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Anime and Manga
The Big Cheese of the Publishing Biz: The depiction of minors consuming alcohol or anything with similar effects as good, funny, or otherwise desirable in any way, shape or form is a great big no-can-do.
Rentarou: Huh...? But what about... the Drunken Lid in Doraemon...?
The Big Cheese: That was a different time.context No can do.
Rentarou: Huh...? But what about... the Drunken Lid in Doraemon...?
The Big Cheese: That was a different time.context No can do.
"Many non-Japanese, including people from Africa and Southeast Asia, appear in Osamu Tezuka's works. Sometimes these people are depicted very differently from the way they actually are today, in a manner that exaggerates a time long past, or shows them to be from extremely undeveloped lands. Some feel that such images contribute to racial discrimination, especially against people of African descent. This was never Osamu Tezuka's intent, but we believe that as long as there are people who feel insulted or demeaned by these depictions, we must not ignore their feelings.
"We are against all forms of discrimination and intend to continue to work for its elimination. Nonetheless, we do not believe it would be proper to revise these works. Tezuka is no longer with us, and we cannot erase what he has done, and to alter his work would only violate his rights as a creator. More importantly, stopping publication or changing the content of his work would do little to solve the problems of discrimination that exist in the world.
"We are presenting Osamu Tezuka's work as it was originally created, without changes. We do this because we believe it is also important to promote the underlying themes in his work, such as love for mankind and the sanctity of life. We hope that when you, the reader, encounter this work, you will keep in mind the differences in attitudes, then and now, toward discrimination, and that this will contribute to an even greater awareness of such problems."
Fan Works
Mrs. Coyote: You've been letting this boy and his friends bully a Quirkless child?
Principal: We do not deal with such things the same way as you do back in America. In Japan, children are expected to deal with such things on their own. It toughens them up.
Mrs. Coyote: Until they fling themselves off top of one of your school buildings.
Principal: We do not deal with such things the same way as you do back in America. In Japan, children are expected to deal with such things on their own. It toughens them up.
Mrs. Coyote: Until they fling themselves off top of one of your school buildings.
Captain Archer is stunned when his steward Daniels declares that Enterprise is the focal point of a Temporal Cold War, in which the sexist exploitation of the 1960's conflicts with the political correctness of the 90's which in turn struggles against the militarism of the post-9/11 era.
—Next week on Enterprise, a Parody Fic by Odon
Films — Live-Action
(to the store manager) In front of my babies, you got porno and homo shows up in here? What kind of freak-ass store is this?! (sees Marcus and Mike as they're walking out) Hmm, and you two motherfuckers need Jesus!''
— Angry mother to Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, Bad Boys II (2003)
Literature
"(Alexander the Great's half-sister Cynane's) name is derived from the Macedonian for "little she-dog". I assume being known as Little Bitch did not have the same implications then that it does now. But that might be wishful thinking."
—Pamela D. Toler, Women Warriors: An Unexpected History
Live-Action TV
"Really, Doctor. I expected something more progressive from you."
—Dastari, Doctor Who, "The Two Doctors"
She kept calling the Indians niggers for some reason, so I said "No, no, no! (Beat) It's the West Indians who are niggers. These people are Wogs."
—Major Gowen, Fawlty Towers
"I was 10 years old when I first saw An American Tail, and I thought, "Yes! That looks delightful! Sure, there's a mildly unpleasant boat ride at the beginning, but after that, you get to take a flight around New York on an inexplicably French pigeon." But to the modern immigrant, that film is now a lie. A lie told by a friendly rodent."
Music
"it is a funny (not ha ha) and uncool thing, the r word at the time was not something people thought about as something to be considerate of. it is a very positive evolution
i am glad people think about it now and it is not a word i would use today. i meant it in the broad vernacular but that does not excuse it. i would never have used "gay" to mean stupid and i shouldn't have used it then to mean ineffectual or jive. thank you for pointing it out."
i am glad people think about it now and it is not a word i would use today. i meant it in the broad vernacular but that does not excuse it. i would never have used "gay" to mean stupid and i shouldn't have used it then to mean ineffectual or jive. thank you for pointing it out."
—Jamie Stewart in a 2019 Reddit AMA, referring to the use of the word "retarded" in the lyrics of 2004 song "Bunny Gamer (b)"
Video Games
"Old School RuneScape really is OLD School RuneScape, and we recognise that certain elements of the game are far less acceptable than they were 20 years ago. Moving forward, we’ll address a number of issues to make Gielinor a more inclusive and welcoming place to be." note
"I used to give out Coin Cases to minors that approached me, but then it became illegal."
— Man in Celadon City's restaurant, Pokémon Radical Red
"It's fascinating to see the differences in mindset between countries."
Web Animation
"...what a lot of people forget about early cartoons [...] is that they could be really fucking dark. See, back then, it wasn't generally understood that kids needed to have their delicate sensibilities protected, as odds were pretty good they were all going to die in a European trench war before they turned eighteen, anyway. So thematically, cartoons were lighter on wholesome lessons about friendship and heavier on skeletons and racism."
—Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, likening Cuphead's animation style to The Golden Age of Animation, in Zero Punctuation's review
of Cuphead
of CupheadYou know, mythology and folklore as a whole is a really incredible field to study. There's so much creativity and wonder, and it's really fun recognizing story elements that have persisted to the modern day or been adapted in one way or another to stories we actually recognize. But sometimes, you find a myth that really reminds you that you're studying a different culture from a different time and place, and that culture from a different time and place might have held some pretty nasty attitudes towards your demographic specifically, and they didn't hesitate to document those attitudes for posterity, and that can kind of sting.
—Red from Overly Sarcastic Productions on Pandora
"(singing) Say, what's in this drink? (speaking) Is she getting roofied? Like, what's going on? Is he about to date rape her? It's like, we're singing a song about Christmas, and suddenly, it's very very real and not okay. This is not a PC song, and I think that like, it's just, a bit too much—I mean, like, yes, I mind if you move in closer. Your pride? I'm not worried about your pride, I'm worried about my safety here! I gotta call an Uber for this girl who's singing this song."
— Yasmin Lopez commenting on the 1944 song "Baby, It's Cold Outside", Sam & Mickey ("A Very Roberts Christmas Special")
"So, I have analyzed the lyrics from all the Christmas songs, and they are all really quite problematic; they're racist, sexist, and little bit warped. We need more songs about the baby Jesus, 'cause y'all need Jesus right now."
— Yasmin, Sam & Mickey ("A Very Roberts Christmas Special")
Web Original
"Still, the core conceit still carries a lot of uncomfortable colonial racial baggage from the strip's 1930s origin: the hero protecting this African land is a white man — and, more to the point, the 21st in a series of white men who, despite living in Africa since the 1500s, have all apparently voyaged elsewhere to find wives, so as to continue to produce blonde-haired, blue-eyed progeny."
"Before the corn syrup industry rewrote our country's DNA to be mostly pancake, being obese was a bit of a novelty. If you sent a pair of today's average-size pants back to 1950, they would assume it was some kind of 15-man parachute and drop an airborne squad into Korea. So it's understandable that Little Archie and his writers had no idea how to deal with fat people."
"What's hard to miss are the far less politically correct jokes, which StarVista thankfully hasn't removed, noting that it was a different time. It's amazing now to hear people make jokes about Italians and Polish people, but it's rather stunning to hear one comic make a watermelon joke... only to have Rickles follow it up with his jive impersonation. Better to know the past than to pretend it never happened."
—Francis Rizzo III on the Dean Martin roasts
on the Dean Martin roasts"Osbourn can’t be trusted because he spent time in India, found an Indian wife, and contacted malaria, which makes him suffer fits of insanity. And after Emily gets pregnant, the Osbourns turn their attention to aborting that pregnancy—which feels like nothing less than a heavy-handed allegory for cultural purity... Some stories are better left in the past."
—Sonia Saraiya on The Making of a Lady (2014)
on The Making of a Lady (2014)"There's no shame in obsolescence, really—it happens to everyone. I get the same sinking feeling every time a comedian I idolize rails against 'political correctness,' or a gay icon throws around 'trannies.' Oh. It's happening. You are getting old."
—Jezebel, "Madonna, What Are You Doing."
The trouble is, I was well brought up in terms of minding my P's and Q's, and I say thank you very readily. This, though, I was told, is actually impolite in Mongolia. You can thank a host at the end of a visit but not for every cup of tea or glass of vodka. That would be insulting to your host because it implies that there was even a ghost of a shadow of a chance that they would not have been hospitable.
—The Stay Where You Are project
projectI have no idea how this scene might have gone over in 1974. Maybe it was so commonplace that a police officer might be asking questions about a person with a specific heritage or skin colour that it didn't raise any flags. But in this era, 46 years later, the whole thing is beyond unsettling.
Web Videos
"This movie has done for feminism what The Birth of a Nation did for equal rights."
— Best of the Worst watches Supergirl (1984)
But you gotta note that the things I'm mocking and pointing out now were everywhere at the time, and that if i'd have pointed them out back then, the only reaction i'd have gotten would have been a "Yes, and?"
Joueur du Grenier, on the racial stereotype, sheer pervertedness of the men, and so on, AB Productions Special episode
"You do know that means something very different now, right?"
If you misunderstood Yukiko as a spineless, indecisive girl who threw away her future, then I don't completely blame you. Persona games are special because we view them through our own cultural lens and life experiences. But the problem of having this cultural lens means we start framing the story and characters with our own expectations, and find ourselves trying to outsmart the story because it doesn't fit into a mold we forced onto it.
In context, the motive and many of the aspects of the case make a lot more sense, stage names are passed down over generations (literally dating back to the 17th century), this would be like if Prince Charles was somehow kicked out of the line of successionnote . Simon Blackquill is a character who does not fit this case as it was translated, but who works very well in the original; Uendo is a humongous shoutout to Rakugo. As a filler case in the original release, it actually worked very well as a buffer between the extremely dark 3rd and 5th cases.
Turnabout Storyteller is not a great case at all in the western version, but that's because it simply never stood a chance of surviving adaptation.
Turnabout Storyteller is not a great case at all in the western version, but that's because it simply never stood a chance of surviving adaptation.
"Y'know, every culture has its own points of sensitivity and its own really weird blind spots, and their blind spot for murder was a mile-wide"
—Dr. Garret "Toldinstone" Ryan on the Romans' fondness for Blood Sport, during Forehead Fables Podcast, episode 69
Western Animation
Ivan Dobsky: Ohhhh Mr Drummond! Help! It's that Nelson Bonjela, the most feared terrorist in all of South Africa!
Mr. Drummond: Ivan, It might be simpler if you just reversed all your 1970's preconceptions.
Mr. Drummond: Ivan, It might be simpler if you just reversed all your 1970's preconceptions.
"Oooh, old people movies. Get ready for references we don't understand and words we can't repeat."
— Mabel Pines, Gravity Falls
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. How can the thing we've always done just suddenly be wrong?
— "Nice" Lapis, Steven Universe: Future, "Why So Blue?"
"The cartoons you are about to see are products of their time. They may depict some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that were commonplace in the U.S. society. These depictions were wrong then and they are wrong today. While the following does not represent the Warner Bros. view of today's society, these cartoons are being presented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming that these prejudices never existed."
— Content Warning presented by Whoopi Goldberg on Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection and Vol. 1 digital release
"This program is presented as originally created. It may contain outdated cultural depictions."
"That was back in the 70's when things of that nature were legal."
Libby: Many, many years ago, there was a bloodthirsty criminal named Harriet.
Sheela: What was her crime?
Libby: She sold uncured salami on Wednesday.
Molly: Uh... What?
Libby: Laws were different back then.
Sheela: What was her crime?
Libby: She sold uncured salami on Wednesday.
Molly: Uh... What?
Libby: Laws were different back then.
"This isn't the 80's, Pat."
— Bandit Heeler, Bluey, "Pass The Parcel"
