The Secret Life of Cartoons
Cathy Lantrip

Many American parents profess great concern about the subject matter and images their children are exposed to via television programming. In addition to traditional parental or other adult supervision of a child’s television viewing, there are many devices available on the market that block content which is deemed to be objectionable from ever reaching impressionable young eyes. However, one must wonder how effective such gadgets are when children’s programming itself espouses many values at odds with the values parents wish their children to have. Americans may be concerned about what their children watch, but that concern often does not extend to children’s programs. It is assumed that children’s programs are age appropriate and promote the positive values that parents want their children to have. That is not necessarily the case, however. Cartoons in particular are assumed to be suitable viewing material for children of all ages, but that assumption contains the fundamentally flawed and mistaken belief that animation equals integrity. Many children’s shows, particularly cartoons, contain both explicit and implicit values of questionable merit and dubious morality.

Part of the problem typified by the exposure of children to inappropriate values in cartoons is due to discrepancy between the history of cartoons themselves and Americans’ attitudes toward them. Cartoons were originally created as short introductions to films playing in theaters and were never specifically intended for young audiences. Nevertheless, as cartoons have become a separate medium and more easily accessible to and popular among the general public, Americans have come to associate them with children and childhood. The association is so strong that it has left an indelible mark on the American psyche. The media and entertainment giant The Walt Disney Company has been one of the driving forces behind that shift in public perception and a leader in upholding the assumption that cartoons are and should be intended for child audiences. For many people, Disney is the perceived bastion of wholesome, family friendly entertainment. Anything with the Disney label attached to it, particularly anything animated, must be suitable for children. However, a closer examination of the values implied in many Disney animated feature films depicts a far different reality.

Because Disney has been a worldwide leader in animated feature film for decades, one of the strongest appeals that the Disney animated films have is the ease with which they can be shared across generations. For many families, love of a Disney film has crossed the age gap and given adults and their children and grandchildren a common topic of interest and conversation. The movies themselves remain timeless classics, but the values and social norms in which they are couched have changed with the passing decades. As one would expect, the older movies are a reflection of the time period in which they were made and feature characters whose traits and actions are divided along clear gender lines. However, that division surprisingly and disturbingly carries over into recent Disney animated films as well. The values implicit in these films are not the values most Americans claim that they want to instill in their children, particularly their daughters.

Snow White is a placid heroine. She is beautiful, kind, trusting, demure, and exceptionally domestic. She is the perfect fairytale housewife, cooking, cleaning, and otherwise taking care of the home and catering to the every whim of the men in her life, all seven of them. Despite her royal lineage she is a simple girl with simple desires who falls in love and gets married in the simplest of ways. A prince who heard tales of her goodness and beauty falls in love with her while she is in a poisoned sleep, and it is love at first sight for her as well when he awakens her with a kiss. She then leaves her life of voluntary servitude with the dwarfs and rides off with the prince to his castle where they live happily ever after. Love does not come any easier than that. Unfortunately, it is an unrealistic depiction of love and an entirely inaccurate reflection of any genuine romantic relationship, which in reality is far more complex and requires maintenance. However, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was made in the latter 1930s. Surely Disney would change the messages of its animated films to reflect the times in which they are made? It would seem that that is not the case.

The Little Mermaid was released in 1989, over fifty years after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and was the first in a series of critical and commercial successes that mimicked the golden age when the company had been led Walt Disney himself. The movie is a simplified and more lighthearted adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairytale of the same name. The two protagonists fall in love upon their first meeting, at first sight for the mermaid princess Ariel and at the first sound of Ariel’s voice for the human prince Eric. The remainder of the movie documents sixteen-year-old Ariel’s quest to achieve Eric’s love. She gives up both her mermaid’s fins and her beautiful voice, the two hallmarks of her identity, in order to pursue this love. While the movie adaptation ends happily for the couple, with Eric saving Ariel from the evil sea witch Ursula (one might wish that Ariel could have saved herself as she had earlier rescued Eric when he was drowning) and then marrying her as she continues living as a human, the suggestions that a woman’s personal sense of identity is secondary to the love of a man and that a teenage girl’s sole goal in life is to acquire a lover are not messages parents should wish to pass on to their daughters.

Reciprocal love at first sight is a theme that is used over and over again in Disney feature length animated films. According to the Disney movies, it is almost inevitable that when a male and a female meet they will fall in love. However, there is little to no depiction of the effort and maintenance that both members of a relationship must invest in their relationship if it is to mature and last. In most movies, once the couple has fallen in love, the villain has been vanquished, and all other obstacles to their destined union have been removed, the two lovers are married or implied to be married and live happily ever after. The Disney version of romantic love is easy and requires no work or time to develop. It is only in the minority of Disney movies (Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, Tarzan) that romantic love requires time to develop. This more lengthy depiction of courtship is also a recent development within the Disney movie timeline, occurring only within the last fifteen years, and providing a glimmer of hope regarding future films.

However, even when a relationship is allowed the time to develop in a more natural manner, it is still often constrained by power differentials between the male and female. Beauty is the Beast’s captive before she is ever a romantic interest. She fears him before she ever loves him. Mulan is her romantic interest’s subordinate in the Chinese army, and she is kicked out and left behind injured in the snow when her true sex is discovered.
Both are considered by other characters in the films to be unusual, inappropriate females. Because Belle is an avid reader her beauty is soiled by her intelligence and whimsy, and the townspeople consider her to be “dazed and distracted,” “a funny girl,” “peculiar,” “odd,” and “very different from the rest of us.” Mulan does not fit the ideal of the perfect Chinese wife present within the film. If “men want girls with good taste, calm, obedient, who work fast paced, with good breeding and a tiny waist ” the only value that a woman has lies in her physical beauty and her subservience to men. If women serve the emperor “by bearing sons” and the only way “a girl can bring her family great honor” is “by striking a good match” there is no reason for a woman to possess individual independence, abilities, or intelligence. Although Mulan resists such conventions by filling a male role and running away to be a soldier and thus prevent her ageing, disabled father from going to war, there are never any female alternatives offered to her in interpersonal relationships.

Women are devalued throughout the film. The soldiers specify in a song that they do not want an intelligent woman as a companion. A woman’s physical appearance, culinary ability, and willingness to fawn over a soldier returned from battle are the only attributes that the soldiers consider to have any worth. In a different song, the commander of the unit mocked the less than impressive physical prowess of his soldiers, “a spineless, pale pathetic lot,” by demanding, “Did they send me daughters when I asked for sons?” and then declaring, “I'll make a man out of you.” Such statements clearly set females in contrast to males as inferior, weak, and worthless. Though the values of the characters themselves undergo a change as the movie progresses and they become familiar with the strength of Mulan the woman, such songs can still have an adverse effect on the perceptions of children who watch the film. The songs are very memorable, particularly “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” which extols the qualities that a man should supposedly possess: “swift as the coursing river,” “with all the force of a great typhoon,” “with all the strength of a raging fire,” and “mysterious as the dark side of the moon.” Such demands to “be a man” could easily make both boys and girls feel insecure in their own abilities, girls because they are not male and boys because they lack such qualities.
The previous values were discussed because they were present, however implicitly, within the cartoons themselves. However, the values inherent to children’s shows are also evident in what is left unsaid and undone by the characters. This is particularly apparent when censorship comes into play. The content that is removed can often be more revealing about the values of the cartoon’s makers and of society as a whole than the content that is allowed to remain intact.

Many animated series and movies from my childhood are being re-released on DVD in an edited form. Certain scenes must be removed in order for them to maintain the “G” rating that they received two decades ago. No animated show, however classic or renowned, is immune from such treatment. Use of the words “damn” and “hell” was edited out of the recent re-release of The Last Unicorn (1982), changing the tone and emotional intensity of several scenes. The DVD release of The Little Mermaid was edited so that a possible “phallus” (in reality, a bandy knee sticking out beneath a robe) that few adults and fewer children were likely to notice was no longer visible. The cartoons that have undergone the most editing, however, are those figureheads of American culture and American animation, the Looney Toons.

The editing of many old Looney Toons cartoons that are still broadcast on television can be viewed as a positive example of censorship, particularly appropriate for the sensibilities of child and minority viewers. Once again, it is important to remember that these cartoons had adults as their primary audience when they were created. Although children can appreciate and enjoy the slapstick, much of the humor in the older cartoons is directed towards adults and goes over children’s heads. These cartoons, like all media, are a product of the time in which they were made and reflect the views of that era. They provide evil, incompetent caricatures of Germans and Japanese during and after World War II. Many of the cartoons are also more generally racist and depict African Americans and Asians in unflattering, stereotypical ways.

Particularly infamous are the “Censored Eleven,” a list created in 1968 which contains eleven Looney Toons and Merrie Melodies cartoons from the 1930s and 1940s that were deemed to be so racially offensive to African Americans that they have been withheld from distribution, both television broadcasts and home video release, for over thirty years and are unlikely to ever be released by an official distributor again. Supposedly the racist elements within these cartoons are so abundant and necessary to the plot that no amount of editing can ever make them acceptable. By prohibiting public exposure, particularly child exposure, to such themes, the derogatory and inaccurate stereotypes are no longer reinforced or spread to future generations, and the Looney Toons message is changed to a more positive one, suitable for all ages and races.

Editing of Looney Toons television broadcasts is not restricted to the elimination of derogatory views toward minorities, however. Many of the Looney Toons cartoons I recall watching as a child have since aired on television in forms different from the ones I remember. I find the changes to these cartoons to be less necessary or beneficial than the editing or public elimination of the racist cartoons. For the most part, this round of editing eliminates much of the slapstick violence of the cartoons. Viewers see Wile E. Coyote run off a cliff, and then they see him walking away, jointed like an accordion. Elmer Fudd is shown raising his gun, and he has a blackened face in the next scene. One must question the necessity of such editing when the violence is neither graphic nor realistic and children who view immediate before and after images can easily put the two together to determined what happened in the middle.

Finally, there have been an increasing number of inappropriate and unnecessary changes made to cartoons imported to the United States from other countries. The issue is particularly salient in regards to Japanese animation, alternatively known as anime or Japanimation. Initially part of a fringe market that catered to subpopulations of teenagers and young adults, anime has become more mainstream and oriented towards younger audiences, as is obvious by the success of such shows as Pokemon, Digimon, and Yu-Gi-Oh. However, in Japan animation is not regarded as a medium intended almost solely for children like it is in the United States, and anime covers a range of subjects that are not usually addressed by American animation although that trend is changing as the number of American cartoons intended for adult audiences (such as The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and South Park) grows.

One must particularly question the logic and intelligence behind decisions to air shows that were not intended for young children in their countries of origin on American television during the afternoon cartoon lineup when elementary schoolers are just getting home. This was done with one particular Japanese show called Outlaw Star, a series that chronicled the adventures of a group of bounty hunters in space. It had been available on domestically released DVD and VHS prior to its airing on Cartoon Network, and my family was familiar with the show. We were quite shocked at Cartoon Network’s decision to air the show in the afternoon because it contains enough violence, nudity, and sexuality to earn a PG-13 or R rating. Extensive editing had to be done to make the show suitable for its new target audience. Sexually suggestive scenes were removed completely, blood was edited out of the images, and bathing suits were added to conceal character nudity. Some instances of dialogue had to be rerecorded with replacements for the original profanity, and a game of poker was even changed to a game of Go Fish. All in all, one wonders why the Cartoon Network executives did not choose to air something more age appropriate to the target demographic.

The reality is that even children’s cartoons in Japan contain more “questionable” material that their American counterparts do. Japanese mothers, and presumably other demographics, have “more positive and open views of television,” accept a broader variety of content as child friendly, and watch more television than Americans (Komaya 359). When such shows are imported into this country, much of that content is edited out of the American broadcasts. Often it must be wondered why some of the content of the shows is deemed objectionable.

A comparison of the original Japanese Cardcaptor Sakura and the American KidsWB’s broadcast of Cardcaptors illustrates the difference in cultural values and what is considered acceptable viewing material for children. The edits made by the North American licenser change the message of the original series and dispute the message that the licenser itself purports to convey. Both plot and characterization are distorted. This starts with the title change. In Cardcaptor Sakura, there is only one Cardcaptor, an elementary school girl named Sakura. She is the sole main character although there is a recurring cast of supporting characters. The English version of the show has been given the name Cardcaptors, and the episodes have been edited and rearranged so that what was originally a male supporting character is now an additional main character and Cardcaptor who instructs Sakura in how to capture the cards.

This is especially interesting because Sakura’s character has been changed ostensibly to make her a stronger, more assertive person than her original Japanese counterpart. In the original version of the show she is considered admirable because she is athletic, kind, and honorable and believes in taking responsibility and keeping promises to others. In the English version, her main character traits are her assertiveness and unwillingness to back down from a threat or challenge. Scenes in which she shows fear, even reasonable fear, have been removed or the dialogue has been changed to an exclamation of bravado. Tears are edited out of scenes in which she is injured or upset. These changes only serve to make her a less realistic child. In the zeal to take away her supposed weaknesses, some of the humanity of her character is lost.

The licenser’s purported desire to create a stronger female lead worthy of respect is not consistent with the changes to the show itself. The series’ original target audience in Japan is Sakura’s real life counterparts. It seems, however, that a majority of female viewers did not sit well with the North American licenser--thus the changes in title, character importance, and episode order. Many of the less action oriented episodes never aired on American television. The licenser chose to forsake plot and character development for action scenes that would appeal to young boys. This suggests that a young female audience is less valuable than an audience composed mainly of young males and that a heroine cannot carry a show and make it successful.

Although the changes in characterization are puzzling even to uninformed audiences, particularly when characters’ facial expressions do not match their dialogue and tone of voice, the badly executed attempt to eradicate all Japanese cultural references is particularly disturbing. Names are Anglicized. Scenes are cut in which characters take off their shoes upon entering a house, prepare traditional Japanese dishes, eat with chopsticks, and bow to other characters. Japanese writing is erased from the film but not always replaced with English text. In one instance Sakura’s teacher writes on a chalkboard but no letters in any language appear. The setting is changed from a ward of Tokyo to the town of Reedington, and the significance of the Tokyo Tower to the plot is lost. Instead of utilizing a perfect opportunity to instruct children in cultural diversity, the North American licenser promotes ethnocentrism. To import a show that is successful in another country in the hopes that it will be successful in one’s own country and then to erase any signs of that other culture is both disrespectful and hypocritical and not a message that should be passed on to future generations.

While it is unsurprising that U.S. censors consider some aspects of the original series, such as the implied homosexual relationship between two supporting characters (although one was a magical being and thus genderless), to be too controversial and objectionable for a children’s broadcast, Cardcaptors has been edited to an extreme level. The original message of finding strength through acceptance and caring for others has been erased in favor of assertiveness, confrontation, and sarcasm. The characters of Cardcaptors belittle one another. The characters of Cardcaptor Sakura express concern for and support one another. It is easy to determine which message is better and more meaningful, yet the American licensers imply that kindness, a traditionally feminine quality, is a weakness that should not be tolerated.

Another such show intended for a slightly older female audience than Cardcaptor Sakura’s that has been vastly changed from its original version is Sailor Moon which was very popular in the United States several years ago. Whereas only half of the episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura were ever dubbed in English and aired on American television under the guise of Cardcaptors, only six of the original episodes of Sailor Moon were completely skipped and the two episodes of the season one ending were cut and combined into one episode in order to edit out character death. Character names are Anglicized, scenes involving vehicles are flipped so that the vehicles appear on the right side of the street, and magical transformation scenes were edited to remove internal body lines that were no more explicit or offensive that a spinning Barbie doll. The original version of Sailor Moon contained several instances of non-explicit homosexual relationships. In the first instance between two males, one exceptionally feminine looking male’s sex was changed to female. In the second instance, the relationship between two lesbians who lived together was changed from romantic to familial. In the English version they are identified as cousins. Such a variety of relationships provides a more accurate view of the society in which we live and could have prepared children for meeting people of nontraditional lifestyles and different cultural backgrounds.

In some cases censorship may be necessary to protect children. In others it may provide no use or even discourage children from forming the values their parents would wish to impart to them. Contrary to common American belief, that a show is animated does not mean that it is appropriate to children of all ages or that it shares the values of any given family. It is the parents’ responsibility to monitor the shows that their children watch and the values to which their children are exposed. Active mediation of television viewing has many benefits for both children and parents. It allows them to spend time together and have a common topic of conversation and helps “children learn to see the world through another person’s eyes and to take multiple perspectives” (Komaya 350). Parental mediation is also important and very necessary because “over 50% of preschool children can only comprehend about half the television content judged by adults to be age-appropriate” (Komaya 351). American parents must do more than profess concern about what their children are exposed to on television. Parents must watch the shows that their children watch and decide for themselves if that show reflects the beliefs and values they wish to pass on to their children. It is not enough to rely on the television networks to sanitize a show for children and thereby risk the loss of important messages about tolerance and acceptance, and it is foolish to assume that because a show is labeled a children’s program it is appropriate for every child.

Works Cited

Beauty and the Beast. Dir. Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise. Perf. Paige O’Hara and Robby Benson, et. al.. DVD. Walt Disney Home Video, 2002.

Cardcaptors. © 1997, 2000 CLAMP / Kodansha / NHK / NEP21. North American Distributor: VHS and R1 DVD from Pioneer/Geneon, licensed and adapted by Nelvana

Cardcaptor Sakura. © 1997 CLAMP / Kodansha / NHK / NEP21. North American Distributor: VHS and R1 DVD from Pioneer/Geneon, licensed by Nelvana

Cooke, Jon. A Guide To Censored Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: “The Censored 11.” 2 Nov. 2003. 3 Dec. 2004.
<http://looney.goldenagecartoons.com/ltcuts/ltcuts11.html>

Cyrenne, Randall. “Banned Looneys.” DVDToons! Feature. 16 Oct. 2003. 3 Dec. 2004.
<http://www.DVDtoons.com/features/56>

Komaya, Mami and Jane Bowyer. “College-Educated Mothers' Ideas About Television and Their Active Mediation of Viewing by Three- to Five-Year-Old Children: Japan and the U.S .A.” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media. Summer 2000, Vol. 44 Issue 3, p349-363. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Online. EbscoHost. 3 Dec. 2004

The Last Unicorn. Dir. Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass. Perf. Jeff Bridges and Mia Farrow, et. al. Videocassette. Family Home Entertainment, 1994.
---. DVD. Lionsgate, 2004.

Lazar, Jim. “Sailor Moon Editing Report.” Anime Prime. 26 Aug. 2003. 3 Dec. 2004. http://www.animeprime.com/reports/sm.shtml

The Little Mermaid. Dir. Ron Clements and John Musker. Perf. Jodi Benson and Samuel E. Wright, et. al. Videocassette. Buena Vista Home Video, 1990.
---. DVD. Disney Studios, 1999.

Looney Toons. © Warner Bros, Turner Entertainment, AOL
Time Warner, et. al.

Menken, Alec (Music), and Howard Ashman (Lyrics). “Belle.” Perf. Paige O'Hara, Alec Murphy, Alvin Epstein, Jesse Corti,

Richard White, Kath Souci, Mary Kay Bergman, and Chorus. Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. 1991.

Mulan. Dir. Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft. Perf. Ming-Na and B.D. Wong, et. al. Videocassette. Disney Studios, 1999.

Outlaw Star. © 1998 Morning Star / Sunrise / Shueisha / Sotsu Agency. North American Distributor: VHS and R1 DVD from Bandai Entertainment

Sailor Moon. © 1992 Takeuchi Naoko / Kodansha / TV Asahi / Toei. North American Distributors: Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon R R1 DVD from A.D. Vision Films (license lapsed 01 April 2004), licensed and adapted by DIC; Sailor Moon S and

Sailor Moon SuperS R1 DVD from Pioneer/Geneon, licensed and adapted by Cloverway

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Dir. David Hand. Perf. Lucille La Verne and Harry Stockwell, et. al. Videocassette. Disney Studios, 1994.

Wilder, Matthew (Music), and David Zippel (Lyrics). “A Girl Worth Fighting For.” Perf. Harvey Fierstein, James Hong, Lea Salonga, Jerry Tondo, Matthew Wilder and Chorus. Disney’s Mulan. 1998.
---. “Honor to Us All.” Perf. Beth Fowler, Marnie Nixon, Lea Salonga and Chorus. Disney’s Mulan. 1998.
---. “I’ll Make a Man Out of You.” Perf. Donny Osmond and Chorus. Disney’s Mulan. 1998.

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