Viewers of Tom and Jerry may wince slightly when the unfortunate grey cat’s head is slammed in a window for the umpteenth time. But according to Amazon, the real danger to modern viewers of the classic cartoons lies in their inherent racism.

People hoping to download the 70-year-old cartoons through the company’s video streaming service, previously known as LoveFilm, are confronted with the warning that they contain “some ethnic and racial prejudices that were once commonplace in American society”.

The notice is likely to refer to the portrayal of a black maid known as Mammy Two Shoes in the animated series. A thick-set, middle-aged black woman whose face is only shown once, the character is generally agreed to be a racist stereotype of a white family’s servant. “Such depictions were wrong then and are wrong today,” the Amazon warning adds.

The original series of Tom and Jerry short films was produced by the MGM film studio in 1940, running until 1957. Directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera made more than 100 of the animations, winning seven academy awards in the process.

Mammy Two Shoes from the Tom and Jerry cartoons

Frank Furedi, the social commentator and former Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, described the warnings as “empty-headed”, “false piousness” and part of a new type of censorship which “seems to be sweeping cultural life”.

“We’re reading history backwards, judging people in the past by our values,” he told the BBC. “These warnings caricature and misinterpret what 40 year old cartoons communicated. Amazon’s warnings are in fact a performance of false piety.

“Its purpose is to indicate that Amazon is ‘aware’ and takes its responsibilities seriously. Instead of engaging with the moral predicament of our era, it prefers to moralise about the attitudes expressed by Tom and Jerry.”