the way to do that is have it called out on the show. Model that kind of good bystander behavior.
Like, right now we have a president that has raped multiple women and children. His appointees and cronies have also raped women and children. It’s critical to be talking to kids about consent.
nagaram@piefed.social 4 days ago
I want to believe a kid isn’t so dumb, but its also possible a boy see it and goes
“Oh wouldn’t it be funny to act like this to my crush?”
Which just reinforces the whole cycle.
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Yes, kids are constant emulators, if anything. Except terrible speed and accuracy. Lots of glitches.
Sometimes surprising results though. My kid somehow memorized the lyrics to the SSBU song. I thought they were in Japanese until he sung it…but my ears suck especially at her pitch and with her style.