Where is the line in Political Cartoons?

[mheslep]

Part of the background: couple days ago the NY Post featured a story on a rapid chimp attacking somebody, chimp was shot by the cops.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/02162009/news/regionalnews/bizarre_animal_attack_in_stamford_155493.htm

 

[dnvlgm]

well you have to remember that it was a monkey the first creature to ever solve the wavefunction for the water molecule. Besides, monkeys have been shown to like strawberry and chocolate ice cream which in turn has been proven to increase virility. I'm no trying to extrapolate our established standards for what is cool or not but monkeys do have a lot to give to this world...

...give it a rest it's a cartoon, get a life

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The caption should have read:

Now that Bonzo is dead, the Reagan era really is over.

or

Another reason to own a handgun - wild chimps!

 

[Math Is Hard]

Anyway, I don't particularly care whether or not there was an intended racist angle to the cartoon, and I doubt Obama gives a damn about it either. It's actually a bigger deal for me that I still don't find it at all funny. Do you?

Well, that's the thing.. I think the cartoon was so unfunny that people were scratching their heads about what was funny about it and leapt from there to try to understand who might find something funny in it. "Oh, ok, maybe it's racist humor. Maybe if we look at it that way we can see how a racist would laugh at this." And of course, certain opportunists seized upon it. And, no. I still don't "get" the cartoon.

Listen up, cartoonists, for at least the next 4 years:

Political cartoon with ape/monkey + obscure humor element = likely career death

We're just not that grown up yet.

Anyway, I thought the story about the chimp was very sad. I think the caretaker made bad decisions.

 

[Math Is Hard]

Oh, and if they wanted to be topical, couldn't they just have Michael Phelps writing the bill while hitting the bong? More people would get that one.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

perhaps the artist and/or the editor who added it to the spread are honestly not racist people and hence never made the connection. but I guess that's just a silly thought.

I call people (in general) monkeys fairly often. I often wind up catching myself before saying it when there is a black person involved. and I feel stupid for it. I'm censoring myself from saying something I would normally say because someone might call me a racist. at the same time I am regularly, and intentionally, referred to by racial epithets as if its no big deal. the terms don't bother me so much as the hypocracy in that if I were to refer to them in kind they would likely be furious.

responding to a perceived slight by publicly attacking and demonizing a persons character to such a degree as to call them racist is disgusting. I wouldn't be apologizing to anyone either. I'd be tearing sharpton a new one.

 

[Proton Soup]

wrt this subject, i have empathy fatigue and can't be arsed to care.

 

[russ_watters]

If this cartoon had appeared in a KKK Newsletter I suppose no one would have bothered, because it's an issue of consider the source.

Agreed.

That the NY Post a more mainstream content source would have forwarded it, I think quite rightly raises serious questions about their judgment.

Wrong. Yes, it is an issue of the source. If the source is a KKK magazine, then the interpretation of racism is obvious. Since it is the NY Post, the interpretation of racism is not warranted. As you said: people need to consider the source.

 

[russ_watters]

Oh, and if they wanted to be topical, couldn't they just have Michael Phelps writing the bill while hitting the bong? More people would get that one.

People still wouldn't know if the object was Obama or Congress, but yeah, I think more people would have gotten closer to the point, duuuuude.

 

[russ_watters]

I call people (in general) monkeys fairly often. I often wind up catching myself before saying it when there is a black person involved.

A close friend of mine does too and that might be why I got it. He uses lower level primate imagery to describe his coworkers all the time and given the industry he's in and his location, his coworkers are probably about 80%+ white male.

He uses an image that is a little too sick to post here, but it involves two monkeys and a football...you can google it, but consider yourself warned. He even made himself a model with stuffed animals. I admire his commitment.

I'm censoring myself from saying something I would normally say because someone might call me a racist. at the same time I am regularly, and intentionally, referred to by racial epithets as if its no big deal.
the terms don't bother me so much as the hypocracy in that if I were to refer to them in kind they would likely be furious.

I see the same double standard in our society. Hate speech is almost by definition a one-way street and that's wrong.

responding to a perceived slight by publicly attacking and demonizing a persons character to such a degree as to call them racist is disgusting. I wouldn't be apologizing to anyone either. I'd be tearing sharpton a new one.

Agreed. This tells us more about society's reaction to perceived racism than it does about the author's intended interpretation. This author's next political cartoon should depict Sharpton in a split screen, once in a monkey suit and once in a clown suit. Then maybe we'll see if he gets the joke or still sees racism...

Heh, it is even possible that this cartoon was intended as that kind of bait. Now that would be funny!

 

[BobG]

The caption should have read:

Now that Bonzo is dead, the Reagan era really is over.

Yes, if the cartoonist was somehow committed to finding a way to use the chimp as some kind of humorous satire, he could have found a lot better subjects.

And, of course it's absolutely essential to use the chimp in his cartoon. It's always been a successful tactic in Super Bowl commercials, so it has to work in political satire, as well, right?

No, I didn't find it very funny, even taking the more logical link that the author was trying to make. It wasn't a very good cartoon.

I did, however, at least get a chuckle out of Ivan's caption.

Edit: Ivan's caption would be pretty timely, too. A lot of people are blaming the current economic mess on deregulation run rampant. Whether right or wrong, the proposed solution is a 180 degree turnaround to Keynseian economics. We're going spend our way out of the recession.

(And I don't mean that derogatorily. I'm kind of waiting to see what happens before deciding. I'm open to what ever works.)

 

[Gokul43201]

Also, the cartoon has restricted audience by virtue of the opinion it expresses (presumably that the stimulus bill must have been written by monkeys). Believe it or not, Congress is actually seeing a pretty strong gain in approval ratings over the last few weeks.

http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/135/picture22ab6.png

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html#chart

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Sharpton would actually have a point if Obama had actually written the bill. He didn't and he doesn't.

 

[LowlyPion]

A boycott is planned now for the Post.

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/02/19/2009-02-19_rev_al_sharpton_black_leaders_planning_b.html

In the face of such public outcry you'd think they would offer an apology for those that might have been offended as opposed to taking the position that they did nothing wrong and so any that disagrees ... well tough.

The we didn't mean to say that defense just doesn't fly when so many take it the "unintended" way. Now that they refuse to offer apology they just come off as arrogant and if anything they would seem to reinforce the idea that there was an intentional juxtaposition that had the benefit of calling Obama a monkey as well as the stimulus package ill considered.

 

[mgb_phys]

Are we boycotting it today because it's cartoon makes fun of great historical white presidents by drawing them with silly eyes?
I understand that for a far-left, pro black, revisionist history journal like the NY Post this might be acceptable but many people could take it the wrong way.

 

[Gokul43201]

In the face of such public outcry you'd think they would offer an apology for those that might have been offended as opposed to taking the position that they did nothing wrong and so any that disagrees ... well tough.

I don't see public outcry as a good reason to apologize for anything. I'm not going to apologize, for instance, if there's public outcry that my class on Evolution (I don't teach one, but assuming I did) is offending millions of Christians.

 

[LowlyPion]

Hey if the boycott doesn't bother them and they don't mind appearing offensive to a significant portion of their potential readership then they should continue to act arrogantly and wrap themselves in their imagined righteousness and not care who they may have offended or why. That kind of insensitivity is not uniquely theirs apparently.

So I do agree it's their business, and if they want to alienate their general readership and tilt it toward the knuckledraggers then I say let them. It's worked for Fox after all.

 

[mgb_phys]

Would it be cynical to think that a certain religious/political figure feels that he isn't getting enough media attention since Obama took centre stage?

Perhaps his PR people and the Post's PR people should have arranged everything to fit in with a slow news day. It's much better than just letting these major newsworthy events happen at random.

 

[LowlyPion]

Would it be cynical to think that a certain religious/political figure feels that he isn't getting enough media attention since Obama took centre stage?

Perhaps his PR people and the Post's PR people should have arranged everything to fit in with a slow news day. It's much better than just letting these major newsworthy events happen at random.

If you think I would deny that Sharpton is an opportunist, then you misjudge. In fact speaking of opportunists I'm surprised Jesse Jackson hasn't waded into the scene. This kind of thing total nectar to these publicity seeking bumble bees.

But regardless of who's leading the parade, there wouldn't be a parade if there wasn't a vein of offense to be mined from the cartoon.

 

[mgb_phys]

there wouldn't be a parade if there wasn't a vein of offense to be mined from the cartoon.

You can always find offence if you try hard enough , there was the guy fired because somebody decided the word niggardly was racist. Or the people that have decided that 'picnic' is racist.

Personally I am deeply offended by the brutal stripping of supposedly unimportant whitespace by this racist forum software. And don't get me started on the negative connotations of blank.

 

[skeptic2]

I've always been puzzled by the concept of the right of free speech except for offensive speech. Isn't the whole idea behind freedom of speech to permit offensive or critical speech?

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Hey if the boycott doesn't bother them and they don't mind appearing offensive to a significant portion of their potential readership then they should continue to act arrogantly and wrap themselves in their imagined righteousness and not care who they may have offended or why. That kind of insensitivity is not uniquely theirs apparently.

So I do agree it's their business, and if they want to alienate their general readership and tilt it toward the knuckledraggers then I say let them. It's worked for Fox after all.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/politics/BushChimp.jpg".

 

[LowlyPion]

You can always find offence if you try hard enough , ...

Unfortunately this kind of imagery doesn't require a KKK decoder ring. It's pretty blatant. I didn't need Al Sharpton to tell me how he sees it for me to think it could be viewed as veiled racism.

The failure to apologize to any who might have taken it in a way that they presumably say they didn't intend is puzzling, as I don't understand the profit of arrogance. That just seems like pretty poor community relations with a community they are nominally hoping to serve.

Even those who declined to comment took their shots at the Post - like White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

"I have not seen the cartoon," he told reporters aboard Air Force One. "But I don't think it's altogether newsworthy reading the New York Post."

 

[LowlyPion]

I've always been puzzled by the concept of the right of free speech except for offensive speech. Isn't the whole idea behind freedom of speech to permit offensive or critical speech?

I haven't heard anyone talking about censorship.

People have the right to speak offensively and reap the whirlwind for what they say.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Unfortunately this kind of imagery doesn't require a KKK decoder ring. It's pretty blatant. I didn't need Al Sharpton to tell me how he sees it for me to think it could be viewed as veiled racism.

You know, it's funny. I saw the thread the day after it was posted, so when I went to the link it didn't have that cartoon but the one for the following day. I looked at it and couldn't find out how it could be racist, then figured it was the wrong one. [It was.] So I went back one day and saw the cartoon with the monkey, looked it over, and figured that this couldn't be it either. I then went to the one before it, which didn't seem any more racist than the other two. At this point I went back to the first two -- I was pretty sure I wasn't more than two days out -- but still couldn't see how either would be racist. That's when I gave up trying to find it and went to read further in the thread.

It seems that my experience provided some kind of unintentional experiment.

 

[Evo]

I guess I saw it immediately because I have to go through "sensitivity" training at work to make sure that I do not accidently insult people . Where I work people get fired for making any remark that someone takes as racist.

 

[Gokul43201]

That just seems like pretty poor community relations with a community they are nominally hoping to serve.

Hoping to serve? Geez, they're a tabloid! What would you want them to do next, report the news?

 

[turbo]

Regardless of how real some peoples' indignation is, and how justified, there is a facet to this story that helps support the idea that the slur was intentional. Political cartoonists are current-events junkies - that's how they get their ideas and make their living. It's not even remotely possible that the Obama/monkey T-shirts, the Obama/sock monkey dolls, etc, slipped by this cartoonist. In that context, his cartoon seems to give the nod to racism.

 

[Proton Soup]

regardless, GWB was lampooned as a chimp numerous times, and this cartoon wasn't even directed at Obama, but Congress. the Curious George shirts were probably intended as racist, but this isn't that.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/n/a/2008/05/14/politics/p122224D39.DTL&o=

 

[Gokul43201]

regardless, GWB was lampooned as a chimp numerous times...

But none of them carry a racist connotation. If white people had been lynched and tormented in some country and referred to as, say, polar bears...then a polar bear cartoon of a white person in that country would be carry the same racist connotation as a monkey cartoon of a black person in this country does.

 

[Proton Soup]

But none of them carry a racist connotation. If white people had been lynched and tormented in some country and referred to as, say, polar bears...then a polar bear cartoon of a white person in that country would be carry the same racist connotation as a monkey cartoon of a black person in this country does.

and the only racial connotation here is the assumption that black people are either so ignorant that they don't realize the stimulus bill is written by Congress (not the President) or so illiterate and detached from current events that they didn't know about the woman's chimp that had just attacked her friend and had to be shot by police.

i'm sorry, but there is a bit of an undercurrent here that black people are unintelligent and unsophisticated and that we must somehow condescend to them to keep the peace.

 

[Gokul43201]

and the only racial connotation here is the assumption that black people are either so ignorant that they don't realize the stimulus bill is written by Congress (not the President) or so illiterate and detached from current events that they didn't know about the woman's chimp that had just attacked her friend and had to be shot by police.

i'm sorry, but there is a bit of an undercurrent here that black people are unintelligent and unsophisticated and that we must somehow condescend to them to keep the peace.

Wow! Talk about being oversensitive to undercurrents! I knew about the both the chimp story and am aware of who writes bills but still could tell when a cartoon can be interpreted as carrying a racist message.

What are you implying? That some white people are so pathetically clueless about the history of their country that they can't be blamed for not seeing the obvious?

 

[LowlyPion]

regardless, GWB was lampooned as a chimp numerous times, and this cartoon wasn't even directed at Obama, ...

First of all do you really think he played no roll? As President - all those meetings, all that out reach for bipartisan involvement? You just don't see Obama as associated with the stimulus package that is now called the Obama Stimulus Plan by many public commentators?

And second of all if you would treat it in such a literal fashion do you seriously think that there is no outrage in the African American community at depictions of monkeys as stereotypes? And you would expect that at a minimum African Americans would not find such allusion as objectionable, because they would of course see things through the literal lens of your perspective and not their own experience?

Sorry, but as a son of the south I see it as racist code that whether intentional or not should be immediately redressed, with more than the paper saying that it thinks it was justified in its inference, so anybody that thinks otherwise can stuff it. That's just rude.

As to associating chimps with Bush, yes chimps share an idiom with idiot. But last I looked idiot was not a recognized minority under the Civil Rights Act. (In fact I have to wonder at times if it is not a minority at all.) But rather than idiot, if a cartoon equated Bush to say a retarded person, I would consider that an inappropriate excursion into poor taste in a similar way that this cartoon inappropriately stumbles through its own garden of racially charged imagery.

 

[Proton Soup]

Wow! Talk about being oversensitive to undercurrents! I knew about the both the chimp story and am aware of who writes bills but still could tell when a cartoon can be interpreted as carrying a racist message.

What are you implying? That some white people are so pathetically clueless about the history of their country that they can't be blamed for not seeing the obvious?

basically I'm just sick and tired of this nonsense. I'm tired of this constant barrage of accusations of racism. for a long time now, it's been that a person is guilty until proven otherwise on such things. and so as i mentioned before, i have empathy fatigue now and i just don't care anymore. if something stirs up a few lowbrow whites, we just call them ignorant rednecks and move on.

 

[ellbellone]

All political cartoons seem to have different underlying meanings. I think the way they are interpreted determine whether they are offensive or not. This cartoon seems to have provoked a lot of contraversy suggesting it doesn't have a good or clear message. Perhaps it is irrelevant and I'm sure Mr. Obama is not looking at it, therefore it doesn't matter.