From: "Christine M. Faltz" 
Subject: Re: Transcript of Magoo story on ABC 20/20 show
1.  don't you love how conjuring the "censorship makes me nervous"
argument gets used here?  Censorship which is against the First Amendment
is about *government* censorship, not consumers *exercising* their right
to criticize content.
Editors, directors, producers censor all the time, by deciding what is
appropriate content for their papers, movies, plays, books, etc.  
2.  When I brought up the Magoo issue several months ago here, I stated
that I was uncomfortable with the "boycott" idea, bedcause invariably it
raises valid questions of political correctness, which the NFB agrees
smacks of hypersensitivity -- e.g., people's use of "sightness" or
"unsighted".  I don't think president Maurer or any of us believe Disney
is going to scrap the movie.  I think the best way to go about this is to
simply give information to the public: "We ask that you weigh very
carefully whether your young child should see this movie because . . . " 
I also think we might start a quiet anti-Magoo campaign: make up
anti-Magoo shirts and such, with a picture of Magoo that says something
like, "Hey, Magoo, get a life, use a cane" or "Mr. Magoo; Is This Bad
Rehab or what?"  I'm sure I could think of something funnier, but I think
I'll leave these alone and let's see what we can come up with.
3.  I love this idea that just because *adults* know cartoons are fiction,
that means chioldren do.  Seems to me there's quite a bit of evidence that
violent cartoons make kids violent.  Seems to me that the FCC censors
language and such on TV and radio and no one minds for the sake of the
children.  Seems to me if there were cartoons where black cartoon
characters were always jobless, in jail or Arabs were all terrorists or
women only cooked, cleaned and took care of men, there would be plenty of
"censorship" deamands by the general public.  If there were a cartoon
which tried to teach kids that some kids have parentws of the same sex,
all hell would break loose.  What would John think of such a cartoon?
Probably that it was "catering to pushy PC" -- hmm, sounds like there's an
obvious double standard.  
Christine
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