Treading lightly-Political Cartoons

[rwguinn]

How are political cartoonists going to manage? Nobody seemed to have had problems with depicting Shrub as a moron, or a monkey, nor were objections raised over Condie's depictions, but now its a BIG problem...
Has our sense of humor gone political, too?

 

[Cobalt]

That's just sad. Possibly one of the more annoying things I didn't want to see happen was that any criticism, or parody, would only be because he's black.

I never had a problem with the Bush cartoons, I just found them stupid. These are just as stupid, but stupider is the idea that you can't make fun of him.

 

[rhtufts]

Tie a highly criticized bill in with a recent national headline story... sounds raciest to me.

 

[jimtron]

What's the problem? The cartoon is not being censored (AFAIK). The cartoonist gets to exercise his free speech, and so do his critics. I'm sure we can all find right wing and left wing and other winged comics that some find offensive and others don't. Everything's fine, IMHO.

ETA: from the end of the article linked in the OP:

"Being an editorial cartoonist is a high-wire act," Rall said.
"If you're any good, you're taking lots of chances all the time.
When you take chances, you fall and you screw up."

Right. Cartoonists and comedians and writers and others who comment on our world, can play it safe or call it like they see it. If they don't play it safe, they risk being ostracized by their peers. That's how civilization works. Everyone is offended by something, and no one has a right, in my view, to tell someone else they shouldn't be offended by something. Personally I found the cartoon in question to be in poor taste, but on the other hand I was not at all offended by the New Yorker cover mentioned in the article linked in the OP. Offensiveness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[Bikewer]

NPR's Talk Of The Nation had a segment on this yesterday, most all the callers said they did not find the cartoon racist, and identified the deceased chimp as a metaphor for Congress, rather than Obama.

(Which is the interpretation I got on first look)

 

[GreNME]

How are political cartoonists going to manage? Nobody seemed to have had problems with depicting Shrub as a moron, or a monkey, nor were objections raised over Condie's depictions, but now its a BIG problem...
Has our sense of humor gone political, too?

No, I think that certain groups' sense of humor has gotten a little out of hand. There was recently a political cartoon with two police officers and a dead chimp, with three or so clear bullet holes in it, with the cops saying something to the effect of "who's going to write the stimulus bill now?" Aside from the possible people who are going to take that as racial stereotyping-- and there is some veracity to the claim due to the current use of such stereotypes in certain racist groups, but I don't think that was the artist's intent in this case-- portraying what could possibly be taken as shooting the president in a political cartoon would be a huge jump from hyperbole to outrageous (and possibly threatening) rhetoric. I'm not aware of any caricatures of Bush making it onto big newspapers-- the cartoon I mention was in the NY Post, I believe-- that advocated or made light of shooting him. Caricatures of Obama are going to be made, and people who are sensitive to that need to just get over it (every prez gets it), but the unclear nature of what the cartoon I mention was exactly getting at arguably crosses a line I don't really think is safe to cross here.

That would apply whether it was Obama, W. Bush, Clinton, HW Bush, Reagan, or Carter, by the way. My objection to the cartoon I'm talking about has nothing to to with its obvious partisan message-- people are going to have preferences, that's not difficult to live with (and I thought the terrorist-fist-bump cartoon was funny)-- it has more to do with the placing jokes about shooting presidents on major publications.

 

[GreNME]

NPR's Talk Of The Nation had a segment on this yesterday, most all the callers said they did not find the cartoon racist, and identified the deceased chimp as a metaphor for Congress, rather than Obama.

(Which is the interpretation I got on first look)

Obama was the one who originated the bill. To be fair, the impression I got was that the cartoonist was saying the bill was written by chimps for Obama, similar to the "1,000 monkeys with typewriters" line, and not a racist metaphor.

 

[zooloo]

Steve Bell one of Britain's best political cartoonist is yet to get a hang on Obama

An interesting video on how he developed his Bush caricature - chimp

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Oh noes, people are trying to make work that doesn't get hampered by cultural memories of racism!

What is this country coming to? *Shakes head dramatically*

 

[rwguinn]

No, I think that certain groups' sense of humor has gotten a little out of hand. There was recently a political cartoon with two police officers and a dead chimp, with three or so clear bullet holes in it, with the cops saying something to the effect of "who's going to write the stimulus bill now?" Aside from the possible people who are going to take that as racial stereotyping-- and there is some veracity to the claim due to the current use of such stereotypes in certain racist groups, but I don't think that was the artist's intent in this case-- portraying what could possibly be taken as shooting the president in a political cartoon would be a huge jump from hyperbole to outrageous (and possibly threatening) rhetoric. I'm not aware of any caricatures of Bush making it onto big newspapers-- the cartoon I mention was in the NY Post, I believe-- that advocated or made light of shooting him. Caricatures of Obama are going to be made, and people who are sensitive to that need to just get over it (every prez gets it), but the unclear nature of what the cartoon I mention was exactly getting at arguably crosses a line I don't really think is safe to cross here.

That would apply whether it was Obama, W. Bush, Clinton, HW Bush, Reagan, or Carter, by the way. My objection to the cartoon I'm talking about has nothing to to with its obvious partisan message-- people are going to have preferences, that's not difficult to live with (and I thought the terrorist-fist-bump cartoon was funny)-- it has more to do with the placing jokes about shooting presidents on major publications.

There's another thread on that in politics. That particular cartoon is not the whole issue--but in typical fashon, the far-left is making it the precedent for all that follows.
The issue is that ANYTHING that accentuates ANY feature of his is going to make the Sharptons and Jacksons stand up and holler "RACIST!"
The ape cartoon was a first indication, event though the statement, in MY mind, was that a trained ape can do better than Congress... (Congress write and votes on spending--even if the President has a hand in it, it belongs to CONGRESS-and has sponsor's names attached. President Obama is NOT a sponsor of the Bill. Additionally, the Pres has no vote in Congress)
So, please stick to the subject, and don't derail.

 

[jimtron]

How are political cartoonists going to manage?

The main problem political and other cartoonists are having is the dying or print media. Is there a significant threat to the the freedom of speech of cartoonists? If so, let's see the evidence.

 

[GreNME]

There's another thread on that in politics. That particular cartoon is not the whole issue--but in typical fashon, the far-left is making it the precedent for all that follows.
The issue is that ANYTHING that accentuates ANY feature of his is going to make the Sharptons and Jacksons stand up and holler "RACIST!"
The ape cartoon was a first indication, event though the statement, in MY mind, was that a trained ape can do better than Congress... (Congress write and votes on spending--even if the President has a hand in it, it belongs to CONGRESS-and has sponsor's names attached. President Obama is NOT a sponsor of the Bill. Additionally, the Pres has no vote in Congress)
So, please stick to the subject, and don't derail.

It's not a derail, and arguing against the far left as an argument against what I said is a strawman. People are just going to have to suck up caricatures of the president they like, because that's what political cartoonists do. However, promoting cartoons that could in any way be seen as joking about actually shooting a president is part of the kind of line that should probably not be crossed. Coming too close to racial stereotypes? Well, those creating the caricatures need to keep in mind that these stereotypes are still in circulation at the very least, so arguing that it should be a non-issue kind of falls flat in the face of the reality that there are still groups who use it.

The plan was Obama's plan, he made that clear in terms of his bully pulpit campaigning, in media descriptions of it from both the left and the right, and at least partially in terms of actually putting forth the conditions. It can't suddenly go from being Obama's plan in the right- and left-wing punditry when the goal is to lambast Obama over the measures in the bill and then switch back to it belonging to Congress when some dope draws a picture of the figurative drafter of said bill shot to death. Stop moving goalposts if you want to make a point, because that weakens what I would say is at least a mostly-valid point that people need to not be so sensitive over caricatures.

 

[BPSCG]

One of the problems is that political cartoons generally involve caricature - deliberately exaggerating facial features. Cartoonists latched on to Kennedy's hair, Carter's teeth, Nixon's ski-slope nose and 5 o'clock shadow. What do you exaggerate when drawing Obama? Okay, his ears. But if you start exaggerating his lips or the width of his nostrils, you're going to be denounced as racist, because once upon a time, you drew black people that way to show them as somehow less than human.

So today, even if there's no racist intent, exaggerating the facial features of a black man is going to draw criticism as being racist.

So is the solution to stop drawing caricatures of Obama? No. The solution is to continue drawing them until seeing them in a non-racial setting becomes the new standard. It'll take time, and the Al Sharptons of the world will howl but them.

One thing: A really talented cartoonist can be funny and make telling points about Obama without drawing him in a way that can be misinterpreted as racist. Michael Ramirez is one of the best. Here.
And here.
And here.

 

[NorfolkAtheist]

One of the problems is that political cartoons generally involve caricature - deliberately exaggerating facial features. Cartoonists latched on to Kennedy's hair, Carter's teeth, Nixon's ski-slope nose and 5 o'clock shadow. What do you exaggerate when drawing Obama? Okay, his ears. But if you start exaggerating his lips or the width of his nostrils, you're going to be denounced as racist, because once upon a time, you drew black people that way to show them as somehow less than human.

So today, even if there's no racist intent, exaggerating the facial features of a black man is going to draw criticism as being racist.

So is the solution to stop drawing caricatures of Obama? No. The solution is to continue drawing them until seeing them in a non-racial setting becomes the new standard. It'll take time, and the Al Sharptons of the world will howl but them.

One thing: A really talented cartoonist can be funny and make telling points about Obama without drawing him in a way that can be misinterpreted as racist. Michael Ramirez is one of the best. Here.
And here.
And here.

I generally agree with this and would like to point out that whenever a new president is elected it takes a little while for cartoonists to settle into a standard caricature. So, maybe it'll take cartoonists a little longer to develop there final caricatures of Obama than it did for other presidents, but I don't think we're going to see a president who doesn't get made fun of. In fact, the extra thought required of cartoonists to caricature and make fun of Obama might give us a more clever period of cartooning than we've had recently.

 

[Lonewulf]

How DARE people exercise their free speech against our free speech?!

 

[BPSCG]

I generally agree with this and would like to point out that whenever a new president is elected it takes a little while for cartoonists to settle into a standard caricature.

I remember when Nixon resigned and Ford became president, cartoonists were dismayed. Nixon was so wonderfully caricatureable (is that a word? my spell-check says no), with his ski-slope nose, jowls, five o'clock shadow, heavy eyebrows. Ford, OTOH, was pretty bland-looking; one cartoonist complained, "He looks like the back of my thumb."