tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25683662.post142775989835033971..comments2024-03-26T12:05:58.591-04:00Comments on Freemasons For Dummies: Shriners, Fezzes, Symbolism and the Blunt Object of Corporate CensorshipChristopher Hodapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04201859873755654395noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25683662.post-76316940262290423752023-05-20T03:19:02.187-04:002023-05-20T03:19:02.187-04:00Well said, Chris R!! Even if the child may not und...Well said, Chris R!! Even if the child may not understand the offensive nature of the content, they end up repeating it in front of people who do. Moreover, young exposure to that kind of thing is *exactly* what creates adults who say "Everyone is too sensitive. I grew up watching it, and I turned out fine!". It normalizes both the offensive content itself and, through parental modeling, the refusal to accept change and progress because of some incredibly slight perceived inconvenience. I'd like to hear anyone make a convincing case for how they've been injured by dialog mocking AAVE has been dubbed over or a hat is sans goldfish cracker symbol. This content is a great thing to study in a high school or college course where the implications will be discussed, not so great for a 5 year old to be singing on the playground. The takeaway here is that racism is not a binary where you're either beating people up for the color of their skin or you're not racist. It's worthwhile to think of people's comfort and dignity as well. Jessica Vanderhoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13338737029948145190noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25683662.post-41260741119237813262019-11-26T01:25:44.613-05:002019-11-26T01:25:44.613-05:00I saw all those cartoons when I was a kid, and it ...I saw all those cartoons when I was a kid, and it didn't make me racist.<br /><br />I just re-watched the 'What makes the red man red' and 'We are Siamese' scenes, and I think they're harmless. I'll even dare to say I enjoyed watching them. I'm actually outraged (not really, but I'll pretend to be just for this post) that someone would take such extreme offense to them!<br /><br />Come on, give the kids (and adults) who watch it some credit. These things don't lead people, or a society, to racism. But 'making a big deal about it' might.<br /><br />Kids will just admire the uniqueness and fun of the characters, and any adult with reasonable common sense will not have their world view perverted by exposure to these scenes. And for those without that 'reasonable common sense'... the issues run much deeper than exposure to cartoon scenes.<br /><br />It's Disney's right to censor whatever they want out of their own movies.<br /><br />But in the grand scheme of things, this is not the true battlefield. Making a fuss over these scenes, or covering up their history and existence, is like putting a band aid over an infected bullet wound. Honestly, don't even bother. Rip the band aid off, and take an honest look at the mess underneath.<br /><br />All that said, I'm sure your voluntary censorship of these cartoons won't harm anything either. :-)ddbphttps://www.reddit.com/user/ddbpnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25683662.post-27861497546404391832019-11-20T12:34:42.382-05:002019-11-20T12:34:42.382-05:00They do count. In fact, the interface of poverty a...They do count. In fact, the interface of poverty and race as it relates to whiteness is an essential element of the way racism operates in the United States. But that isn't specifically what we're talking about here.<br /><br />What we are talking about is a company choosing to edit intellectual property that has been created over a fairly long period of time which has seen significant social change.<br /><br />You might not like it, but it's theirs to do.<br /><br />You might not agree with it, but there is a legitimate argument to be made here.<br /><br />What I find entirely disagreeable is the idea that parents choosing to withhold cultural artifacts that are attempting to make satire over exaggerated racial stereotypes by one culture over another is "shielding" the reality of the world from them.<br /><br />It is shielding this reality, if we're choosing to allow the racist realities to remain the status quo.<br /><br />As a parent, I have made that choice to work against it as a matter of principle and a matter of faith.<br /><br />This choice is not meant to deny the reality of the world in which we live, but to openly expose it, and change it for the better.<br /><br />My children attend protests with me. We regularly talk about these issues in our church. It is exactly the opposite of what you are saying.<br /><br />Not everyone does this or desires to do this. As a clergyperson, I try to model it as best as I can. Across my desk in my church work just this week is a local high school leaving white boys off the hook for taking girls' Islamic head-coverings in school, a high school football team beating up an immigrant student, and a local elected official using homophobic language and insulting a handicapped person in two separate incidents. And that is just in very recent memory.<br /><br />Clearly, there is a problem. Clearly, we're teaching people from a young age to not pay attention directly to these issues.<br /><br />So, yes, this scaffolding is real.<br /><br />I refuse to ever believe that it's "fighting a losing battle to shield them altogether." Because it's not shielding anything. It's critically engaging the bare and raw reality of this world deeply and intentionally. <br /><br />My religious faith is that this can, must, and will be overcome. But leaving things as they are, more or less, hasn't really brought us as far as we need to go as a society.<br /><br />And to the point of all of this in the first place, symbols are powerful, potent, bottomless in meaning. Just as in the lodge, small details matter. Cultural context matters. But they work together for something forward-moving and life affirming. <br />Chris R.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25683662.post-21799011544977766052019-11-20T08:33:37.211-05:002019-11-20T08:33:37.211-05:00If Disney's concern had been about 'orient...If Disney's concern had been about 'orientalism,' they would have erased Grunkle Stan's fez completely. No, this was the symbol itself. <br /><br />I guess I would counter that very young children take their entertainment as it comes and only adults get triggered by finding offense where none was intended. Preventing contact with such images altogether is a perilous enterprise destined to backfire in later years. Parents over-reacting to cultural stereotypes in cartoons that were clearly never meant to be insulting only winds up baffling to children (and I'm obviously not talking about the deliberately insulting and over-the-top kind that really do need explaining). Once children are able to reason and actually comprehend higher concepts like satire and parody vs. deliberate insults to differing cultures, actual discussions can be had with them so they CAN understand. But you're fighting a losing battle to shield them altogether.<br /><br />From a philosophical point of view, I wonder if modern parents also shield their children from insulting portrayals of, say, 'hillbillies' or Southerners who have been a standing trope for ignoramuses for two centuries; or from enthusiastic evangelical Christian ministers who began being universally stereotyped and derided as nothing but ignorant hypocrites since the early 1950s? Or don't those types of "scaffolding" count?Christopher Hodapphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04201859873755654395noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25683662.post-50981181388768385332019-11-20T01:46:26.834-05:002019-11-20T01:46:26.834-05:00Could the issue be, deep down, the orientalist (an...Could the issue be, deep down, the orientalist (and with it, colonialist) renderings of the symbol, no matter how ancient, religious, or banal it might be on flags and elsewhere? This would be consistent with many of the other shifts Disney is doing to their own intellectual property -- which, clearly, they have a right to do.<br /><br />As I've been watching Disney films with my own children I have been a little surprised (though not entirely) by the outright racism that is embedded in many of the films. After hearing one of them singing "Who Made the Red Man Red?" in the bathtub one evening, I decided to pull some of the films form their access--Peter Pan, Dumbo, Lady and the Tramp in particular. As much as I like the latter film, the cat scene is entirely inappropriate, especially for children that don't understand the cultural complexities and racial scaffolding invoked in these scenes.<br /><br />Even DuckTales, which I adored as a kid, with adult eyes is purely orientalist and is sort of predicated on the audience's desire to go along on "Purple Rose of Cairo" type excursions which swing between American extremes of wealth and the primitive, gullible, and easily-scammed oriental world.<br /><br />The Shrine, and other fezzed and fezzy themed groups are products of orientalism. And while my sense is that at some point many of these groups realized this themselves, long before Edward Said's famous treatise on the subject, and toned it down a bit. It's reasonable, then, to see why an editorial decision would be made in these directions. A shrine fez is probably the best known example of such cultural phenomena.<br /><br />Then there's the symbol itself on this fez, that looks like the love child of a cheddar goldfish cracker and Pac-Man.<br /><br />Chris R.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25683662.post-19621516273056053832019-11-18T12:43:40.414-05:002019-11-18T12:43:40.414-05:00The fez was identified with the Ottomans and when ...The fez was identified with the Ottomans and when the old regime was overthrown and Turkey (with Masons involved) modernized after World War I, wearing fezes became unpopular in the Middle East. Just very very occasionally one sees some elderly savant wearing one, more as an affectation than political statement. Ecologists lament the use of a tiger's tooth in the jewelry. And there is the difficulty of calling a Shrine building a mosque. Perhaps more significant is tryjng to tie Shine membership to declining Masonic membership. And the closing of hospitals is a new challenge as the Shrine seeks a .more modern way to provide services, which in some cases will lack the opportunities for the interaction of Shriners with children. <br /> Bro. Paul Richhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06435030965629467739noreply@blogger.com