I am fairly tolerant when it comes to humor; but, when that humor becomes racist, I do not find it amusing anymore. I am not politically savvy, however, that does not mean that I do not brush up on some information when I need to. What I do know is that when a political cartoonist includes politics and racism in the same little drawing window, nothing good can come from that.
I came across a political cartoon a while back, and it was implanted in my brain because of the gravity behind it. It did not even take me more than five minutes to find the same cartoon I was thinking about when I “Googled” for it. The cartoonist goes by the name Sean Delonas and his cartoon came out in the New York Post after President Obama wrote the stimulus bill last year. In the cartoon, two police officers, who seem to be either dim-witted or surprised, point their gun to a dead chimpanzee – which appears to be their doing – on the ground in a residential neighborhood.
At first glance, I did not think that this cartoon was anything out of the ordinary but when I read the caption that came with it, I realized at that moment that that was the most offensive political cartoon I had ever seen. The caption read, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” I understand that the nature of political cartoons are to be humorous and in most cases, politically satirical, but the fact that such a heavy undertone of racism was included in that cartoon makes me feel uncomfortable. Like I said, I can take humor but there are times when crossing the line becomes too much.
I needed to look at this picture several times to really grasp what I was staring at. I just do not take racism lightly, and for someone to be able to publish that on paper and have it encouraged by others is plainly infuriating. In case you are still wondering why I was in such a state of shock, let me tell you why I was offended. The chimpanzee was supposed to represent President Obama. This was obvious because the stimulus bill had been written by Obama just a couple of days earlier and then, this cartoon was published. I later read that the New York Post claimed that the monkey was in reference to the attack of a woman by a chimp. However, the synonymy between the chimpanzee and President Obama that the cartoonist seems to show is too close; and yet, the editors to actually say that these are two entirely different things. I mean, Delonas should have just refrained from expressing this cartoon at all.
If the cartoonist wanted to depict something against the president without causing such an upheaval then, he should have just used the internet. There are too many people who can get offended with something that has such a hard racist connotation that maybe it would have been better to post it in an unsupervised arena. I am in no way condoning such drawings, but I do also understand that everyone is entitled to an opinion. Sometimes I just think that people should have blogs instead of having access to print. I am all for freedom of speech, but when is too much? It is sad to know that the people who published this cartoon took such a light position on it and did not print a retraction.
***Photo courtesy of www.HuffingtonePost.com***
Are you serious?! This came out in the New York Post! Geez, I thought the New York Post is supposed to be more sophisticated than that. I can't see the cartoon you posted because my computer is not letting me, so I just viewed a few of his political cartoons. Good God, some of the things this guy has drawn would make you cringe. It doesn't really make you laugh, it just gets you to think, "Why was this published?" There is one of his cartoons that has a man holding a sheep, waiting to get married. It's basically saying that's next.
ReplyDeleteI am like you, I have a high tolerance when it comes to humor. However, there are some things that seriously cross the line. I was reading the comments some people made about the cartoon, saying that people who read it were "too sensitive." But we are not. This is the kind of crap that keeps "the outsiders" from being seen s equals. This kind of mentality doesn't allow for the advancement of the "outsiders." I am all for free speech, but this has no real political content. This guy used the stimulus bill statement as an excuse to portray Obama as a monkey. Disappointing.
Yeah, I am sure the New York Post claims that it is a image of the chimpanzee that attacked a woman, nice way to try to cover up the real message behind the image. It is quite obvious that the implication is that President Obama is just a chimpanzee in the White House, trained as a puppet to write the stimulus bill. The racial undertones are obvious just looking at the picture, the New York Post’s denial of the subject matter comes as no surprise.
ReplyDeleteCartoons just like this one are the reason why I dislike the majority of political cartoons. They do little to inform, and instead are just a platform for the artist/illustrator’s views. I would rather read a story about the actions of a political figure, then look at some illustration and try to decipher the meanings of them. When you have a cartoon so obviously illustrate a racist image, then have the publisher deny that images implications, we aren’t learning anything from the image, but instead arguing over what the image is about. This actually, in my opinion, takes away from the whole point of the cartoon in the first place, to humorously portray political shortcomings in an artistic way. I don’t find the portrayal of our president as a chimp humorous in the least.
As long as there is no crime or violence taken from the acts of making these editorial/political cartoons then I see no problem with people speaking their minds through them. Most printed cartoons you see today, in this case the Sunday funnies section, you don’t really see the cartoons make direct attacks/insults towards people. People today are way to serious about what others say and that is when censorship takes things to far. People need to get through their heads that not everyone is going to be happy about something and that not everyone is going to agree with one single opinion. I believe that if people weren’t so overly protective then we would able to expand upon these messages that we get from editorial cartoons. Consideration for what is illustrated and mentioned in these editorial cartoons is the only thing I think that should be involved. If you are going to be insulting a person, a race, or an ideal at least be considerate of your viewers/readers and not be so blatant about it.
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing about all that I said in the previous paragraph is that political cartoons need disagreement and injustice for them to come into being. If everyone was okay with everything then there would be no need for political/editorial cartoons to make a point that doesn’t exist. In the long run people thrive on issues and if everything was okay with everyone I believe that would be rather dull world. Editorial cartoons just normally give a comedic view on an otherwise serious or dull political topic and we all need a good laugh every once in a while.
This is one of those cartoons that I just don’t understand. What I get from it is the same racist feeling that you get. I suppose what I don’t understand is the excuse for the chimp being in the cartoon. It was based off of a chimp that attacked a woman? What does that have to do with a stimulus bill? Just a coincidence that a black President passed the stimulus bill just days before? I think not. This is really distasteful. I really don’t care how anyone wants to justify it: I understand that there is freedom of opinion but that doesn’t make this comic any less offensive. It’s like telling someone “No offense, but...” and then saying something offensive! There totally is a line, especially in such a diverse society as ours. Someone may find this to just be the funniest thing in the world, but I find this to be disgusting and kind of scary. Essentially, this cartoon represents the idea that it would be okay to kill the President on the major fact that he is black. This comic is just another reminder that racism has not been erased, that despite the fact that we’re all humans skin color certainly matters to some.
ReplyDelete