MAD Now And Again!
MAD Magazine enters a new and I guess old phase with its new hybrid publishing scheme to blend some few new material with lots of vintage stuff from across the many decades of the magazine's history. The first issue focuses on television, a medium which has been around only just a little longer than MAD itself. I was frankly surprised by the nature and quality of some of these articles. There's almost literally something for anyone and frankly some of it didn't appeal to me. But then some of it appealed to me in a big way.
But there was two sentences I found that disturbed me:
"The vintage MAD pieces reprinted in this issue were produced in a time that was less mindful and sensitive to the matters of race, gender, sexual identity, religion, and food allergies. The text of these articles is presented here unaltered (and with crossed fingers) for historical reference."
I'm used to cautions like this on vintage collections of cartoons and such. But a moment please...
Let me get this straight-- you've just picked up MAD Magazine, a publication famous and infamous for popularizing satire and delivering it to the households of uncounted millions for decades and you have to have a warning label. The "food allergies" gives me hope the sentences are presented with a little tongue thrust into cheek but the "crossed fingers" line makes worry that the producers really care about potential blow back from some modern group for being offended at work intended to mock and which did so decades before by men and women likely long dead.
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I tend to think that was a gag added perhaps at the request of the legal dept.
ReplyDeleteI have no doubt that's the case and they are being safer than being sorry later, but it boggles me how anyone could justify a complaint. Someone will always bitch and moan, but a real legit complaint seems impossible. Times they are a changin' and alas not always for the best.
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