WaPo reports.
In other comics news, also from WaPo, "Bob Mankoff will step down as the New Yorker’s cartoon editor":
Since he became editor, “the biggest change was that cartoons, even of the very benign variety that appear in the New Yorker, now have great power to offend — at least among the easily offended, a class whose numbers grow even as I write,” Mankoff says. “Now, even Canadians take offense at being stereotyped as polite.”
Mankoff jokes about the shift, but when he inherited the lofty office from Lee Lorenz, he had to cultivate cartoonists who worked in comic tones increasingly absurd and meta — talents who, “when they use a cliche, they destroy it,” he likes to say.
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27 comments:
Heh. The debate in the article is not made more absurd because Garfield is a cartoon.
Wikipedia is a well known venue for political and cultural wars. Many entries are quite strange, the result of editing battles.
This is one reason for Vox Day's lot forking off Infogalactic as a replacement for Wikipedia.
Un chat = cat.
Une chatte = pussy.
C'est tout.
Does gender identity have to infect everything?
Dudes, when you're hit in the nuts, identifying as female won't help the pain much.
I'll never understand why are so many people kowtow to the "easily offended" rather than standing up to them? You should never encourage or enable bad behavior. Certain people are offense addicts. And you don't deal with an addict by giving them more of what they're addicted to.
New Yorker cartoons are not as funny as they used to be. ("Group five may now board," which can be found on google, is a rare exception.) Whatever you think of identity politics, normal human tensions are no longer grist for humor. What's left is animals acting like humans, off-the-wall wacky situations accompanied by phrases of the moment and plays on words. Thin gruel.
As Iowahawk observed, every New Yorker cartoon can be made better by substituting the caption "I'm thinking of committing suicide."
Easily offended and New Yorker subscriber: I think I see the cartoonist's problem.
If one must wade into the argument: in the space of a single Sunday panel Garfield is capable of demonstrating six of seven deadly sins: Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride.
Exclusively male characteristics, according to the left.
Virgil Texas, who instigated the Garfield Wikipedia madness, is very funny on Twitter and is most certainly tolling for laughs. It is more of a "laughing at people who take the internet seriously" gag than a political statement.
It must be challenging to find appropriate material for cartoons, since nearly everything in the newspapers these days is a joke.
Good comedy was the first casualty when we moved to a state controlled media.
Can the world get more stupid?
Apparently it can.
Heat Street Wins A Hard Fought War: Garfield is Confirmed as a Man
It's not terribly surprising. Assuming this is not trolling, which it very well be, it is a common thing for there to be great strife over minor things. The primary people who get involved in minor things tend not to have anything better to do and can be just a bit unhinged. There are no higher stakes than no stakes at all.
Related, when Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner "transitioned", someone edited the Wikipedia page to claim Caitlyn was the owner of various women's track & field records because of this. As I have advised before, Wikipedia is not useful for anything remotely controversial. I wouldn't think that Garfield's balls or lack thereof would be in that set, but there you go.
Also, according to Robot Chicken Jon "Mondayed" Garfield's balls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VraZ3-1cwXI
A cat is at a complaint department. And he's saying "I wish my gender was better established."
ha ha. See? that's his complaint.
hombre said...
"It must be challenging to find appropriate material for cartoons, since nearly everything in the newspapers these days is a joke."
I have written many times over the years that The Onion isn't satire- it is a newspaper transmitted to us from the future.
"Garfield minus Garfield" is funnier than the original.
http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/
Garfield is either a male or a lesbian. He/she has been, in the past, shown in a relationship with a female cat.
I'm ashamed to admit how far I read into the comment section until I realized that the Wikipedia kerfuffle was about Garfield the cartoon cat, not Garfield the president. That's what I get for skimming.
Garfield is either a male or a lesbian. He/she has been, in the past, shown in a relationship with a female cat.
Also they used a male voice for the cartoon.
And in other news, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, who appeared together in numerous short features, may have been lovers.
" And in other news, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, who appeared together in numerous short features, may have been lovers."
It's not the homosexuality that bothers me, it's the miscegenation.
Bob Loblaw said... Also they used a male voice for the cartoon.
In the movies it was Bill Frigging Murray!
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