The cartoonists themselves have been feared, watched and even killed. In World War II, the Gestapo put the Evening Standard’s cartoonist on a hit list for mocking Hitler. In the 1950s, J. Edgar Hoover put Mad Magazine under surveillance. An Argentine who portrayed the leaders of the ruling junta as space aliens in the 1970s was “disappeared” along with his family. The Danish artists who were responsible for the recent Mohammad cartoon controversy were so inundated with death threats that they were forced to seek protection and go into hiding.
What makes political cartoons so inflammatory and so powerful? I suspect it’s a combination of factors. As I mentioned earlier, the ability to simplify a complicated concept into a picture that anybody can understand, then embellish it with a political punch is potent. This format makes the issues accessible to just about anyone; even people with no attention span for politics have the patience for a one panel cartoon. But a cartoon doesn’t just simplify the issue; it pushes at best an opinion and at worst an agenda onto the public. By putting a satirical twist onto same agenda, it makes that side of the issue relatable and sympathetic to the reader.
As for the targets of the cartoons, well, nobody likes to be made a fool. When a cartoon portrays a specific person rather than a symbol representing an abstract concept (i.e. a man with “Russia” written across his belly to represent the whole of Russia), it is usually a powerful national or world figure. Visually, the person is caricatured, morally, their ideologies are mocked and torn apart. It’s a direct hit to the ego and perhaps I’m stereotyping here, but I can only imagine that people that wield global power have engorged yet delicate egos.
All these controversies have resulted in an unfavorable view of the newspapers that publish the offending cartoons. This has forced editors to more carefully scrutinize the editorial page and unfortunately, this frequently results in censorship. Political cartoons are meant to be inflammatory and abrasive, ideally they get people to discuss issues and choose a side. To simplify things a bit, perhaps the most clever propagandist wins. Instead, editors are so afraid of offending someone in the nebulous “out there” that they pull the cartoons altogether, effectively stifling the political opinions and free speech of their own employees.
I happen to like funny pictures and I happen to like free speech. I’d like to tell these editors to leave the cartoonists alone, publish a disclaimer if they have to. The fact that cartoons get pulled out of fear of offending Grandma Moses in Middle-of-Nowherestown offends me.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/11/INGU4OGDT11.DTL
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article726508.ece
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blantiwarpics.htm
5 comments:
Just for discussion:
A little piece of history;
Is it a political cartoon when a nation like Britian allows/enjoys/encourages its magazines/newspapers to publish cartoons depicting the irish inhabitants of their "plantation" (occupied island) as monkeys in animal-like poses?
Hilarious perhaps - but to who?
That seems like borderline propaganda to me. I'm all for poking fun at leaders and policies but there's no reason to attack regular people.
Yeah but it is a cartoon in the media.
Differentiating between subjects, I imagine, would get very complex. For example depicting a "muslim" (whatever a "muslim" looks like) with a bomb strapped to him/her - Is this generally acceptable? The subject is not identifiable, rather it represents a group. I would argue that most US media would accept this depiction in recent times.
However, it is funny to see a cartoon of Rush Limbaugh with a fizzled head and drugs all around him....to me - but what about his millions of staunch supporters?
So then do you feel that the UK papers in question should censor the artist?
Absolutely not. It is always better to let people/society exposethemselves for what they are and then we can look back and analyze. It is hard to live through it but live through it we will whether or not they can publish - so I say let them on the "airwaves."
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