The 6 Most Ridiculously Racist Old-Timey Comics
There was a time when you couldn't get a job in the comic book industry unless you knew how to draw at least half a dozen hilarious racial stereotypes, and could depict in detail what each looked like when getting punched in the face by a marine. This was the same for the advertisers in said comics, who knew that nothing could get 1940s America reaching for its wallet like brazen ignorance of anyone who existed outside the master race.
Fortunately for us, racism plus time equals hilarity.
#6.
Wheaties vs the Japanese
To be fair to Wheaties and their awesome racism, this ad came out during a a point in our nation's history where it was patriotic to use racial slurs. Like Ford Motor Company's 1951 campaign, "So simple to drive, a Korean woman could do it -- if her people didn't have flippers." Or the campaign from the late forties, "Italians fuck their sisters for money; use Colgate."
True story: Years ago, I was selected by Knight Rider to defend the planet Knight Rider. So obviously, my extensive military background makes it difficult to look at combat tactics from the same point of view as racist Wheaties marketing civilians. That being said, this trap seems really fucking stupid, even for a comic book ad. A box of cereal in the middle of the trail? And Wheaties is saying that this, leaving a cereal box out, is a big step up for Japanese military intelligence. What was their trap before, just leaving a cupcake out on a landmine?
Also:
The illustrator may have forgotten to draw the rest of the soldiers, but it's more likely that during the noisy cereal discussion, the rest of the squad was taken out by enemy snipers.
That's what I take issue with; despite their brilliance in quickly identifying the booby trap, no one thinks there's anything wrong with giving a 10 minute soliloquy about all the wonders of its bait. When Knight Rider and I were racing through the Rocket Cosmos and we came across a bag of pasta wired to a thermal astrobomb, I did not turn to him and exclaim, "If only the fiends hadn't booby trapped that macaroni! Why, Knight Rider, it's loaded with nutrition and with some trusty know-how and an old timey paste pot, we could make our dames wigstands they'd flip for! Why, they'd be so fancy, those space Chinamen might forget all about this crazy old war, boy oh boy!" That's a good way to get killed by your own talking car.
#5.
Wheaties vs the Japanese II
It's too bad for that soldier that "wheaties" is Japanese slang for "child boy whore." And actually, if you move the accent to the first syllable, it means "a trick child boy whore" that looks like a can of peanuts but actually shoots poisonous snakes when you open him. Man, how did we ever win that war? Oh yeah...
Great, now nothing's funny anymore. Thanks a lot, nuclear holocaust!
#4.
What's Your BQ?
To get a glimpse at just how bad things were back in the racism boom years, you have to see the public service announcements trying to address the problem. What's your B.Q.?
Question A is brilliant because the races are mixed in with everyday things like spiders and "long hair music" to trick you into being honest. "Cabbage... UGH! DISLIKE. Spiders... NO THOUGHT! VACANT. Hey I'm on a roll! Jews... UGH! DIS--whoa, you almost got me, B.Q. Test!"
I feel like there should be an answer key. I mean, how do I know if I'm right for giving Baptists an UGH, but giving Negroes an UM? And I have a question about the author of this quiz - how is the enlightened non-racist quiz maker and the guy who refers to "long-hair music" the same person?
One thing I do know, the illustrator clearly wasn't on board. At least three of the world's races are depicted as being stoned out of their goddamned skulls:
Apparently, Buddhism is the religion of greed. lol
ReplyApparently, Buddhism is the religion of greed! LOL;)
ReplyAnyone else think that Wolfie (from the pro-Deaf comic) looks like Bob Hope?
ReplyComics - tl;dr
ReplyIt's not even Buddha. :I
ReplyRub the Buddha???? What were they thinking?
ReplyIf you could just read what the Japanese were saying about Americans and the British/Australians during the war.
ReplyWas it :"They are so awesome, I'm glad they're gonna bomb us."?
Um...deaf is a race now?
ReplyThey prefer "Handi-capable"
A bit off topic to the article; I love how there are two articles recommended for me at the bottom, with the exact same picture and title, yet two different view counts by more than one million.
ReplyYeah, I see that a lot, too.
Wow, seanbaby, usually I love your stuff but you really just pho9ned this one in. Wake up an hour before deadline with an absinthe hangover?
ReplyC'mon. Youre streeeeeeeeetching to come up with anything resembling racism here- even dumping on two lame but totally heartfelt anti-discrimination ads.
I fail to see how ANY of these constitute "racism" at all, much less, "ridiculous" racism.
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesIf it's simply using the term "j*p," it should be noted that it wasn't deemed offensive AT ALL until it became associated with the people that attacked and drew us into a world war and proceeded to do things like like slaughter and rape millions of Chinese and shepherd better than 90% of Allied P.O.W.s to miserable deaths.
"j*p" didn't become derogatory because Americans were a**holes; it became so because the j*pANESE were a**holes.
As true as it is they did do those horrible things, did you ever think they might not have wanted to obey Tojo? The highest ranking Nazi generals tried to kill Hitler on several occasions. Americans did horrible things to the Vietnamese commies, and judging from all the protests I bet that you know, people who were forced into the military generally may not be the best fighters and they were probably the ones who killed the innocent Vietnamese people. We have had our fair share of wars where WE are the assholes so you can be quiet of how Japan is terrible for being forced into pillaging. SO DID WE.
Stay classy f******d
So what you're saying is you don't understand how a racial slur is offensive because you think the people it describes are terrible.
Am I reading this right, Zin?
"Japan is terrible for being forced into pillaging."
Forced????
And do you have any idea of the scale of the scale of Japanese atrocities? The Bataan death march? The Burma railroad? The rape of Nanking? The occupation of Manila? The Japanese murdered more civilians than even the Nazis; and even the goddam Germans obeyed the Geneva Convention rules for (Western) POWs, whom the Japanese treated in total Auschwitz fashion.
Don't EVEN try the relativistic bullsh!t meme that we were "just as bad."
(Back to the "forcing" thing- the only reason the oil and scrap-metal embargo put a crimp in Tokyo's style was because it slowed down their CONQUEST of (and mass murders in) China.)
"did you ever think they might not have wanted to obey Tojo? "
Certainly plenty of them were happy to engage in torture, rape and mass-murder without any orders from Tojo. And you might recall that Japanese troops almost never, ever surrendered- hardly unwilling conscripts fighting against their will, or they would have deserted in droves like Saddam's troops.
First of all, America was basically founded on genocide, rape and slavery so from the point of view of Japan it probably looked like we were preventing them from doing the things we did to expand our territory. The Japanese government also demonized Americans and it's much easier to treat people terribly when you think that they're monsters. That's also evident in the fact that we had no problem ruining the livelihoods of a very large number of American citizens because they happened to have the same heritage as the people we were fighting and we had no problem deliberately targeting and killing innocent civilians. People who try to defend what we did while painting our enemies as villains tend to subscribe to either an implausible or inconsistent theory of morality. It's also been shown that if someone in authority tells a person to do something, they will most likely listen to them even if it leads to someone's deaths (see the Milgram experiments). While this obviously can't account for the every person, it does go a long way to explain why so many people were willing to go along with these things (along with the dehumanizing propaganda I already mentioned). This also helps explain why people in Nazi Germany went along with the terrible things that were happening there. It's also hard to blame the Japanese for striking back at us to get us to back off since it's the exact same thing we would do. If a foreign power tried to stop us from killing the Native Americans when we were expanding west then we would have done everything in our power to get them to f**k off so we could continue expanding. Everyone acted like assholes and in many cases we would have acted in the exact same way if our situations were reversed. That said, trying to hold a debate in the comments section of a comedy article is the most pointless thing you can do short of posting on 4Chan so we should congratulate ourselves for wasting our time as well as the time of everyone who reads this.
Christ, it was wartime, the enemy of whoever always get dehumanized. How you go from that to national origins of genocide is fucktacular.
Chlorine gas is strongly basic, not acidic.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesWay to fail basic high school chemistry.
Chlorine reacts with the hydrogen ions water to form HCL, which is a strong acid.
It was still going to kill the Japs, so the ends don't matter; this according to the comic.
Actually, according to 1940's Americans, Japanese blood is already made of Hydrochloric Acid so you couldn't be more wrong Sean.
The deaf hanging from lampposts. lol
ReplyTHe test was instrumental in the cancellation of "Catholic Alligator: The Long Hair scourge" though.
ReplyNice
actually that test wasn't that bad, it's saying like "are you the type of person to prefer spiders/cabbage/etc over a black person and if you are then you suck". it even says on the bottom when you dislike people you're hurting them and cheating yourself
ReplyOh my GOD the j*panese on the submarine are literally yellow.
Replymy biggest problem with the buddah thing....it costs $7...and the second one costs the same but at the bottom it says "Rush me two orders Here is $13" math fail..
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesMaybe a dollar off for rush delivery/ordering 2 at once? idk, but I couldn't be suprised if they only meant to double the 7
Or you know, it's a legitimate strategy for selling things.
More items at a discounted price...hmmm...
Why would they sell The BHUDDA for profit when they can merely rub The BHUDDA?
I was born and raised C*nadian, and I freak out whenever some racist calls me a c*n. C*n't we just learn to love one another?
ReplyCanadians aren't a race
GoodApprentice, I see what you did there and I approve.
I don't know about rubbing Buddha's belly for money, but I wonder what you get by rubbing Yamantaka's belly.
ReplyI don't know but I've heard somewhere that rubbing an African-American's head brings good luck. I tried it with one of my African-American friends head but it didn't bring him good luck.
Just say f**king 'black' and stop being awkward. No one in the real world gives a f**k.
If the belly gets you rich then at the bare minimum the statue should ejaculate quarters.
I've been trying to think of some non-sexual meaning to "We will amuse ourselves with the Americans later" and have not yet struck upon anything.
ReplyThink Deer Hunter, not Deliverance.
^ Missed the mark with what I thought you were talking about at first, but haha nonetheless!