The tar baby is shaped like Brother Rabbit, and is used in the film's climax to trick the Mafia into stabbing the fake, trapping them and forcing them to be killed through explosives. "Lollipop and the Tar Baby" is a 1977 science fiction short story by John Varley, which takes place in the lonely space at the edge of the Solar System, and is part of Varley's far-future "Eight Worlds" universe. It is not a simple re-telling of the original tale, but undertones of it appear in the way in which the story's protagonist finally resolves her predicament. In an episode of "The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh", Rabbit and his friends build a tar baby-like "watchamadingle" out of glue and molasses in order to trap the Masked Offender, who is actually a disguised Tigger. In Hollywood's "Roots" 2016 miniseries, which is given a contemporary perspective, a group of white men order Kunta Kinte to hand over his infant daughter Kizzy, referring to her by the historically inaccurate usage of the term "tar baby". (See Racist interpretation below)  In Mário de Andrade’s classic "Macunaíma", the eponymous hero, disguised as a French prostitute, encounters a tar baby during his escape from the giant Piaimã. He falls for the trap, punching and kicking the doll, and is subsequently captured by the giant. The story has given rise to two American English idioms. References to Br'er Rabbit's feigned protestations such as "please don't fling me in dat brier-patch" refer to guilefully seeking something by pretending to protest, with a "briar patch" often meaning a more advantageous situation or environment for one of the parties. The term "tar baby" has come to refer to a problem that is exacerbated by attempts to struggle with it, or by extension to a situation in which mere contact can lead to becoming inextricably involved. Although the term's provenance rests in African folklore (i.e., the gum doll Anansi created to trap Mmoatia), some Americans consider "tar baby" to be a pejorative term for African Americans. The Oxford English Dictionary defines "tar baby" as "a difficult problem which is only aggravated by attempts to solve it", but the online subscription-only version adds a second definition: "a derogatory term for a Black (U.S.) or a Maori (N.Z.)".