Reuters reported today that an MTV cartoon depicting black women squatting on all fours tethered to leashes and defecating on the floor is drawing fire from several prominent African Americans who call the episode degrading.
The half-hour show lampoons real-life celebrities and pop culture as seen through the eyes of two wise-cracking stray dogs — Woofie and Buddy — voiced by comedians Tracy Morgan and Jeffrey Ross, respectively.
A statement released this week by the Viacom Inc.-owned cable network, whose president, Christina Norman, is black, defended the episode in question as social satire.
According to a Reuters article, “ a look-alike of rap star Snoop Dogg strolls into a pet shop with two bikini-clad black women on leashes. They hunch over on all fours and scratch themselves as he orders one of them to “hand me my latte. At the end of the segment, the Snoopathon Dogg Esquire character dons a rubber glove to clean up excrement left on the floor by one of the women.”
MTV said the “Woofie Loves Snoop” episode, which first aired on July 1, was “in fact a parody of an actual appearance Snoop Dogg made where he was accompanied by two women wearing neck collars and chains.”
New York Daily News columnist Stanley Crouch, condemned the segment as misogynist, racist and crude, and they questioned the sincerity of MTV’s contention that it was satirizing the outlandish behavior of a real-life rapper.
Crouch suggested it is “an extension of dehumanizing images contained in gangsta rap videos aired by MTV and projected “around the world as ‘real’ black culture.”
