Those wacky, racist '30s

In case the last post didn't make it obvious, I'm kind of a comic nerd. Traditionally that's been comic books (no, I don't think there's anything hopelessly adolescent about misunderstood outcasts gaining superpowers, beating people up, and dating women with gravity-defying chests... why?), but lately I've been drifting more toward classic comic strips -- Peanuts, Popeye and the like. Just recently I started reading Terry and the Pirates, and holy Lord -- would you like to talk about incredibly demeaning stereotypes in popular entertainment?

You would? Great! How about a comic strip -- one that ran in hundreds of newspapers and was read by millions of people, remember -- set in China and in which all the villains are Chinese, as well as Connie, the sidekick of (need I say... white?) heroes Terry and Pat. Every single Chinese character talks with a horribly stereotypical accent, calling Americans "Melicans" and crap like that. Terry and Pat both casually refer to Chinese people as "chinks," and even Connie himself - a Chinese man - calls the villains "dumb chinks." To say nothing of Terry taunting a Chinese thug as a "rice burner" in one strip... I guess racism is okay if it's only directed at bad guys, right? And even though they hire him as their translator, Terry and Pat both treat Connie like their manservant -- at one point they send him to check on an explosion they heard, telling him to fire his gun three times if there's trouble. (Because as everyone knows, two shots of a pistol is nothing to worry about, but three shots... well, that means shit is on.) When Terry dares to voice that maybe they shouldn't have sent Connie alone, Pat offers the ultra-sensitive rationale of "Maybe it's a trap! If we are to be attacked we'll need full strength - and we can spare him better than any of us!"

Oh, can you, Pat? I wonder how Connie feels that his friend would rather have a woman and a prepubescent kid along in a fight instead of him. +10 points for chivalry and gender equality, -500 for casual racism. Of course, the stereotyping isn't limited to the Chinese, thank God, as at one point Terry and Connie spill soot on a criminal, then joke with Pat that he's practicing for his blackface routine. Terry, take a lesson from Ted Danson- not cool, man. Not cool.

In fairness to Milt Caniff, I know that stereotypes were widely accepted back then, and I'm told Connie evolves into a less demeaning stereotype in later strips. But man, that is some funny, incredibly sad shit right there. Hell, it's almost as bad as giving your superhero an Eskimo sidekick and giving him the nickname "Pieface."

Oh, wait...