42 Tactless, Downright Insensitive Moments From Pop Culture’s Past
Lack of awareness from the entertainment biz
![42 Tactless, Downright Insensitive Moments From Pop Culture’s Past](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/6/2/1193862_320x180.jpg)
Creators of edgy material are usually ready to roll their eyes at anyone who might be offended, but we wonder how their stance holds up over time. Years after their work sees the light of day, are they still spouting blanket statements like, “People are so sensitive these days,” or have they come to a realization that they may have insulted or even marginalized an entire community?
We need your help answering those questions today. We’ll provide the material, you tweet the creator and get their feelings on the matter.
Community
![Dean Pelton is never quite open about what his sexuality actually is, but he's very open about being sleazy AF. community CRACKED.COM Representation is important, but representation of an LGBT+ character as a predatory stereotype is moldy and antiquated. Community was such a smart show, it's a shame that Pelton now seems like a cheap gag.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/5/8/1014658.jpg)
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
![In 1992 we saw our fun loving pal Michelangelo turn into an angry mexican stereotype. In an effort to pack even more racism into the Wacky Wild West line, Playmates included Chief Leo. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/0/1/990601.jpg)
Ben-Hur
![ELEVEN BEST PICTURE ACADEMY IN 1960. AWARDS Hugh Griffith won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 1960. for playing rich Arab stereotype and doing blackface. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/2/0/1005120.jpg)
Austin Powers
![THE STEREOTYPE ... BRITISH TEETH ARE TERRIBLE. BUT in REALITY ... BRITS HAVE THE BEST TEETH IN THE WORLD. The British aren't that into bbraces, so you](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/0/5/5/734055.jpg?v=2)
Aladdin
![The genie almost looked like a Jewish stereotype. Robin Williams' performance in Aladdin is peppered with Yiddish words. The original concept art was](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/0/6/8/724068.jpg?v=2)
Pepe Le Pew
![PEPÉ LE PEW The cartoon skunk stalks and sexually assaults Penelope Pussycat, in a weird French stereotype. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/7/2/1078372.jpg)
Whitewashing
![When in order to avoid a negative racist stereotype... They end up whitewashing characters instead... Is it so difficult tto keep the original charact](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/9/0/3/605903.jpg?v=2)
Patton Oswalt
![CRACKED PATTON OSWALT called his past offensive material lazy. About his march for gay r-ded people bit, he said, When I look back at the bit, it's just lazy. I'm trying to say the word 'r-rd' and get that easy laugh. I'm rarely embarrassed by anything offensive | do, but I'm very embarrassed when I've done something lazy.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/3/9/900639.jpg)
G.I. Joe
![OF A JUMBLE SPIRIT WAS SHAPE IN THE STEREOTYPES FIGURE. OF AN ACTION Everything about G.I. Joe figure Spirit was a Native American stereotype, startin](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/3/3/6/681336.jpg?v=2)
Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!!
![Punch Out!! Soda Popinski was originally named something much more overtly offensive: Vodka Drunkenski.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/7/9/764379.jpg)
Ashton Kutcher
![Ashton Kutcher POPCHIPS CRACKED COM Kutcher put on brownface and his most offensive accent to play this Love Guru-esque Bollywood producer trying to s](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/3/5/9/760359.jpg)
Arabian Nights
![Arabian Nights had to remove depictions of dancers with exposed bellies The 1942 film was forced to remove parts of the movie with revealing costumes, the least offensive part of the culturally insensitive film by today's standards. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/8/5/789685.jpg)
Source: The Atlantic
Intel
![Intel CRACKED.COM Intel promised to maximize the power of your employees with this portrait of a modern-day plantation owner. They tried to pull the ad, which they admitted was insensitive and insulting, but one publication squeaked it out by accident.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/6/8/780868.jpg)
Salesgenie.com
![Salesgenie .com OO GRACKED.COM This ad features two wildly insensitive caricatures who eat their own inventory while complaining that We have no customers. No sales. We going out of business. It ran during the Super Bowl but was pulled shortly thereafter.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/6/4/780864.jpg)
Three’s Company
![CRACKED Suzanne Somers lost her gender equality battle. She was only being paid $30,000 per episode to John Ritter's $150,000. They only gave her $5,000 more, so she missed tapings in protest, and was replaced with her character's cousin Cindy Snow for 3 seasons. THREE'S COMPANY](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/6/7/894967.jpg)
The Ridiculous 6
![42 Tactless, Downright Insensitive Moments From Pop Culture’s Past](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/8/3/3/751833.jpg?v=1)
The Beastie Boys
![Cringey lyrics from the '80s The Beastie Boys Girls I asked her out, she said 'No way.' I should of probably guessed her gay. If a girl isn't into you, she must be gay! Lyrics for the fragile ego of the rejected bro. And it's have, Beastie Boys. You should have probably guessed that she is gay. CRACKED](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/2/1/1041121.jpg)
Cruising
![CRACKED During a brutal murder scene in William Friedkin's Cruising, frames from a gay porn film are seen - seemingly equating gay sex with violence and doing the film no favors in the eyes of those who saw it as irredeemably homophobic.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/0/7/2/917072.jpg)
Waiting...
![CRACKED WAITING MITCH'S CLIMACTIC RANT IS THE GOAT After biting his tongue all day, the new guy, Mitch, savagely roasts everyone and flashes the goat (his upside down penis from behind.) Other than the homophobic slur, it's a rant for the ages.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/3/881843.jpg)
Back to the Future
![Back to the Future CRACKEDCON A thankfully deleted scene features a homophobic spin on the Grandfather Paradox. Says Marty, This is the kinda thing t](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/1/0/761610.jpg)
Source: Cracked
Janeane Garafalo on Saturday Night Live
![42 Tactless, Downright Insensitive Moments From Pop Culture’s Past](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/0/2/9/758029.jpg?v=2)
Friends
![42 Tactless, Downright Insensitive Moments From Pop Culture’s Past](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/6/8/8/751688.jpg?v=1)
Looney Tunes
![Adult jokes in children's movies Looney Tunes Yosemite sam In 1995's Carrotblanca, Looney Tunes got what it always lacked - a homophobic prison rape joke! CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/4/6/1139946.jpg)
The Big Bang Theory
![Our fathers who art in Hollywood, CRACKED COM deliver US from the trope of the conservative, scientifically illiterate, evolution-denying, homophobic](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/4/5/4/633454.jpg?v=2)
Iron Man 3
![Iron Man 3 didn't have a female villain for sexist reasons. An early draft had Rebecca Hall's Maya Hansen as the villain, but the idea was nixed by Marvel CEO like Perlmutter, who believed that toys of female characters wouldn't sell. The movie was rewritten so that Guy Pearce's character became the bad guy.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/7/778507.jpg)
Star Trek: The Next Generation
![Everyone hated Star Trek:TNG's episode about swapped gender roles. Angel One isn't one of those Trek stories that haven't aged well - the cast knew right away the episode was a sexist train wreck. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, and Marina Sirtis all tried to get the script changed - but in the end, their resistance was futile.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/2/9/814829.jpg)
Sexism at Disney
![This 1939 promotional documentary describes the Inking and Painting process: The Inking Department. Here, hundreds of pretty girls color the drawings](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/0/3/6/743036.jpg?v=1)
SNL in the ‘80s
![JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS SITCOM ROYALTY STUCK WITH STRAIGHT-WOMAN ROLES ON 'SEXIST' SNL, LOUIS-DREYFUS BECAME ONE OF THE MOST SUCESSFUL SITCOM STARS OF ALL TIME, NABBING A MINDBLOWING 27 EMMY NOMS FOR WORK ON SEINFELD, OLD CHRISTINE, AND VEEP.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/8/2/767682.jpg)
The Giving Tree
![CRACKED THE GIVING TREE A Colorado library banned The Giving Tree because it was seen as sexist and predatory.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/8/8/885588.jpg)
The Triumph of Civic Virtue
![NEWYORK'S TRIUMPH OF CIVIC VIRTUE IS PROBLEMATIC, AT BEST. Even in 1922, Triumph of Civic Virtue was seen as sexist, and sparked protests at its City](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/7/2/2/719722.jpg?v=2)
Snow White
![Specifically, to women who applied to be animators. They were told that the creative work was only for men... Wiomen do not do any of the creative wor](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/0/3/3/743033.jpg?v=1)
It’s A Small World
![CRACKED IT'S A SMALL WORLD In January 2023, Disney changed two dolls from the It's A Small World ride at Walt Disney World that some visitors thought were racially offensive -- they were nodding heads that, to some, looked like an ugly Asian stereotype.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/0/4/5/895045.jpg)
Spice Girls
![The Spice Girls got their names because of a lazy journalist. A journalist who couldn't remember their names assigned the nicknames of Baby, Sporty, Posh, Ginger, and Scary. Which explains why Scary is so racist. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/0/1094520.jpg)
DC Comics
![EARLY AQUAMAN AND WONDER WOMAN WERE BITTERLY RACIST. AMAN SLIP SWITLY THROLGI HEE COME ALONG LITTLE YELLOW UNDERSEA DOGGIE.D RE'T PASSAGE yowp THAT PA](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/8/5/637585.jpg?v=2)
Aunt Jemima
![THE RACIST HISTORY OF AUNT JEMIMA Aunt Jemima Aunt Jemima is a popular brand of self- rising pancake mix owned by the Quaker Oats Company (a subsidiar](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/9/8/1/739981.jpg?v=2)
Song of the South
![CRACKED SPLASH MOUNTAIN Disneyland's Splash Mountain ride was shut down in January 2021 for a makeover due to its links to the 1946 movie Song of the South, about a former slave trying to get used to regular life again, which has been slammed for racist stereotypes.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/0/4/0/895040.jpg)
Fantasia
![Fantasia 1940 CRACKED COM Disney thankfuly deleted scenes with two mind-bogglingly racist caricatures, Otika and Sunflower, who exist only to serve th](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/1/0/752210.jpg?v=1)
Long Duk Dong
![LONG DUK DONG Sixteen Candles is a rough nowadays, but nothing is quite as insufferable as the racist stereotypes the character emobodied. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/6/1094526.jpg)
Avatar
![MOVIES THAT SHOW LOCAL SOCIETIES AS HELPLESS UNTIL A CAUCASIAN HERO COMES ALONG TO SAVE THEM. WILL BE VIEWED AS BEING HORRIBLY RACIST. AVATAR CRACKED](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/1/6/657516.jpg?v=2)
The Nightmare Before Christmas
![The scriptwriter wanted to change Oogie BOOgie because she thought he was a racist caricature. Oogie Boogie had ugly, dangerous, racist connotations](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/3/9/1/760391.jpg)
Source: SlashFilm
Seinfeld
![KRAMER'S RACIST JOKE. SEINFELD VER CARRIES $5 00 CHANGE CRACKED Years before Michael Richards' extremely racist rant on stage, his scene in the episode The Cigar Store Indian has him loudly and proudly mock a native american call.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/5/9/892559.jpg)
Goofy
![THERE'S NO PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY. Goofy's origins were racist. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/7/0/741570.jpg?v=1)