JE#1A: Speedy Gonzalez

I don't think I have thought about the cartoon character Speedy Gonzalez for quite some years.  As a child I was familiar with the Looney Tunes show and enjoyed it very much along with the rest of my family.  At the time, I don't remember thinking too much about Speedy.  I didn't see his representation as exaggerated or racialized, if anything he wasn't memorable in my childhood.  However, after going over the materials I can't help but think how the overt racism in Speedy's representation (the accent, the "arriba" the fact that he is a rat, etc.) is buoyed by other elements in the cartoon.  For example, Speedy is always victorious in his feats against the characters the feline, Sylvester and Daffy Duck.  For this reason, I think the humor in these cartoons as well as the very genre in which Speedy is represented makes it more difficult to be critical of the problematic aspects of his portrayal.  Probably the most surprising discovery in the research provided on the website was that those in support of the return of Speedy Gonzalez on Cartoon Network also claimed that the "Hispanic" communities also constituted a large portion of their support.  But maybe this isn't necessarily surprising.  Many communities have overlooked the more problematic aspects of cultural portrayals in movies, cartoons, and other forms of media.  And there can be many reasons for this, such as internalized racism or historical cultural/traditional norms that teach us to accept situations as they are.