If you were a kid growing up in the 20th Century, you might be aware of characters produced by the now-defunct Hanna-Barbera animation studio, perhaps best known as the pioneer for television animation, and defining the term “Saturday morning cartoons”. The studio, which was founded by namesake animators Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera in 1957, operated for 44 years until it was absorbed into Warner Bros.
Prior to Hanna’s death in 2001, the studio produced a slew of well-known and beloved characters, including Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Oggy Doggie, Wally Gator, and more. The studio’s Tom & Jerry, The Flintstones, and Scooby-Doo franchises continue to this day under the control of Warner Bros. Studios.
All of these cartoon franchises have one thing in common. They – as Joe Barbera put it – were out there to “project warmth and good feeling.” Unfortunately, that is not what the people at DC Comics want to do with their Hanna-Barbera revival comics. Instead, they’re making these beloved animated characters “edgy” and dark – the antithesis of their creators’ original vision. One example? According to Breitbart, DC has made the decision to turn the character Snagglepuss into a gay Southern Gothic playwright in one of these “edgy” reboots.
You have to wonder how much electricity it takes to light up DC. Much of that could probably be from Bill and Joe rolling in their graves as a result of the comic creators making this dumb attempt at catering these classic cartoon characters to the social justice warriors who want their “safe spaces.”
In an interview with HiLoBrow.com, DC writer Mark Russell said this:
Yeah, it’s never discussed and it’s obviously ignored in the cartoons ’cuz they were made at a time when you couldn’t even acknowledge the existence of such a thing, but it’s still so obvious; so it’s natural to present it in a context where everybody knows, but it’s still closeted. And dealing with the cultural scene of the 1950s, especially on Broadway, where everybody’s gay, or is working with someone who’s gay, but nobody can talk about it — and what it’s like to have to try to create culture out of silence.
Now, that’s just nonsense. Snagglepuss never showed any signs of being gay in the original cartoon, and I say this as someone who used to watch reruns on the Cartoon Network. From the perspective of a millennial, there is no problem with putting LGBT characters in today’s movies and TV shows.
But making an established character gay for no apparent reason other than to appease millennials, is misguided. Star Trek actor George Takei, himself an openly-gay man and a committed progressive, agreed. In 2016, when the film Star Trek Beyond was released, Takei expressed that he was disappointed when producer J.J. Abrams decided to make Hikaru Sulu (his role in the original series) gay:
I’m delighted that there’s a gay character. Unfortunately, it’s a twisting of Gene’s creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it’s really unfortunate.
Now, this is beginning to be a big problem for Hollywood taking established characters and making them gay for newer projects. These well-known creations are supposed to bring joy to children and their families, not pushing a social agenda.
Why can’t we just let kids be kids? They have their whole lives to become adults. This is the perfect example of political correctness gone amuck.
Enough is enough with Hollywood using entertainment venues such as comic books, movies, and TV shows to push social engineering. There comes a time when you have to call these outlets out, and with this new project, DC Comics has shown that it is now totally out of control.
