• Please read the Announcement concerning missing posts from 10/8/25-10/15/25.
  • This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Disney labels ‘The Muppet Show’ as ‘offensive content’ in baffling disclaimer

Helix said:
when i hear someone spouting the cancel culture talking point that they've been fed by right wing propaganda, i pretty much glaze over and move on to the next thing.
Click to expand...
Ah, it's a good thing Disney labeling the Muppets as "offensive content" is just right wing propaganda. I thought it had actually happened there for a minute.

Hey look. More right wing propaganda on my Firefox homepage today: Monopoly is Racist

I'm glad that Coca Cola hiring Robin DiAngelo to teach their employees how to "be less white" isn't real. Just more right wing propaganda. They even faked slides and everything.

This is just in the past 24 hours.

Helix said:
either way, i do like sarcasm, though, so at least that part was interesting.
Click to expand...
You'll find plenty more above.

Answer me one question, though, if you'll forbear: Is your total indifference to, e.g., Muppets being slapped with "offensive content" labels due to i) your belief that no broader cancel culture movement exists, ii) your belief that the cancel culture movement exists but isn't a worrisome thing, or iii) something else?
 

does Disney have the ability to make you feel victimized somehow? if so, don't watch Disney and don't go to their parks.

problem sizzolved.
 
Helix said:
does Disney have the ability to make you feel victimized somehow?
Click to expand...
Do they have to in order for me to complain about the absurdity of what they're doing?

In the past 24 hours, you've complained about "the Punkinhead party" [sic], CPAC, Florida, native-born Americans, and Newsmax, to name just a few. Do all of these "have the ability to make you feel victimized somehow"?

Helix said:
if so, don't watch Disney and don't go to their parks.
Click to expand...
This is like saying, "If you're worried about racism, don't go to a Klan rally. Sizzolved!"
 

no, i just like to be very presidential.

COTO said:
This is like saying, "If you're worried about racism, don't go to a Klan rally. Sizzolved!"
Click to expand...

false equivalence. you had a good start with the monologue thing you tried, but then it just went downhill.
 
Helix said:
false equivalence. you had a good start with the monologue thing you tried, but then it just went downhill.
Click to expand...
Your ignorance of the equivalence is your problem. At least it explains your total indifference to the problem.

The good news--such as it is--is that I need only wait for you to change your mind. The cancel culture epidemic is becoming so widespread, and its destructive influence so profound that eventually, presuming you have any sense at all, you'll be dragged kicking and screaming into the realization that it isn't mere "right wing propaganda".

It'll be your favourite show getting axed for no good reason, or your favourite politician being smeared out of existence for having uttered some benign insensitive remark, or your first mandatory corporate seminar on how to hate your "whiteness", but something will eventually penetrate your skull.

I can wait.
 

they've been axing my favorite shows and products since i was a kid. it seems that if i like anything and tell someone about it, it's discontinued. i remember one time i tried oven crisp chicken at Subway. it was really good compared to their regular whateverthehellthatis chicken patty. so i tell someone i like it, and whoosh...... gone. looking back on it, i think that it was probably because i was getting more liberal at the time and they wanted to cancel my culture. that's what they do, you know. not Subway, but they.
 
Uh huh.

Now who's monologuing sarcastically?
 
Helix said:
Stop trying to cancel my culture.
Click to expand...
Just you watch.

The next time you're in a thread earnestly complaining about some underhanded thing the GOP is doing, or immigrants being mistreated, or climate change, I'll be in there like a dirty shirt "What, Me Worry?"-ing and crapping on your "left wing propaganda" without regard for its veracity, and you'll get a dose of your own medicine, you will.

 

will the monologue be better, though?
 
Helix said:
will the monologue be better, though?
Click to expand...
It will be devoid of substance, but short, caustic, and snide. Just disruptive enough to confound any chance you have of carrying on a serious debate.

Maybe I'll throw in some quips about "Punkinhead" or "Sleepy Joe", because heaven knows those scream 'intellectual maturity', and they never get old or irritating.

The tricky part will be catching you in a debate where you actually give half a crap about what you're debating. But... maybe some Trump-supporting militia will stage another riot in the capitol in 2021. Maybe they'll kill a few people and burn down some buildings. That might bother you juuuust enough that somebody laughing at your concern will sting a little.
 

it sounds like you're well on your way to a very presidential argument. as for violence, i don't support or hope for that.
 
Seems like a bogus story...
 
I guess I will have to start using my Red Sox driver head cover and put away my "Animal" head cover.

I would hate for my golf bag to trigger any emotional break downs on the golf course.

 

Disney's playing "save their own ass" so that when they get sued by some parent who was offended (and in today's world, someone is offended by anything), they can point to the disclaimer.
 
All this vehemence and not a single person talking about what happens in the actual episodes to which the disclaimer has been attached.

Here are some examples. Seems entirely unobjectionable to include a warning to draw attention to the offensive charicatures for discussion purposes.

Redirect Notice

www.google.com
 
Cameron said:
All this vehemence and not a single person talking about what happens in the actual episodes to which the disclaimer has been attached.
Click to expand...
That would be because, short of Kermit donning a white hood and lynching Fozzie for having a different skin colour, nothing in the Muppets could possibly be so objectionable as to justify slapping a disclaimer on it 30 years after the fact.

I speak only for myself, but what I resent most is that by applying the disclaimer Disney is validating and encouraging these malcontented twits who have nothing better to do than neurotically comb through puppet shows for gypsy curses and Confederate flags in order to feel offended by something.

At least they didn't ban it. ...yet.
 

Not you because nobody said Kermit was racist.
 
You don’t think it’s possible a black person could turn on an episode of the Muppets, see a man singing in front of a confederate flag, and be justifiably pissed at Disney?

I think given that not ten weeks ago we saw a confederate flag paraded into the Capitol building companies have a responsibility not to contribute to the normalization of such things, including when they make older content available to modern audiences for streaming.
 
Cameron said:
You don’t think it’s possible a black person could turn on an episode of the Muppets, see a man singing in front of a confederate flag, and be justifiably pissed at Disney?
Click to expand...
Absolutely it's possible. But the commendable reaction of said man is either "I hope the flag wasn't put there to make a statement about race. Since it's impossible to know, I'll give the producers the benefit of the doubt," or, "This show was shot in the 1980's when the Confederate flag wasn't so mired in controversy, and the people airing the show in syndication aren't responsible for the cultural sensitivities of yesteryear," or, preferably, "If my daughter even notices the flag, she's not going to know what it is or what it represents unless I tell her, and what possible good will that accomplish at her age?"

It never ceases to amaze me how Hollywood can inject homosexuality into every nook and cranny of TV programming for the past 15 years, representing it at an absurd multiple of its actual demographic prominence and making it literally impossible to avoid, with progressives all the while ridiculing the notion of a concerted agenda to promote, normalize, and glorify homosexuality. But a Confederate flag shows up in a single episode of a 30-year-old Muppets rerun and it's "contribut[ing] to the normalization of" rioting in the capitol.
 
You do realize that there are many black people still alive today who experienced segregation and anti-miscegenation laws and honest-to-goodness racism first-hand? You're going to tell a person like that to give the producers of a show shot in the 1980s "the benefit of the doubt" and encourage them to raise their children ignorant of the disgusting and all-to-recent history of racism? Do you also think the Jews should just forget about the Holocaust and ignore it if swastikas appear in the cartoons their children watch?

As a homosexual myself, I reject your attempted comparison between homosexuals and racists. There is nothing wrong with media portraying homosexuals as human beings who exist in the world, and no reason to bring them into this conversation, insofar as we are doing nothing harmful to anyone else. The proper comparison is between racists and the bigots who hate gay people or other groups for no legitimate reason.
 
OrphanSlug said:
This is why we cannot have nice things, oversensitivity and political correctness run amok.
Click to expand...

I don't know, images like this one can often be pretty cut and dry. You think this sort of scene might need some context? [That's Spike Milligan in Yellowface from this episode.]
 
Last edited:
I'm going to tell him that he shouldn't take offense unless he's certain offense was intended, and that there's no good reason why he should call to the attention of his five-year-old daughter, "You see that flag? That one? Yes. That might mean that somebody hates you." while she's enjoying her Muppets singalong.

There is a time, a place, and an age for education on racism. Don't assume a child will be ignorant of it if you don't shove it down their throat.

Cameron said:
Do you also think the Jews should just forget about the Holocaust and ignore it if swastikas appear in the cartoons their children watch?
Click to expand...
There can be no doubt as to the meaning of a swastika and why it would included in a TV broadcast. It represents Nazism, universally.

The same can't be said for the Confederate flag, especially in the 1980's.

I'm not going to debate you on the morality of homosexuality. My point is simply that progressives reflexively deny the existence of a so-called "gay agenda" and ridicule the notion that "portraying homosexuals as human beings" has a profound effect on public attitudes and behaviours, but here you are defending an offensive content disclaimer being slapped on a 30-year-old puppet show because one of the episodes features a Confederate flag in the background, and this, in your own words, may "contribute to the normalization of" the lawlessness observed during the capitol riot.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more…