Saturday, August 30, 2003

I just watched Daffy Duck attempt several times to murder his friend. Daffy was unsuccessful, which was fortunate for him as his friend later saved Daffy's life by killing himself. The doctor thought he might be able to save Daffy's friend until Daffy took his friend's brain, threw it on the floor, and began stamping on it.

This was on the new Duck Dodgers series featured as part of Cartoon Network's Saturday morning lineup.

I wonder why it is that I thought it perfectly good fun when Eric Cartman killed the parents of his enemy and fed the diced up pieces of them to his enemy, but this new Daffy Duck cartoon just leaves me feeling sickened? Perhaps it was that the victim was not Daffy's enemy. Perhaps it was that the cartoon seemed to feel there was nothing wrong with Daffy murdering this person, while the fun of the South Park episode was that it was so over-the-top wrong. In any case, the writers of Duck Dodgers are morons who do not appear to grasp the humour behind the violence in classic Looney Toons.

And how is it, you may ask, that this sort of thing can be shown on a children's show? Well, you see, Daffy's friend was a robot. So long as everyone you butcher is a machine--no matter how sentient he/she/it behaves, or how human he/she/it is shaped--it's perfectly kosher. This is a weird standard that's exploited to very good effect on Samurai Jack. I fear it's the morons on Duck Dodgers that'll ruin things for good shows like Samurai Jack.

...

I feel more tired to-day than I did yesterday. I did get some writing done, though. I wrote for two and a half hours at Trisa's Starbucks, continuing what looks to be a very, very long chapter 76.

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