Anyone else find this cartoon racist?
 

Its called "Handy Manny" and it airs on Playhouse Disney. Its been on for a few years but I just found out about it the other day, as I don't watch Playhouse Disney, while watching TV and a promo came on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handy_Manny

Its about a Mexican guy named Manny, and his job is fixing stuff around town which is an obvious stereotype that Mexicans always do oddjobs, house repairs and whatnot for money.

Im not the kinda person that gets offended at stuff like this, be it jokes or comedy in TV & movies, its all in good fun...but its the fact that this is a real show and its for young children at that.

Im Mexican, but thats not why it offended me. What offended me is the very fact that a show thats based on a cultural stereotype...whether its about African Americans, Native Americans, Asians ect..would even exist. Im surprised it was even considered to be produced. There is no way the creators or Disney can deny the obvious stereotype here.

Ya its similar to Bob the Builder...its using a Mexican character for it is what turns it into a stereotype. If they wanted to teach kids another language they should have picked another job for him, cause this way the stereotype is just too obvious to the general public.

I don't see your point. He's not wearing a huge mustache and a poncho, is he?

I think you're reading way too much in to it. The only racist I see is Barkworm.

^^ ZING!

...na. Not racist in my eyes. Just a show about a guy doing his job. *shrugs* If it were "Dora the Explorer" however... *shudders* Yeah, that show creeps me out for some reason...

My kids watch Handy Manny, and I don't see the racism. The town he lives in is, like, 90% mexican anyway. Even the mayor of the town is mexican, so it's not like Manny is singled out in any way.

I suspect this cartoon has been made by Hitler himself.

It's her big head and big eyes-- they stare into your soul, Ra. They stare into your soul!

Yeah, not so much racist as much as boarderline copyright infringement (come on HIT entertainment... wise up. They're stealin' from you). And he's probably Hispanic/Latino only do be competitive with Dora. But then again, I never understood how shouting a word in 2 different languages slowly is teaching kids another language. It just teaches them to be those loud tourists that speak 2 words of the language of the county they're vacationing at and yell them at the help so they can understand.

That said, anyone ever see that McDonalds commercial where the 2 Chinese kids fight over a chicken nugget and do Kung Fu moves? Especially the ones with the Kung Fu Panda stuff taken off (ruining the context of the commercial)... now I find that racist for some reason. Especially since they eat a clear finger food with chopsticks.

I delegate my comment to Morgan Freeman. Mr. Freeman: (especially the last part....)

Tadaaah, Morgan Freeman gets it. It's really not all that hard. As long as people talk about it, there will be racism.

I'll tell Hitler to stop making a cartoon, then.

The only way I could have seen this as racist is if he were standing in front of a Home Depot awaiting his next meal ticket. For the love of God, people have jobs of all sorts. There are many Hispanics who have handyman jobs, as much as they do any other. That would be like telling all of the maintenance people in my apartment building that they should get different jobs because they perpetuate a stereotype.

EDIT: Anarky, your sig is pure win. Captain Gordon totally stole that movie.

If he was washing cars and mowing lawns then maybe I could see it being racist. You try to read into anything you could pull racism out of it.

Here's a free one
Shredder treats Baxter more harshly then everyone else because he's black.

I find YOU racist!

/thread

If he were caucasian people'd complain that there aren't enough non-white cartoon characters. There's no racism here unless that's what you want to see.

And I do! Damn you Manny for taking my job!

Manny and his tools are just doing the jobs Americans won't do...

Man...that was freakin' racist.

I guess no one else saw the episode where he tied a bunch of inter tubes together and floated across the Rio Grande to avoid the border patrol, then took a 16 hour siesta.

Exactly... you can't go wrong with cartoon animals... they just come off white. Except for Hong Kong Phooey-THE greatest African American superhero.

Well, thats true you have a point...but this is something that was created by other poeple, out of all the characters and themes they could have picked from they had to pick a Mexican doing handyman work.

This stereotype is too well known for it just to seem like a coincidence. I just find it a little hard to believe that from the time this show was thought up to the time it finally aired that it never crossed anyones mind.

Wildcat: It has been successfully established that the cartoon was made by the Ku Klux Klan. Go read it up. They want to corrupt our youths with it, propagating the lazy-latino-stereotype. It's good that you bring it up.

I have found proof this show isn't racist. This Manny kid is voiced by Fez from That '70s Show, and he's as ethnically ambiguous as it gets.

But, I must admit one thing... you proven why people think its safer to make a cartoon character/television character white than anything else. Some schnook is going to read too far into something and get randomly offended.

I say Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson are Racist!! They are stereotypes of white males.

And isn't Wilmer Valderama (Fez) Colombian anyway?

Yes and No Jester. You see, his mother is Colombian and his and his father is Venezuelan. In fact Wilmer was born in the US and is in fact an American. He and his family moved to Venezuela when he was three and only returned when he was 13. You can read about it in the Wilmer Valderama wikipedia here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmer_Valderama

Wow, now I know better, thanks Jester.

No problem Jester.

Jester, aren't you feeling a bit lonely today?

I thought Homer Simpson was a yellow male.

Homer's Asian? Could have fooled me...Man I'm a racist douche. You know because all Asians are smart...and Homer's dumb...:(

Lol, well I have to adimt you got me there, I never looked at it that way.

I guess I am taking it a bit too seriously, I know Disney is not trying to offend anyone, all I was trying to say is what I said in my last post...that, that stereotype must have crossed someones mind at one time or another in the creation of the show.

That was almost as good as the episode where he builds the **** fighting ring for his friend, Davy the Gringo.


In all seriousness, is it so wrong to have a Mexican building things? You need something that kids understand. If they made him a lawyer or brain surgeon, it wouldn't be accessible to three-year-olds.

I thought yellow was the color for caucasian skin... I saw Asian characters on the show with sickly looking lighter yellow skin. Whatever, they're ALL voiced by white guys anyway...

That's racist!

I'm waiting for some one to bring up Doug and say how racist that cartoon was, since all the characters had multi colored skin except the main character Doug who was a natural skin toned. :lol:

racism!!!!!!!

I'm sorry... but Blues do NOT like to make funny noises, an naming Purples Mr. Dink and giving them those stereotyped accents was shockingly offensive. Only apt stereotype I've seen on that show was Judy Funny... as far as certain artists go.

And don't get me STARTED on Chip and Dale and the Chipmunks.... there are a lot of fine baratoned rodents out there, but do you ever see them? NOOOOOO...

yeah like Benard from Disney's Rescuers gosh darned it!! :x

A Mexican builder? Big deal. Be glad it isn't yet again another whitey on tv. Black people aren't even a minority on tv anymore. What we need are more Asians, latinos, mediterraneans, and Natives on the tube.

As I said... people use whities because they can give them personalities and character flaws without some schlemiel complaining about how something is racist. Works for women too, less we forget Venus... no wonder why she had no personality.

Wait...isn't that a Jewish word...RACISM!!!

Yiddish has all the best insult lines. :fshifty: