Tom and Jerry fueling Mideast violence, Egypt says

Tom and Jerry cartoons are partly responsible for rising violence across the Middle East, the head of Egypt’s top intelligence agency asserted.

“[The cartoon] portrays violence in a funny manner, and gives the impression that, yes, I can hit him, and I can blow him up with explosives,” Salan Abdel Sadeq, head of Egypt’s State Information Service, said during a speech Tuesday at a conference in Cairo University, according to the Middle East Eye website.

“Video games are spreading… It has become normal for a young man to sit for long hours playing video games, killing and spilling blood. He is happy and content with that,” Sadeq also lamented.

Conceived by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, Tom and Jerry dates back to the 1940s. “The cartoons are known for some of the most violent cartoon gags ever devised in theatrical animation such as Tom using everything from axes, hammers, firearms, firecrackers, explosives, traps and poison to kill Jerry,” a Wikipedia entry on the cartoons points out.

“On the other hand, Jerry’s methods of retaliation are far more violent due to their frequent success, including slicing Tom in half, decapitating him, shutting his head or fingers in a window or a door, stuffing Tom’s tail in a waffle iron or a mangle, kicking him into a refrigerator, getting him electrocuted, pounding him with a mace, club or mallet, causing trees or electric poles to drive him into the ground, sticking matches into his feet and lighting them, tying him to a firework and setting it off…”

However, “despite the frequent violence, there is no blood or gore in any scene.”