The excellent cartoonist Michael Ramirez depicted a particular Hamas spokesman — with children and a woman strapped to his body — saying "How dare Israel attack civilians."*
Though this is a caricature of specific person, many readers perceived it as a stereotype of an Arab man or worried that other people would see it as a stereotype and that it might stir up race-based feelings of disgust or hatred.
The editor of the Washington Post opinion page, David Shipley, explained the decision to take the cartoon off the page. He defended the cartoonist's artwork but justified taking it down because... well, he doesn't really say why. He just babbles about "something profound, and divisive" and how he's looking for "commonalities" and "bonds that hold us together, even in the darkest times."
But I see why, and it's a reason that should spell the end to all political cartoons. Any caricature of a member of a minority group causes some subjective worry that the exaggerations were chosen because of the general characteristics seen in the group to which the individual belongs and therefore that the individual has been stereotyped. Since political cartoons usually invite us to think ill of the person depicted, some people are going to feel — or fret about other people feeling — that the cartoon is intended to make us think ill of the group.
And so, because racial sensitivity has become much more important than laughing at people, the history of the political cartoon is over. Things were different back in the heyday of political cartoons, when you could make everyone in power look ugly because they were all white:
That's "Who stole the people's money?/Twas him" by Thomas Nast — from the Wikipedia article "Political cartoon."
Yes, yes, the history could go on with cartoonists selecting only white people as targets, but I think there are so many persons of color holding powerful positions these days that such a restriction fatally undermines the art form.
_______________________
* You can see the cartoon at the NY Post editorial "The Washington Post made a huge mistake in killing this cartoon."
Posts
116 comments:
You got to the word White before I could comment.
Stole my thunder.
Nice!
Who needs a cartoon to be thoroughly disgusted with that trash!?
Vermin.
WaPoo shows its real opinion about Jews.
This looks to be a natural consequence of the Mohammed-mocking cartoons in the Danish newspaper some years back. I'm frankly surprised that it took so long for the WaPo to display the proper degree of craven submission to a whiff of a possible sad feeling by some of the feral children it employs.
The Washington Post's huge mistake happened long before Michael Ramirez got his cartoon spiked. If Jeff Bezos wants to own a newspaper, he should start by firing everyone at the Post and re-staffing the paper with real journalists. They'll all be past 70 years, but they'll know something about the trade, which is far better than nothing which is the current WaPo in spades.
Its the depiction of a character is what upsets people and not their deeds.
Sympathy for Hamas is the reason the cartoon was taken down. The racial angle is just a fig leaf.
WAPO being cowards is the least worst explanation. All the others mean they support the baby beheaders and don’t want people to learn the true nature of Hamas.
"Since political cartoons usually invite us to think ill of the person depicted, some people are going to feel — or fret about other people feeling — that the cartoon is intended to make us think ill of the group."
There's a word for people whose thought processes follow those lines. And that word is "racist".
Ok, technically they are "prejudiced bigots". But in modern usage, the word "racist" has been expanded to include all members of the PB group.
It isn’t a stereotype. It is a fact of Middle East Arab culture. Arab culture values men above all else. Women are not second in society, they are nothing. Children’s only value is based on how their male relatives feel about them. This is reality. Anyone who doesn’t know this hasn’t interacted on a personal basis with many Arabs.
If they depicted Trump in a manner that was insulting - all would be well.
How dare anyone insult the Hamas Nazis.
Wapoo - same German cowards who voted Hitler.
This shalt not depict the Prophet AND his followers.
During the surge we saw an interesting thing when I was attached to 1st CDiv/3rd BCT ("Greywolf") in Tikrit. We started noticing a plethora of young children, but fewer and fewer adults, in the streets. Playing of course, but more often doing something like shopping, or selling things (where previously women and adult men would only be found), and running errands all over the place. It was immediately unusual, the kind of thing that makes you apprehensive.
My first impression was that it was an opposition force protection measure - assuming all the men of military age didn't want us there - to minimize the number of times they might have to interact with us and our special criminal affairs division buddies who were pursuing active terrorist investigations. And I couldn't have been more wrong. A group of female elders finally spilled the beans to a educational council meeting not long after. There were military aged men of course but the real reason was that anyone over the age of 14 didn't want to risk being killed by mines and gunfights in the street, so they were sending the kids out to do the daily things that needed doing.
Everyone in the city was doing this, and not just Tikrit. They were using little boys and little girls as mine detectors and substitutes for themselves in a dangerous environment. This was creatively brought to the attention of several sunni leaders in an attempt to 'shame' them, but you can't shame people who are directly responsible for it in the first place. They saw nothing wrong with it at all.
Sometimes stereotypes and tropes hit close to home for a reason.
"But I see why, and it's a reason that should spell the end to all political cartoons. Any caricature of a member of a minority group causes some subjective worry..."
I see what you did there. I heard it in a sarcastic tone.
"divisive"
Translation: stuff progs dislike. Question: is the term ever applied to stuff deplorables dislike--like "insurrectionists," "deniers," "systemic racism." Answers itself: never. Since prog BS creates commonality through effective enforcement.
"Any caricature of a member of a minority group causes some subjective worry"
Subjective worry for PC progs. But all phony and instrumental, of course: tender feelings and "subjective worry" are tools to enforce prog hegemony, in this case the prog line on Hamas.
And by the way, in what sense are Arabs and Muslims a "minority group"?
If the shoe fits....
Progs are perpetually worried that some redneck from the sticks will punch a Sikh cab driver on a visit the big city.
It's always a problem what to do about noses
Ramirez's follow-up cartoon of Tlaib was even better and far more brutal. Hot Link to Substack for 11/9/23
Shorter translation:
Wash Post supports islamic terrorism and antisemitism.
worried that other people would see it as a stereotype and that it might stir up race-based feelings of disgust or hatred.
Two things:
(1) the cartoon stirs up feelings of disgust and hatred not because of the stereotype, but because of the factual things that the specific individuals in Hamas have done; and
(2) far too many demands for censorship arise not from people's own objections to the material, but from people's thoughts and projections on what "other people" will think. Mind your own f'ing business.
This has nothing to do with "racial sensitivities." This lefties calling anything they don't like "racist." Particularly when it exposes an uncomfortable truth.
This ultra-sensitivity to caricatures of human beings of any kind may change editorial cartoons, but they don't have to spell their end. Creative and skilled cartoonists can depict people just as they look and still make their editorial points. It will be a shame for vigorous public debate on the issues (and actors) of the day if exaggeration as an artistic tool of editorial cartoonists, but it can be done.
In time, eras change, generations change, the hot-button issues and sensitivities of the day fade, and caricature as a cartoonist's took-kit will find its way back...if editorial cartooning survives at all. There are far fewer editorial cartoonists today than 30, 50, 100 years ago, and they may continue to disappear, even absent this current kerfuffle.
just to Be Clear.. it's Still okay, to mock "The Jews" right?
i mean, as always, it's Just muslims that get protection.. right?
Serious Question.. Of all the muslims killed by militarys this year..
How many were killed by israeli military?
This doesn't answer my question, but.. In Yemen..
United Nations report has projected that the death toll from Yemen’s war will reach 377,000 by the end of 2021..
In a report published on Tuesday, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimated that 70 percent of those killed would be children under the age of five.
the number of those killed as a result of Yemen’s war could reach 1.3 million by 2030
Of coursem NO ONE Cares about muslims killing muslims; That'd be like caring about Blacks killing Blacks
Loved that cartoon.
"Any caricature of a member of a minority group causes some subjective worry ... "
And every group is a minority somewhere.
Yeah, if you're going to caricature someone, only Jews are allowable. Remember the NYT cartoon that was up for several days? Netanyahu as a dog on a leash, Magen David around his neck, held by a blind Trump wearing sunglasses and a yarmulke.
After protest, there were apologies for no one noticing the antisemitism. Here, the image is of a generic terrorist, not someone specific. Meanwhile, on the WaPo YT page, one can find distinctively antisemitic cartoons, including one of an Israeli soldier intentionally shooting a baby.
And so, because racial sensitivity has become much more important than laughing at people, the history of the political cartoon is over.
Doesn't that also mean the end of the political op-ed piece? [asking for Tom Cotton]
His race never came into it for me. I saw the cartoon as just more unfair anti-Hamas propaganda, because both sides use their children as cannon fodder and ugly propaganda ("decapitated babies!"). That said, I saw no reason to pull it, or to end political cartooning. There's a time and place when the phrase "grow a pair" kicks in, and I'd say when talk of banning illustrations occur, we are there.
But then, I'm kinda biased.
Ramirez was brilliant when he worked for the Memphis Commercial Appeal, too. I was sad to see him leave. (He was one of the few good things about the Comical Appall then, and it's all but dead now.)
Key and Peale did a similar take, but the setting was an encounter in the 'hood.
It would have been OK with WaPo staff if it had been a conservative.
The DEI chickens have come home to roost.
We can either let them shit on everything or turn them into nuggets.
Oh, I see you got it below the fold.
It's significant that one cartoon is accused of inciting hate where a surprise attack on civilians and recording their atrocities doesn't.
You can hear Boss Tweed complaining, "The staff of The Washington Post are morons, but they can see pictures."
Humor is only funny because it’s “wrong”.
Without the ability to express “wrong” thoughts, more than cartoons will be lost.
Hatred & disgust directed at Hamas? Can't have that, can we?!
If bullshit could use stilts to walk upright it would still mot approach the inanity of those accepting such arguments as are made about this cartoon. The proper response to such arguments of absurdity is disdain, ridicule and scorn towards those so disingenuously making them.
Remember when George W Bush could be depicted as a monkey?
No respectable person was going to try that with his successor.
"many readers", eh. You can tell they're reading 'cuz their lips move.
I do not expect much from the MSM. However, I am flummoxed by thinking that decides that "Arab" is a racial term. I always thought that it means somebody who speaks Arabic.
You can see it here. On a real news site.
I have to say, he does look like a stereotypical Arab. I think it's the hostages he's holding, although it's a little puzzling he isn't armed. Most stereotypical Arabs have a bomb with a lit fuse, or at least a Kalashnikov.
Albinophobia? Racism, sexism, ageism, and other class bigotry are now couched in diversity, celebrated in parade, and in a progressive constitution... one step forward, two steps backward.
Quien es más Macho, Racial sensitivity or Muhammad?
See Charlie Hebdo Muhammad cartoon story.
Ramirez' cartoon is the essence of what an op ed cartoon should be. It's a caricature. It exaggerates. It stimulates debate and thinking. It has an absolute basis in the truth. The political cartoon can only exist in a healthy democracy and needs constant protection from the guardians of the First Amendment you'd hope to find editing an Opinion page.
Under the ethical religion, they cannot isolate any individual in any manner. Fortunately, ethics is a philosophy with variable interpretation, so they can enjoy diversity (i.e. color judgment), political congruence, abortion, etc. and their bigotry, too.
A censorship for a censorship leaves the whole world mute.
no they don't, Hamas told the Times fluffer, that mass murder is their things like Austin Powers, as much as David Ignatius thinks otherwise,
btw we're going to have to revise that line about hospitals from airplanes,
Well, if pictures like these aren't allowed, are thousand words articles of same subject also not allowed?
This is just more cancel culture/dis/misinformation censorship run amok, isn't it? As with the Nashville killer's manifesto, what arrogant person or entity gets to decide what the public can and can't see?
Of course "someone could still come along" but I'd hope that's not the standard by which Americans live our lives. Those people could be wrong - right now.
@Crack MC: I saw the cartoon as just more unfair anti-Hamas propaganda, because both sides use their children as cannon fodder and ugly propaganda ("decapitated babies!").
I see that sentence as utterly disconnected from reality.
The cartoon satirized Hamas's actual, long standing, extensive strategy of using the Gaza population as human shields in pursuit of their eliminationist goal. Similarly, "decapitated babies" is an extremely ugly, brutal fact that needs foregrounding because so many people are perfectly happy to wish it away.
It isn't propoganda to point out the truth.
And the notion that Israel uses their children as cannon fodder is so far beyond reality as to be a mixture of laughable and disgusting.
"I have drawn people many times."
As have I. I attended life drawing classes for nearly 30 years at the Art Students League of NY. Each artist's depiction of the same person will differ, yes, an inevitable consequence of each person's innate perceptual sensitivity and his or her relative drawing skill and innate style. Those inclined to find purposeful insult and grotesquery in a drawing intended to be objective will never be mollified, but reasonable people can certainly tell the difference between a drawing that is an objective depiction of a live person (or intended to be objective) and one that is intentionally exaggerated to make a point.
In the end, I say "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke," and we can only hope the print and/or online organs where editorial cartoons might still exist as we go forward will allow their artists/cartoonists complete personal freedom of expression.
Liberals ruin every fucking thing they touch.
A bunch of fucking babies who can't exist without government and pressure groups.
All liberals can burn in hell.
Ask me what I really think.
Hawkeyedjb at 8:58am nails it.
"Creative and skilled cartoonists can depict people just as they look and still make their editorial points."
That is called 'photography.'
Anything drawn by a human will be interpreted, no matter how realistic one is trying to be.
Try to keep up.
Althouse at 10:11am gets it.
If you draw them exactly how they look then you have a portrait and not a cartoon. Cartoons have impact because they are exaggeration of 'how they look'. Of what situation is depicted.
The Crack Emcee said...
His race never came into it for me. I saw the cartoon as just more unfair anti-Hamas propaganda, because both sides use their children as cannon fodder and ugly propaganda ("decapitated babies!"). That said, I saw no reason to pull it, or to end political cartooning. There's a time and place when the phrase "grow a pair" kicks in, and I'd say when talk of banning illustrations occur, we are there."
Hamas is a terrorist organization. Period, full stop. There is no equivalence. Hamas is the government of Gaza, elected by Gazan's who use their own woman and children as shields. Israeli's don't use their woman and children as shields, then again Israelis are men, not the cowardly pigs who use their own woman and children as shields. When the IDF starts using Arab woman and children as shields then your false equivalence would be true.
I started to comment on Crack's unbelievable both-sidesism, then realized it's off topic.
On topic: I agree with those, including Crack, who think the WaPo needs to get over it. The cartoonist was portraying actual individuals, and to the extent that caricature - even the supposedly cute ones you buy at fairs (I hate those things) - always exaggerates some physical characteristic, hey, if an individual has a big nose or wide-set eyes, the caricature artist is going to give that person a really big nose or really wide-set eyes.
We've clearly moved beyond the era of racial stereotyping in caricature; as someone said above, even though GW Bush was routinely caricatured as a monkey, there was no way Obama could have been. Nor Andrew Yang with slits for eyes, nor Netanyahu with a hook of a nose. These types of caricatures would be beyond the pale. So let the individual ones be.
This may spell the end to political cartoons that Leftists dislike.
To suggest this spells the end to political cartoons lampooning Leftist targets is, frankly, preposterous.
Here is a photo of the Hamas spokesman.
I don't think the caricature is unfair or needlessly ethnic. Seems to be an exageration of the actual guy. https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/top-hamas-official-israel-gaza-war-attack-al-aqsa-flood-operation-ground-offensive-2456969-2023-11-02
Robert Cook:
Creative and skilled cartoonists can depict people just as they look and still make their editorial points.
This very cartoon argues against that being of any help.
Compare the cartoon to the Hamas representative Ghazi Hamad that ends a BBC interview abruptly after being challenged. The cartoon is obviously him; same peaked eybrows, same cupid's bow, same beard and same dent in the forehead.
"Just as they look" didn't help.
IOW, anything that drives us farther along the path toward "any possibility of offense, even manufactured offense, is a bona-fide reason for self-censorship" is a thing to be resisted. This is one of those things.
Satirists' job is to offend, with a purpose.
There's a difference between a carciture (sic) of a powerful person and a caricture of a race or ethnic group. For example, showing Tojo as an ugly monkey = fine. Showing generic japanese as monkeys = not fine. I'm all for attacking powerful people any which way. I'm not for "Punching down" and making fun of groups and average people.
From the despcription I was puzzled what the cartoonist was trying to accmomplish. I'd like to see the following cartoon:
Show a blasted Gazan Hosptial with dead children and hospital patients. Then off to the side: Biden giving Bebe Bombs and Netenyahu saying "Its tragic the way Hamas forces us to kill civilians"
We don't need cartoons attacking Hamas. Their attack ended a month ago. Its the Israeli government that has been doing the killing since then. Palestinian death toll up to 10,000. Almost 1/3 of them little kids.
People need to stop talking about "the war". There is no war. Hamas has no army. Israel is just dropping bombs on little old ladies and kids and claiming they're somehow killing some Hamas fighter. Hamas are just young men in gym clothes with AK-47s.
If they wanted to eliminate the Hamas fighters, they'd send in their infantry. But they don't do that. They just drop 1000 lbs (supplied by USA) on Hospitals and Apartment buildings.
Althouse:
Agreed that cartoons - political, social commentary, note taking, whatever - cannot present a "just as". A cartoon, by definition, is not meant to be photographic but to push an emotional message, benign or otherwise. Editorial cartoons even more so.
It fits here and I asked this before but it was very late at night so I may have missed a response. Why have you stopped showing your rat doodles? I know people liked them.
As Reynolds says, if you hear the whistle, you're the dog.
Nast (and his contemporaries) had a stock of visual stereotypes--see what they could do with Confederates, from the effete elite to the hardscrabble redneck rankers.
He defended the cartoonist's artwork but justified taking it down because... well, he doesn't really say why. He just babbles about "something profound, and divisive" and how he's looking for "commonalities" and "bonds that hold us together, even in the darkest times.
What could he have said? They are taking it down because a number of their readers are ignorant or ill-informed. Better to babble than admit they haven't done their job as journalists.
Well I was going to quote and respond to Robert Cook but at 10:11 Althouse did it more thoroughly from the artist POV. What I can dd is that exaggeration of features of individuals does not necessarily mean they are stereotypical features of that individual's ethnic makeup. Not all Jews have big noses and plenty of non-Jews do. In fact when I was first introduced to my colleagues in Sweden they said my manager and I didn't fit in with the "team of big noses" (none were Jewish) and we'd have to find a new nickname. We kept it anyway because being Californians Rob and I loved the humor in that team name. And we could and did work and drink just as hard as the team, made up of six Swedes and an ex-pat Marine with a Harvard MBA (back when Harvard actually taught useful shit).
Turned out we were all motorheads and car lovers too, nose size notwithstanding.
"Though this is a caricature of specific person, many readers perceived it as a stereotype of an Arab man or worried that other people would see it as a stereotype and that it might stir up race-based feelings of disgust or hatred."
Why aren't the Washington Post and other media reporting more on the Arabs in and around Israel that condemn Hamas? Wouldn't that undercut the stereotype?
Ramirez is always spot on with his humor, aimed at both sides politically. With this particular cartoon, he hits the nail on the head. Hiding behind Palestinian civilians, particularly children, is morally bankrupt besides cowardly. It is ironic that in a culture that relishes what the Regressives(TM) call “toxic masculinity”, that the males that make up the majority of Hamas are willing to use civilians as human shields instead of taking it “like a man” in fighting against their archenemies, the Israelis, who for the most part, fight in combat fair against the terrorists in trying to avoid civilian casualties.
Side note #1 - it must of hurt Hamas’ egos when a squad of Israeli female soldiers wiped out a large group of terrorists in a fair firefight.
Side note #2 - I discovered the genius of Michael Ramirez when the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel carried his cartoons for a brief time years ago (they pretty got rid of their op-ed pages years ago except for a couple of [usually] lefty columns on Sundays). I now have his substack page bookmarked on my iPad and read it often.
Since when are political cartoons (or any cartoons) supposed to be drawings of people (or dogs, cats, etc.) "just as they look"? Isn't the whole point to exaggerate certain characteristics (Trump's hair, Biden's chiclet teeth, etc.) for effect (comic or otherwise)? Ramirez is one of the greatest political cartoonists ever. His drawing skills and brilliance for matching image to message are second to none, regardless if one agrees with his message. And who says you have to agree with the message, or find it safe/uncontroversial? It's supposed to elicit an emotional reaction.
Maybe the WaPo can start offering "safe cartoon viewing rooms" and crayon kits for people who are overcome with microaggressions. I know I could often use a crayon kit after just reading their supposedly objective news articles.
We have to worry about generalizing Hamas? FFS.
Stereotypical humor? Having watched Nikki Haley and Vivek slug it out, the Motel Owners of America (MOA) are in a quandary as who to throw their Rupees behind.
By the way, the cartoon implicitly makes a point about the Israelis: Hamas can only use civilians as "human shields" on the assumption that the Jews will respect Palestinian lives.
I mean, if Israel were as genocidal as alleged, shouldn't it invite and encourage the use of human shields and the storage of weapons in schools and the location of headquarters under hospitals, if only for the sake of efficiency?
Butkus51 said...
Its the depiction of a character is what upsets people and not their deeds.
I'm not sure I believe that. I think it is the depiction of the deeds that upsets them. And the people who protested the publication of the cartoon feel like Palestine is the victim, that Palestine is the oppressed one so therefore it is wrong to publish a cartoon contrary to that. Claiming it was because of racist stereotypes is just the rationale that was offered because culturally that has much more power to get things taken down. In the age of critical everything, and everyone being an advocate all the time, the argument that is used isn't necessarily the one people believe but the one they think will get them what they want.
It's possible to do photo realistic cartoons of specific individuals. Remember how South Park actually took a photo of Saddam Hussein's head and made a cartoon character out of it?
It’s no laughing matter that we have a half-wit leading the free world with his feckless, misguided foreign policy, while Sec of State Blinken travels the world speaking out of both sides of his lying piehole. If they aren’t going to defend our military while they are subjected to repeated attacks, just bring them home. They don’t deserve them.
If a choice must be made, they are reliable, world-class makers of the wrong one.
"Creative and skilled cartoonists can depict people *just as they look* and still make their editorial points."
It's called a MEME.
Just a picture of the person with a humorous caption.
Boring.
"Creative and skilled cartoonists can depict people *just as they look* and still make their editorial points."
It's called a MEME.
Photo + Pithy funny caption.
Boring.
The picture in the picture of some big-shot Muzzie honcho is hilarious. It says in capital letters, “There is no humor in Islam.”
And with the magic genie lamp just under the picture. LOL,
Most duplications of the picture are cropped. Here’s the full picture with the scowling emir and magic lamp,
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F-eA4VBWMAAOuwf?format=jpg&name=small
This is an opinion activity supporting evil. May Vishnu have mercy on his crippled and tortured soul.
Blogger The Crack Emcee said...
His race never came into it for me. I saw the cartoon as just more unfair anti-Hamas propaganda, because both sides use their children as cannon fodder and ugly propaganda ("decapitated babies!")
Right. A cartoon. That's the thing that gets people mad. The atrocities were kind of bad too, but man, that cartoon took me over the edge.
https://www.nysun.com/article/nakba-2-0-emerges-as-the-palestinian-arabs-name-for-their-current-crisis-as-the-scale-of-the-disaster-comes-into-focus-in-gaza
should that then be called stereotypicism/ist
and MSM be called stereotypostenographers
Everyone in the city was doing this, and not just Tikrit. They were using little boys and little girls as mine detectors and substitutes for themselves in a dangerous environment. This was creatively brought to the attention of several sunni leaders in an attempt to 'shame' them, but you can't shame people who are directly responsible for it in the first place. They saw nothing wrong with it at all
===========
As depicted, Hawkeye is the ideal hero known for his bravery, resourcefulness, and compassion — where is Alan Alda when we need him?
MASH Korea Cows children/girls ahead of ploughs mines
how would liberal Mr Alda react today going on?
How long before one of those caricaturists at the county fair is hauled up before a judge because his exaggeration of a fair-goer's features constitutes "hate sketch?"
The statement by the WaPo editor reads like a Moral Majority screed circa Terry Rakolta.
Cartoons are banished from the "serious" newspapers. How long before they're hounded out of existence in the other publications?
How long before the standup comedian's "caricature" of various figures, public and private, are proclaimed to be hurtful? Too late.
Not mentioned on AA so far is that Michael Ramirez is rather conservative.
I wonder if he was a liberal if he would have been given more slack.
Did anyone suggest a cease fire in WW2 to give, say the Nazis, a chance to regroup or rest?
"Those inclined to find purposeful insult and grotesquery in a drawing intended to be objective will never be mollified, but reasonable people can certainly tell the difference between a drawing that is an objective depiction of a live person (or intended to be objective) and one that is intentionally exaggerated to make a point."
A political cartoon needs to intentionally exaggerate. That's the tradition. But even if you tried to eliminate all exaggeration, that is, to sacrifice the art of caricature, and you dutifully stuck to the best you could do at imitating life — not that life ever looks like a pen/pencil drawing — you would still stimulate the kind of worries — true or fake — that WaPo gave priority to.
"In the end, I say "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke," and we can only hope the print and/or online organs where editorial cartoons might still exist as we go forward will allow their artists/cartoonists complete personal freedom of expression."
Well, WaPo has opted not to take a joke. It's the Era of That's Not Funny.
You're right that artists can still run their cartoons independently on line. Is that a paying job?
It's okay to hate people and sometimes it's even encouraged, but you can only hate the people THEY (and we know who THEY are) want you to hate and only in the way THEY want you to hate them.....I guess it's still okay to hate ISIS, but it's now a little dodgy to hate Hamas. About the Taliban, it's probably best to remain discreetly quiet about any new atrocities....I was recently reading a bio of Stalin. That book featured some of the anti-kulak cartoons published in the USSR. Like the Nazi cartoons, the figures were meant more to inspire hate than ridicule. The caricatures were really ugly but, unlike the Nazi caricatures, they're not presented as examples of bigotry.....I'm ambivalent about this cartoon. Hamas deserves to be hated, but such cartoons are manipulative.
Hey Skipper said...
"decapitated babies" is an extremely ugly, brutal fact that needs foregrounding because so many people are perfectly happy to wish it away."
Prove it. Show us the evidence.
It's okay to hate people and sometimes it's even encouraged, but you can only hate the people THEY (and we know who THEY are) want you to hate and only in the way THEY want you to hate them.....I guess it's still okay to hate ISIS, but it's now a little dodgy to hate Hamas. About the Taliban, it's probably best to remain discreetly quiet about any new atrocities....I was recently reading a bio of Stalin. That book featured some of the anti-kulak cartoons published in the USSR. Like the Nazi cartoons, the figures were meant more to inspire hate than ridicule. The caricatures were really ugly but, unlike the Nazi caricatures, they're not presented as examples of bigotry.....I'm ambivalent about this cartoon. Hamas deserves to be hated, but such cartoons are manipulative.
cubanbob said...
"Hamas is a terrorist organization. Period, full stop."
So are the Zionists - since 1946. And who can forget Ronald Reagan's Freedom Fighters? Do you see how stupid this gets?
Hamas is a liberation party, fighting an occupying force. That's as honest as one can get.
Xhosa vs Zulu, Hutu vs Tutsi, Kenyan elite vs deplorables, black slavers and slaves, transhumsnitarians and some, select baby lives matter... diversity is doctrine of color judgment, and, generally, class bigotry, that judges and labels people... persons in blocs (e.g. race, sex, age, class). The racist past, present, and progressive exercised with liberal license. Can they abort the baby, cannibalize her profitable parts, sequester her carbon, and have her, too?
Ann Althouse said...
"You're right that artists can still run their cartoons independently on line. Is that a paying job?"
I have one friend who does alright at it. He recently got a TV show on Hulu out of it and says he has something new coming soon. But he's not the norm for the illustrators I know.
That courtroom sketch artist at the SBF trial was so off as to be biased. Should the WaPo have banned those sketches? Sketchy, to say the least. Made Sam Bankman Fried look like a matinee idol.
It's not so much that political cartoons are over, as The Washington Post is over.
The journalists bark, but the cartoonist moves on.
Cartoons will survive. They'll just go to blogs and Substack, like all worthwhile commentary these days. The WaPo will keep the AWFLs, but that's about it.
The Crack Emcee said...
"Hey Skipper said...
"decapitated babies" is an extremely ugly, brutal fact that needs foregrounding because so many people are perfectly happy to wish it away."
Prove it. Show us the evidence."
Do you think that their heads just magically popped off from their necks? Besides, murdered is murdered. (It's a war crime no matter how the babies were killed.)
Also, I think that everyone here is still waiting for you to cite a reputable source that documented Israel using civilians as human shields like Hamas does.
https://efe.com/en/latest-news/2023-10-13/israel-releases-photos-of-babies-killed-by-hamas/
https://nypost.com/2023/11/10/news/video-reports-to-show-hamas-firing-on-civilians-fleeing-childrens-hospital/
"Running men out of town on a rail [as in, 'astride a railroad tie'] is at least as much an American tradition as declaring unalienable rights," according to historian Gary Wills in "Inventing America" (1978). Thus he describes the push and pull of our powerful and wealthy citizenry to give little while taking away our constitutional rights to democratic freedom. Fortunately, only 38% of Americans ascribe mistakenly to this authoritarianism according to the latest poll. Hopefully, we can soon return to democratic ideals of shared leadership in running the country, wherein red and blue colors no longer relate to "political racism."
loudogblog said...
The Crack Emcee said...
Prove it. Show us the evidence."
Do you think that their heads just magically popped off from their necks? Besides, murdered is murdered.
Bullshit. You said a specific crime happened. Prove it.
"'Creative and skilled cartoonists can depict people just as they look and still make their editorial points.'
"That is called 'photography.'"
Nope! There is a great difference between a photograph of a person and a realistic drawing of the same person.
"Compare the cartoon to the Hamas representative Ghazi Hamad that ends a BBC interview abruptly after being challenged. The cartoon is obviously him; same peaked eybrows, same cupid's bow, same beard and same dent in the forehead.
"'Just as they look' didn't help."
Because the drawing is a likeness, not "as he looks" in life. It's a caricature, an exaggerated likeness. There's a significant difference.
Right. A cartoon. That's the thing that gets people mad. The atrocities were kind of bad too, but man, that cartoon took me over the edge.
It's not the first time.
The answer was always to stop drawing the offending image, because a world in which 7 billion people exist without a single one being offended is the highest form of social justice.
Mary McCarthy once said of Lillian Hellman "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'". That may have been unfair, but it is certainly true of what 'rcocean' wrote in his 11:00am comment. A few specific examples:
1. "Their attack ended a month ago." In fact, Hamas is still firing rockets at Israel every single day, thousands in total after October 7th, and have hit one hospital three times so far. They're also still holding 230+ hostages, including many small children, though they did release some (4, I think) and Israel found and rescued one. And they continue to fire at Israeli troops in Gaza (see #5 below).
2. "Palestinian death toll up to 10,000. Almost 1/3 of them little kids." Those are Hamas numbers, and Hamas always lies. Last I heard they were still claiming Israel killed either 500 or 471 bombing a hospital, when in fact a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket hit the parking lot. The number killed was 10-50, and they were killed by Hamas's Muslim allies. Hamas counts all deaths of Gazans as 'civilians', even if they're men who raped and murdered Israeli civilians and are killed in the very act of firing weapons at Israeli soldiers. Again, they lie, and only fools believe them.
3. "There is no war. Hamas has no army." So who the fuck is firing all those rockets across the border, asshole? And who's firing anti-tank rockets at Israel tanks, and AK-47s (see next point) at Israeli infantry?
4. "Hamas are just young men in gym clothes with AK-47s." Is that supposed to make them civilians? Carrying AK-47s and firing them at soldiers or civilians while not wearing uniforms is a war crime! Their lack of uniforms makes them even more legitimate targets than they would be if they wore them.
5. "If they wanted to eliminate the Hamas fighters, they'd send in their infantry. But they don't do that." In fact, Israeli ground troops (infantry, armor, and engineers with bulldozers) have been on the ground in Gaza for weeks now. They have captured large sections of the northern Gaza Strip, cutting it off entirely from the southern part, and have been methodically destroying Hamas's tunnels and rockets, while Hamas pops up and shoots at them whenever they can. Many of the rockets have been found inside or right next to mosques, hospitals, schools, and playgrounds - another war crime. And dozens of Israelis have been killed by Hamas, while hundreds, probably thousands, of Hamas combatants have been killed by Israel.
I could go on, but, as noted, every word 'rcocean' wrote is a lie. He may not be the liar, just a fool passing on lies told by others, but they're still lies.
@Crack Emcee: Prove it. show us the evidence.
Your cite is nearly a month old.
This is much more recent.
Along with misplaced moral equivalence, hair splitting isn’t a good look, either.
I don’t even want to imagine what was shown at the Tolerance Center.
Why does anyone here give Crack Emcee any oxygen? Does anyone think he's not just an ordinary Web 1.0 comments troll getting dopamine hits from the pushback?
Hamas is a liberation party, fighting an occupying force.
Oh yeah. They’re about as liberatory as the Red Army was of Eastern Europe. Or the Khmer Rouge were of Cambodia. And let’s not forget what you consider to be “occupation”: The “excessive” numbers of Jews and other Israelis governing themselves in their own, UN-recognized member state, as you’ve said so many times. You’re a truly sick man.
Anyway, getting back to the cartoon - it says something that random Arab subscribers saw themselves in Ghazi Hamad’s objectively repulsive visage, or something to defend in his admittedly terroristic acts. Those same co-called respected human rights organizations accuse Hamas of such crimes all the same. All Ramirez needed to do was to put his or another terrorist’s particular name on the character instead of “Hamas” and he would have been fine. Too few people are being informed of what these sick SOBs are actually saying anyway.
Thanks to Jupiter for linking to a cartoon that more newspapers should be printing. The sanitization of these characters under the guise of protecting Arabian national self-esteem is nauseating.
The piggybacking of the BIPOC identitarians onto movements opposing “settler colonialism” is pretty amusing. You rarely see actually indigenous people taking part in the Paleostinian cause. I think they actually identify more with Jews for remembering their history and holding on to the sense of peoplehood and history they came from - something that causes a lot of resentment among Black Americans who usually can’t trace their family history and therefore their history as a people back beyond a few decades or so at most. In this sense they’re probably more like the Paleostinians.
But they’re all settler colonialists just the same. If anyone who doesn’t identify with a Native American tribe isn’t willing to leave America then I don’t care what he has to say about the “indigenous” people of Palestine - and that holds true whether he’s black, middle eastern or any other non-North American color or feature. Non-native Americans who piggyback onto the cause of liberating Palestine of Israelis should be impaled on a spike with Geronimo’s head at the top and then shipped back to the continent that their ancestors who invaded America originated from.
Do you think that their heads just magically popped off from their necks?
You gotta go easy on Minister Farra Cracker Khan. He belongs to the Cult of Palestinian Purity. His sins of ignorance and calumny (and the fact that he illegally occupies Native American land) are cleansed by praising them as heroes.
Alos, it’s funny that a guy who keeps asking for “reputable sources” and links can’t figure out where quotation marks go when. He responds to other in these threads.
On looking into "as he looks", I retract my agreement as pedantry rarely works well on words with more than thirty-five definitions.
Webster's unabridged dictionary; page 1134, col b:
look
36. looks,
a. general aspect, appearance: to like the looks of a place
b. attractive, pleasing appearance
So "as he looks" could mean as little as "has his general aspect" as "he has a pleasing appearance" doesn't quite fit.
aspect
4 part, feature, phase
5 facial expression, countenance
6 bearing, air, mien
All apply.
And let's just knock out
look-a-like too
1. a person or thing that looks like or closely resembles another, double.
So, "as x looks" depends on nothing more than a general visual conformity that agrees with the eye of the beholder.
In the future Wapo political cartoons will be generated by AI. The bad guys will all be drawn as Milburn Pennybags from the Monopoly game.
Racial sensitivities spell an end to the long history of the political cartoon.
Foolish, foolish Althouse. They will always allow political cartoons targeted at Republicans.
Why does anyone here give Crack Emcee any oxygen? Does anyone think he's not just an ordinary Web 1.0 comments troll getting dopamine hits from the pushback?
No, you’re right - he is exactly that.
But the problem is that his level of ignorance, resentment, entitlement and fixation on this issue makes him emblematic of the horrible Cult of Anti-Western drones and thugs taking over our universities and the left-wing. So he’s good target practice for figuring out how to combat their evil. They’re as bad a threat to civilization as the communists or even the Nazis before them. But potentially worse.
Crack is not as evil as they are but just as gullible and naive, so it’s important to probe and see which mind traps he’s falling for and just how far down he fell into them.
He’s built a literal tunnel network in his mind of self-deception and conflict. But without the booby traps of the toxic wokesters and jihadi simps. Let’s explore them. He offers everyone an opportunity to put on our mining caps and rappel down into this rich opportunity for spelunking the caves of his neo-commie consciousness of revolutionary revanchism and rage.
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