Disney has placed “trigger warnings” before 18 episodes of “The Muppet Show” featured on its Disney+ subscription service. The “warnings” appear on a black screen for about twelve seconds before the episodes in question to further “contextualize” potentially “harmful” content. An advertisement for Disney’s “Stories Matter” is featured at the end of each warning. “Stories Matter” is essentially Disney’s attempt at diversity and inclusion which is all the rage nowadays.
“The Muppet Show” debuted back in 1976 as a sort-of-edgy family-friendly comedy variety show. Think of it as the animated version of Saturday Night Live that a family could sit down and watch together, without so much of the political stuff. Many of the characters such as Kermit The Frog and Elmo are mainstays on Sesame Street and Sesame Street is a classic children’s show. It is interesting that a trigger warning would be placed on old episodes of “The Muppet Show” which is more family-friendly and less toxic than the current iteration of Sesame Street – which featured a man wearing women’s clothing in a recent episode.
One of the 18 episodes of “The Muppet Show” that got the “trigger warning” flag featured Johnny Cash performing in front of a Confederate Battle Flag and a US Flag. Another episode featured Arab muppets drilling for oil. The common theme among all of the flagged episodes is that there is content that could be deemed as offensive to non-white people. This is funny because most of the small minority of people who would take offense at things like the Confederate Flag are white.
Trigger warnings in front of older content are not new, especially on popular streaming platforms that have revitalized content from a generation or two ago. Gone With The Wind received the same treatment. Some people are advocating for old books to either be removed from Amazon altogether or get “contextualized” in a modern fashion. Who will do the contextualizing? That probably doesn’t matter. As long as large corporations like Disney can fulfill invisible diversity and inclusion goals while not being lambasted by a trigger-happy far-left media, then all is well.
SOURCES:
Disney+ gives ‘The Muppet Show’ an ‘offensive content’ disclaimer before select episodes | Fox Business
Muppet Show Episodes With Content Advisories : Muppets
‘The Muppet Show’: Disney+ warns viewers that the show includes offensive content – CNN
The Muppet Show: The Complete First Season
The Muppet Show: Disney+ adds content warning of ‘negative depictions of cultures’ | The Muppets | The Guardian
Scott Gustin on Twitter: “There are several other films on Disney+ that will display the content advisory, but here are four examples provided by Disney “along with an explanation of some of the negative depictions in each title.” https://t.co/fhoxtyLyL4″ / Twitter
Disney Plus Puts Trigger Warnings On Several Childhood Classics
