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Animated plea for some ugly cartoon heroes

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SCMP Reporter

My four-year-old cousin screams and buries her head in my lap.

She knows, even without understanding the words or the plot, that thin, deformed, slant-eyed people, dressed in dark colours, are villains.

There are no exceptions in Disney films.

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Cartoons are full of stereotypes - for example, Chinese have slanted eyes - because without them children would not recognise immediately what characters stood for.

But while they are necessary, stereotypes are sensitive things in the politically correct world of today. We wouldn't want to offend anyone, would we? Racism is the biggest no-no. Disney got in trouble over Aladdin, and was forced to change a line of the opening song. It was about Arab countries and contained the line, 'They cut off your ears if they don't like your face'.

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They did not like being portrayed as uncivilised and the line was changed to something about the splendid lights of Arabia.

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