Why It Matters If Vegetables are Racist
There was a recent study by a student at California State University San Marcos linking “The Veggie Tales” Christian animated series and movies to racism. The claim is that the characters portrayed as villains often have accents that indicate a minority race, which influences children to develop a negative perception of minorities. There was also mention of these villainous characters having other racial indicators that would link them to minorities.
First of all, I am a mother of two young children and am intimately familiar with the Veggie Tales series in both television and movie form.
For those of you who haven’t had the dubious privilege of hours of exposure to most current cartoons, let me say that I can sing many of their songs word-for-word and can name most of the characters. Each character is a vegetable, as the name of the series suggests. Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber are the stars of the show, although Junior Asparagus often steals the spotlight with arguably the world’s cutest animated voice.
