It seems more sexist than racist to me. The "dog" motif would go with the whole Snoop Dogg, "Where My Dogs At?" theme, and I don't think it's explicitly connected to the fact that they're black, though there is a healthy amount of female degradation going on there.

Knowing nothing about the show, I'd suggest that maybe it's meant to be a satire on the way misogynist hip-hop stars treat women like dogs, but it seems like a rather offensive way of making a point. Without context though, it's hard to really judge. I'd probably be more likely to condemn after having seen the clip (though I can't seem to find one on YouTube, surprisingly).

Even if the cartoon was social satire - do Christina Norman and MTV really expect children to be sophisticated enough to pick up on it?

Is there a link up for the segment yet?

My ass they wanted to point out the 'insensitivety,' and 'outrageousness' of the cartoon.This reminds me of what the laywer said about Girls Gone Wild founder,when his laywer mentioned he was well endowded. I don't watch MTV anymore.

While not the kind of entertainment I would choose to watch it COULD strike the right tone to get a certain audience (the young teen audience I believe it is aimed at) to take notice. It’s been more than a few years, but as I recall when I was 14 or so anything that upset “adults� was worth knowing about and discussing with my friends. In this respect the cartoon, while not appealing, does appear to be a parody of the (I use the term loosely) singer’s real behavior. Who knows, it may even get enough young people ticked that they will think about the whole pimp/hoe culture that some music industries are advertising.

I think the cartoon could also be seen as a comment on that whole music genre. I recently joined a gym and have been inundated with music videos and I was a bit surprised at the pimp/hoe messages and imagery.

Err... isn't this fairly obviously a parody of the common objectification of women in hip-hop videos?

well i haven't seen it, so i can't speak to it as a parody. but again, is the audience that is watching cartoons on a saturday afternoon (kids) really going to get the satire?

Not just kids watch Saturday afternoon cartoons (think Adult Swim anime, for instance), though the article does note that the program in question is aimed at young teens.

Teens could get it, though. I was writing satire by 15, and quite capable of appreciating it earlier than that (I have a memory of laughing myself silly over A Modest Proposal when I was a pre-teen, actually, though I seem to recall that the context had to be explained to me).

But maybe I've just always had a precocious (and demented) sense of humor.

That said, I think this skit was in poor taste, because I suspect that more people (kids and otherwise) are going to take it as "Ha, hah, women even make bad dogs" rather than "Ha, hah, rappers are such sleazebags".

The point was that Snoop himself treated women like that (as the Vibe story notes), but this does not really insult him at all for it, so there is no real irony.

I guess you can fault them for being uncreative and clueless but it is an attempt at focusing attention on Snoops view of women.

Well, if you go over to the show's page on TV.com there are some clips that suggest the general theme of the show is mocking and satirizing celebrities, and that it's pretty obviously not aimed at young kids who wouldn't be able to appreciate the ironic intent. One of the clips, for instance, has Lindsay Lohan approvingly/enviously exclaim to a bone-thin Nicole Richie: "Oh my god, you look SO emaciated!" It's hardly Oscar Wilde, but lampooning Hollywood "image" seems to be what it's all about.

I think there's a [50 cent?] rap video that depicts women on dog collars. For the same reason, if it's the same kids watching this show as are watching the video clips then any irony that was there would surely not be picked up by the audience.

It rather serves to reinforce the images of treating women like shit in young children's minds.

First of all, cartoons, especially MTV cartoons, are not necessarily kid's fare. Take Clone High. I would have difficulty getting maybe a good third of those jokes when I was young. The show says it's not suitable for people under 14 for a reason. This show is inappropriate for "young children", and is labelled as such. Of course, that doesn't make sexism or racism excusible (noting does, except perhaps as a historical reference to previous eras' racism and sexism).

However, although I have not seen the show or the context of the joke beyond third-person descriptions (has ANYONE here actually seen it?), it seems to me that it's a pretty clear satire of the way women are portrayed in hip-hop videos, as well as the way the women are viewed as sub-survient to the supposed "pimp" or "gangster" life style, by taking away the glamour of a music video and having Snoop Dogg acting like that all the time, in everyday situations (at a pet shop). The fact that this simple satirical joke has receieved such furor in the media (I also found an article on the main page of CNN.com) seems to strike me as proof to my parents' theorem that Americans have no sense of irony or appreciation for satire. Prove me wrong?

Mark Twain. The fact that PBS continues to air Monty Python's Flying Circus to this day. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, both wildly successful. Saturday Night Live, back when it wasn't dreadful. I'll probably think of a few more by tomorrow.

Meh, I saw worse on Ren and Stimpy.

Heh, I yield to you EG, but at the same time, all of those were generally not well-taken by mainstream media. Take Good Morning America calling going on the Colbert Report a career-killer, and Geraldo and O'Reilly (admittedly, or at least hopefully, far from the mainstream) tearing into both shows recently. What about...Tom DeLay, I think it was, who thought Colbert was actually a conservative commentator?

But if you don't aggree to my latter comment, do you agree with my main point that many in the American media have a track record of taking satire at face value, this incident being the latest?

I agree that the outrage directed at this cartoon, which was most likely done with irony, is hypocritical when there is no outrage directed at gangsta rappers like 50 cent who use the same images (-minus the defecating of course) in their videos (and minus the irony too).

It's kind of like shooting the messenger. I agree that it's poor taste but shouldn't people be looking to the source of these things?

Anna, I totally agree.

I also think that if we're going to talk about whether this cartoon is racist, we need to look at how black women have been treated by the media for decades. I remember seeing Susan Bordo talk about advertising images when I had just started college and noticing for the first time the way that African-American women are often depicted as animals -- 'wild,' sexy, bestial. Rap culture is just the latest installation of this, and it seems that this cartoon has a likely possibility of furthering this stereotype as well.

I haven't seen this cartoon either and probably won't unless YouTube links to it. I'd like to see what's up though. I can see how the cartoon could be satirical, but I'd like to see how the rapper in the cartoon is depicted in addition to the women. If he's drinking a classy latte while the women are scratching themselves and defecating on the floor, it wouldn't seem to be much of a condemnation of rap culture's depiction of black women. Rather, it'd give the impression that they 'deserved' it because of their nastiness and animal natures.

re. anna's comment: snoop was also in that 50 cent video.

haven't seen the animation, so i can't comment. but i wouldn't be surprised if it were a commentary on how hip-hop treats and views women.

Hard for me to say, CannedLizard. I've only lived outside of the US for one year of my life, but for all the years of my life I've lived in big urban centers where people as a rule tend to be all over satire. I didn't notice any big difference in satire-appreciation in London as opposed to where I live when I was there, but that's hardly a global sampling.

See, I would argue that the Geraldo and morning news attacks on The Colbert Report and The Daily Show are happening precisely because those shows are very popular and influential, and those under threat are lashing out.