Disney+ finally released all five seasons ofThe Muppet Showon February 19 , making this past weekend the consummate time for many fans to revisitJim Henson’sclassic series . If you were one of them , you may have noticed the disavowal at the beginning of sealed episode .
“ This program includes negative limning and/or mistreatment of people or cultures . These stereotypes were unseasonable then and are untimely now , ” it read , viaThe Guardian . “ Rather than take this contentedness , we need to admit its harmful wallop , learn from it and spark conversation to make a more inclusive future together . ” It then run low on to mention the company ’s commitment to create diverse stories and lists the URL for Disney’sStories Matterinitiative for more selective information .
As The A.V. Clubreports , the message last for 12 un - skippable seconds and appears before a totality of 18 episodes . While Disney does n’t specify what exactly is elusive in each one , spectator will likely pick up on the show ’s antiblack portrayals on their own . In season 2 , episode 19 , for example , Peter Sellersdoes a caricaturish impersonation of a Romani person for a song called “ A Gypsy ’s Violin . ” Spike Milligan ’s impressions of several other cultures in a interpreting of “ It ’s a Small World ” are similarly offensive ( time of year 3 , episode 15 ) ; and whenJohnny Cashhosted the fourteenth episode of time of year 5 , the b set where most of the programme takes place feature a very big Confederate flag . Some of the puppets themselves are also designed as unimaginative , reductive versions of the finish they ’re meant to interpret .
Disney ’s assertion that such constituent “ were wrong then and are wrong now ” underscores the dot that they were never OK , but the popularity ofThe Muppet Show — and the fact that masses generally do n’t remember it as a often offensive computer program — are grounds that antiblack depictions like these were common enough to seem everyday when it came out in the later seventies . So if you are planning to indulge in a nostalgia - tingedMuppet Showmarathon anytime soon , be aware of what you might ’ve missed as a kid . And if you want to know exactly what ’s awry with each episode , viewers are sharing the details in thisReddit screw thread .
[ h / tThe A.V. Club ]
