VeggieTales creator responds to racism claims

[antsamthompson9]

A website criticized VeggieTales for being racist because the villains are often minorities. Phil Vischer and his friend Skye had a hilarious discussion about it. Let me know what you think.

 

[fuzzygobo]

This is funny. It points out how absurd the PC police have become. It also cheapens the idea of what is truly racist. If you accuse anything or anybody that even slightly offends you as being racist, it blurs the reality of something that really can be racist.

A lot of the easily offended, fake outraged virtue signallers need a thicker skin.

These are vegetables, after all. It's not like cauliflowers are putting on blackface and singing "Mammy".

 

[D'Snowth]

I remember watching a Let's Play on YouTube, and we suddenly hear a Speedy Gonzales-esque Hispanic/Latino voice in the game, to which the guys doing the Let's Play commented how the voice sounded like the peas from VeggieTales, and even saying, "Wow, even I'm offended by that accent!"

 

[Flaky Pudding]

VeggieTales is just an innocent kid's show. There's nothing racist, sexist, or any other kind of -ist about it.

Despite the fact that I'm a Christian myself, I've always found most religious cartoons boring with the critically low production value to be honest. Not to mention, I personally respect all religions and prefer children's shows that try to appeal to everyone rather than just sticking to a specific religious group as their target audience.

VeggieTales is the only except to that rule for me. It was funny, had excellent parodies of pop culture, memorable songs, great characters, and by mid-to-late 90s standards surprisingly good CGI animation. That isn't to say VeggieTales doesn't look outdated with it's animation style nowadays, but it's still more pleasant to look at than most other non-Pixar CGI works of the same era.

So to hear all these rumors about the show promoting racism through it's foreign character really makes me disappointed and a little bit sad. All VeggieTales was made to do was entertain/educate children while also throwing in a lot of clever jokes for parents to laugh at along the way. The show never set out to offend anybody and it really does show the unfortunate state of how everyone finds everything offensive these days. Nothing is left untargeted:Kid's shows, Katy Perry's "blackface" shoes, Apu from The Simpsons, and many others. I've even known people who claim Jarjar Binks from Star Wars is racist. HOW!? HE'S AN ALIEN FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. NOT EVEN A HUMAN BEING!

 

[fuzzygobo]

I'm surprised nobody got upset over Will Vinton's California Raisins of the late 80's.

 

[Flaky Pudding]

I'm surprised nobody got upset over Will Vinton's California Raisins of the late 80's.

Why? What's wrong with them?

 

[LittleJerry92]

Honestly I’m just gonna let this song explain everything.

 

[fuzzygobo]

Why? What's wrong with them?

Nothing. But some extremists may argue having ugly shriveled raisins singing Motown hits is racist. Or at the very least "race appropriation".

 

[D'Snowth]

Notice they never turned the brown M&M into a character. Heck, even though there's a blue M&M character, we don't hardly ever see it, because the character is supposedly a really hip, jazzy kind of character, which may be interpreted as racist.

 

[Flaky Pudding]

Notice they never turned the brown M&M into a character. Heck, even though there's a blue M&M character, we don't hardly ever see it, because the character is supposedly a really hip, jazzy kind of character, which may be interpreted as racist.

The brown M&M used to be a character who was voiced by Vanessa Williams. Yeah...…..

I totally understand why they decided to drop that character all together. That is a smart move on the company's part right there.