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orcishgamer: Just off hand, why do you think it was Disney that cut it instead of your local broadcastign agencies?
I can't be absolutely sure but Disney have tried and have cut and changed things in the cartoon medley before. Everytime it have happened the Swedish public have got really angry and it have started debates in various media. Most Swedes by far see the medley as something that IS Christmas.
It's unlikely that someone else than Disney cut it because it would get out and that someone would find it very hard to deal with the public backlash. It would be a media suicide for someone from Sweden to do it, be it a person, company or part of the government.
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orcishgamer: Just off hand, why do you think it was Disney that cut it instead of your local broadcastign agencies?
I just checked a few swedish news sites and the website of the channel in question and according to these it is Disney who cut out the sequences.
Post edited December 24, 2012 by rotorde
Freedom of expression goes both ways. If Disney wants to change/censor some of its old cartoons, they have every right to do so, because freedom of expression. You getting upset and making demands of Disney? That's opposite of freedom. You're the one who is the Moral Nazi, you're the one forcing your morals on others, not Disney.
Post edited December 24, 2012 by doady
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Tarm: That's the cartoon.

It's from an age with totally different looks on things. That age is so far away and our education system and society have loong ago "purged" that from us that there's not a chance that this would affect more than say 0,0001% of the population.
This is our tradition Disney. Don't mess with it because YOU suddenly thinks it's wrong.
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Siannah: In Sweden maybe, I don't know. The rest of the world? Not so much. Racism is still very much alive and much more "accepted" as it should be.
Just take a quick look at how many right-winged administrations running their country we currently have in Europe alone, and how / what they achieved with nationalism / borderline racism (no I won't come up with examples, as that would steer in a totally different direction - and I certainly DON'T want this to turn into a political debate).
If you want to look a bit further, you see dozens killed recently in an ethnical conflict in Kenya.

It's kinda ironic that you come up with a claim that this affects about 0,0001% of the population. Again, in Sweden maybe.
But removing a "dated view" of society out of a cartoon, affecting swedish tradition would concern how many Swedes? About 0,0001% of the population?

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Tarm: So just because it's a problem somewhere why do they cut it everywhere?
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Siannah: Global business, global decisions.
Yeah as I answered orcishgamer it's usual business with global companies and I don't like it. Just because Sweden might be a small market doesn't mean they can piss on us and think it won't hurt their public image.

Obviously it affect a whole lot of Swedes because it get a lot of media attention. Ordinary Swedes do not like that cartoon medley being changed in any way.

How it affect the rest on the world is another discussion I think.

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Tarm: Thanks Disney for ramming your morals down our throats. I mean that black doll, blond white doll and old doll that danced in a strange way would have made our children grow up with totally wrong morals. Probably would have started riots with offended citizens too.

What would parents do without Disney and others taking it upon themselves to be Moral Police and teaching us how to bring our children up?
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langurmonkey: Everyone is constantly ramming their morals down each other"s throats. That is just how people are. Disney aren't the only people guilty of this.
No they aren't but they are very big and when they do it it affect a whole lot of people. Pissing off a whole country is not good for business. Even if it's a small market.
It's their work, so it's their choice what they do with it. If it's such an important part of your Christmas tradition, then surely you have it on tape already. Go watch that.
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Tarm: No they aren't but they are very big and when they do it it affect a whole lot of people. Pissing off a whole country is not good for business. Even if it's a small market.
Disney has a vault of children's content at their disposal, produce all Pixar films (actually may "own" the first 6), and just bought Lucas Arts which includes all the Star Wars stuff. Companies like that don't play by those rules of "Piss the public off and they won't buy your stuff" they're by far the biggest producer and owner of that kind of stuff. Only Dreamworks comes even close.
This is hardly first time Disney has censored their own stuff. Heck, Fantasia got as early as 1969. [url=http://www.mouseplanet.com/9413/Whatever_Happened_to_Little_Sunflower]Here is a pretty good article about it. Likewise, Song of the South is likely NEVER going to be re-released for similar reasons. At the time it wasn't considered offensive, but in retrospect it ends up VERY offensive. Since it's their own IP, they do have the ultimate choice on self-censorship, even if you think it's a tragedy that the original content is lost. (In the Fantasia case, I think the scenes are a lot better without her, but I am still wary of censorship as a whole.)

What's much scarier is censorship of OTHER people's works in the name of political correctness, such as the removal of "the n-word" from Huckleberry Finn. Especially since Huck Finn was a very progressive book at the time.
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Tarm: No they aren't but they are very big and when they do it it affect a whole lot of people. Pissing off a whole country is not good for business. Even if it's a small market.
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orcishgamer: Disney has a vault of children's content at their disposal, produce all Pixar films (actually may "own" the first 6), and just bought Lucas Arts which includes all the Star Wars stuff. Companies like that don't play by those rules of "Piss the public off and they won't buy your stuff" they're by far the biggest producer and owner of that kind of stuff. Only Dreamworks comes even close.
Ain't that the bitter truth? I hate to say it but you're right. Oh how I wish our government would just buy the cartoon medley from Disney if possible.
I don't know enough of other countries Christmas traditions to compare it with but it is really important here in Sweden. Most families plan their Christmas day around it. It's very big here.
I fail to see how a company deciding not to air certain portions of their own creation so as to avoid potentially offending people constitutes "ramming their morals down our throats," or Nazism (Really? Nazism? You really went there?). I can understand why this would irritate you (it's certainly not the first case of Christmas specials being censored in stupid ways). But I find your reaction much sillier than any of the silliness of Disney's own actions.

That said, I do think it would be quite unfortunate if they were to try and "erase" certain sections of the short for good. And I do think that this sort of political correctness is ridiculous and does no good for anyone.
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maycett: It's their work, so it's their choice what they do with it. If it's such an important part of your Christmas tradition, then surely you have it on tape already. Go watch that.
You don't tape this. You just don't.

They have the rights to pull segments of their work, yes, but people also have the rights to complain about it, and complain they will. Watching this at 15.00 on the 24th of December, on SVT 1 is a Christmas tradition here in Sweden, it has almost become part of our culture.
Turn off your TVs, Sweden, its christmas, you're supposed to bore yourselves to death with your family for 3 days.
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jamotide: Turn off your TVs, Sweden, its christmas, you're supposed to bore yourselves to death with your family for 3 days.
We bore ourselves to death with our families by watching it. It is as an important of a tradition to us as turkey on thanksgiving is to an American.
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jefequeso: I fail to see how a company deciding not to air certain portions of their own creation so as to avoid potentially offending people constitutes "ramming their morals down our throats," or Nazism (Really? Nazism? You really went there?). I can understand why this would irritate you (it's certainly not the first case of Christmas specials being censored in stupid ways). But I find your reaction much sillier than any of the silliness of Disney's own actions.

That said, I do think it would be quite unfortunate if they were to try and "erase" certain sections of the short for good. And I do think that this sort of political correctness is ridiculous and does no good for anyone.
Where in this thread did you miss how important the cartoon medley is for us Swedes? Disney plain and simple thought it was racist from their point of view and messed with one of our important Christmas traditions. Yes our tradition might be silly but that's not the point. Disneys morals had them remove it and because it's a big thing here they sure did ram their morals down our throats.

About nazi I answered Arteveld about it.

Edit: I just thought of a old joke. "No one asks about the Jew."
It's a old joke that's been going around for like forever. Did anyone except Disney think about the guy with a hat in a suit doing a dance sitting down? With a wheel up his but? I know I wouldn't.
Post edited December 24, 2012 by Tarm
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orcishgamer: Disney has a vault of children's content at their disposal, produce all Pixar films (actually may "own" the first 6), and just bought Lucas Arts which includes all the Star Wars stuff. Companies like that don't play by those rules of "Piss the public off and they won't buy your stuff" they're by far the biggest producer and owner of that kind of stuff. Only Dreamworks comes even close.
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Tarm: Ain't that the bitter truth? I hate to say it but you're right. Oh how I wish our government would just buy the cartoon medley from Disney if possible.
I don't know enough of other countries Christmas traditions to compare it with but it is really important here in Sweden. Most families plan their Christmas day around it. It's very big here.
Honestly, most of their older stuff should belong to the public by now anyway, especially the stuff that promoted this thread. It's actually a pretty sad commentary on our society that it does not...:(
Is the doll in that cartoon even meant to be human? The nose is attached to the mouth portion rather than between the eyes, just like the dog-faced characters in various other cartoons, including the Beagle Boys from Disney's own DuckTales.

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bevinator: What's much scarier is censorship of OTHER people's works in the name of political correctness, such as the removal of "the n-word" from Huckleberry Finn. Especially since Huck Finn was a very progressive book at the time.
What makes the Huckleberry Finn case even worse is that by using "slave" as a replacement they are changing the intent of the characters' dialogue, since the one term refers to a person's race while the other refers to a person's legal status--two very different things. One of the plot points in the book is a black slave being freed, so simply using a find-and-replace would result in characters continuing to call him a slave when they know he is actually a free man with full rights (which is arguably even more offensive).