[bots]

Originally Posted by Mystic Mock

Out of interest does the person that wrote this particular skit have a history of mocking the Jewish community?

I'm asking because if he has a pattern of just singling one group out to ridicule then the joke stops in my eyes as it's a lot more sinister.

However as I'm seeing it so far there was a joke that wouldn't be far amiss in Family Guy or South Park, but for some reason is being banned.

it's not being banned though is it. The guardian chose to remove it, they weren't compelled by law to do so. Public pressure is what made them remove it. That's not banning something

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by bitontheslide

it's not being banned though is it. The guardian chose to remove it, they weren't compelled by law to do so. Public pressure is what made them remove it. That's not banning something

Listening to a few people on the Internet is capitulation.

I mean that's not even public pressure when I doubt that most people didn't really care either way would be my guess.

But I am wondering why The Guardian had that skit on their Newspaper anyway? I didn't think that they knew what a joke was.

[bots]

Originally Posted by Mystic Mock

Listening to a few people on the Internet is capitulation.

I mean that's not even public pressure when I doubt that most people didn't really care either way would be my guess.

But I am wondering why The Guardian had that skit on their Newspaper anyway? I didn't think that they knew what a joke was.

it's about money, thats why they removed it.

[The Slim Reaper]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

So what made you become in favour of blasphemy laws since then?

Again, it's all about your framing.

My post was about the free speech beliefs, and had nothing to do with the motivations of the separate authors/illustrators.

I'm still completely against blasphemy laws, but I was pointing out the unsurprising difference of folks cheering when it's an attempt to piss off a community that is viewed as less than, when both situations produced cartoons offensive to minorities.

It's still entirely consistent to think that these cartoons are both anti-Semitic, and perfectly fine to print in newspapers if our motivations are purely free speech based. My point, is that they're not.

[Oliver_W]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

Again, it's all about your framing.

My post was about the free speech beliefs, and had nothing to do with the motivations of the separate authors/illustrators.

I'm still completely against blasphemy laws, but I was pointing out the unsurprising difference of folks cheering when it's an attempt to piss off a community that is viewed as less than, when both situations produced cartoons offensive to minorities.

It's still entirely consistent to think that these cartoons are both anti-Semitic, and perfectly fine to print in newspapers if our motivations are purely free speech based. My point, is that they're not.

How do you reconcile being against blasphemy laws, while also thinking that cartoons of Mo shouldn't be printed? Depicting him only goes against a religion, which is different to offensively portraying a living person.

[The Slim Reaper]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

How do you reconcile being against blasphemy laws, while also thinking that cartoons of Mo shouldn't be printed? Depicting him only goes against a religion, which is different to offensively portraying a living person.

Because there isn't anything to reconcile. Either we're all free speech absolutists, or we're not. I've learned over the years that I am not, and I don't think that many people are either, it's just that they all pretend they are.

Depicting Mohammed pissed off 1.5-2billion people, whereas the guardian cartoon only pissed off 2-300k Jews that live in the UK, so surely guardian cartons are better (turning your framing around)?

A religion is made up of people too, however hard you try to make it about a faceless religion versus one living man.

[Oliver_W]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

Depicting Mohammed pissed off 1.5-2billion people, whereas the guardian cartoon only pissed off 2-300k Jews that live in the UK, so surely guardian cartons are better (turning your framing around)?

It doesn't matter who gets pissed off, being pissed off is a choice. The kind of person who gets pissed off by a depiction of a dead paedo deserves to be pissed off, tbh.

I'm not even arguing that the Guardian should have removed their cartoon. But it's still different to invoke antiSemetic tropes to insult a specific person, that it is to simply depict another person.

[The Slim Reaper]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

It doesn't matter who gets pissed off, being pissed off is a choice. The kind of person who gets pissed off by a depiction of a dead paedo deserves to be pissed off, tbh.

I'm not even arguing that the Guardian should have removed their cartoon. But it's still different to invoke antiSemetic tropes to insult a specific person, that it is to simply depict another person.

You're making it about the motivations of the cartoons again, and I've repeatedly pointed out my posts are about our reactions to them.

[Oliver_W]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

You're making it about the motivations of the cartoons again, and I've repeatedly pointed out my posts are about our reactions to them.

Like I said, my reaction was never that either should be deleted.

[The Slim Reaper]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

Like I said, my reaction was never that either should be deleted.

Then I appreciate that as a consistent position.

Do you at least see the point I was trying to make?

[Crimson Dynamo]

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

The apology of the cartoonist, published on his website yesterday.

https://www.martinrowson.com/

On Saturday 29th April 2023 The Guardian published a cartoon of mine about Richard Sharp’s resignation as Chairman of the BBC, the top news item the previous day. The main focus of the cartoon was Boris Johnson sitting naked on top of a dungheap holding bags full of dollars, with various wheeliebins around its base, labelled “Patrons”, “Friends”, “Families” and so on. Johnson was saying to Sharp, as the latter was leaving the dilapidated and clearly fire damaged room they were in, “Cheer up, matey! I put you down for a peerage in my Resignation Honours List!”

I think the purpose of the cartoon was fairly obvious - Johnson’s blithe toxicity by association, and how Sharp was the latest bit of blowback from the former Prime Minister’s
casual if all consuming sleaziness and selfishness. None of that, however, seems to have fuelled the furious response to the cartoon. That was all down to how I depicted Richard Sharp.

In the internal narrative of the cartoon, I’d wanted Sharp to play the stooge, the fall guy Johnson had brought low. I also wanted to hint at other parts of the story, and how the networks of croneyism cut every which way among our rulers. It is common knowledge, for instance, that Rishi Sunak used to work for Sharp at Goldman Sachs, the multinational bank infamously described by Matt Taimmi in Rolling Stone in 2008 as “a vampire squid wrapped round the face of humanity”. To signify this not insignificant connection between Sharp and the current Prime Minister, I had him holding a cardboard box, the standard accessory of the just sacked, with the Goldman Sachs logo on it, albeit partially covered by his CV, also held in one of the hands holding the box. The logo’s been crossed out and “BBC” scribbled beneath it, also now crossed out. In the box are Sunak and the aforementioned vampire squid, in a rather cutesy cartoon form, and with the typical yellow polyped skin that stretches between the tentacles of vampire squid.

And this is where things started going wrong. The portrayal of Sharp takes up 3% of the overall image. I was trying to draw him looking silently furious, by implication with Johnson, in the standard caricatural way common to all political cartoons of exaggerating various of his features (most prominently, I thought, his large forehead and rather hooded, baggy eyes). I thought, at the time, it was a fairly mild caricature compared with how I’d draw Johnson. But I’d also never drawn Sharp before, so maybe overworked it to satisfy myself I’d “caught him”; in David Low’s famous phrase, made him look more like him than he does.

Oh, and then I added, just for a laugh as a tiny detail, an empty packet of “Dignity Shreds” at the base of Johnson’s dunghill, with a pig behind an attendant fur cup snarfing a clump of them up.

I like to produce complex cartoons, crammed with incidental detail, partly it allows layers of nuance to be added to the overall umage, partly because it’s the English Cartooning Great Tradition, from Hogarth and Gillray, via Giles and Pont. Also, I know, a lot of the readers enjoy it. But sometimes, like in this case, in the mad rush to cram as much in as possible in the 5 or so hours available to me to produce the artwork by deadline, things go horribly wrong.

Satirists, even though largely licenced to speak the unspeakable in liberal democracies, are no more immune to ****ing things up than anyone else, which is what I did here. I know Richard Sharp is Jewish; actually, while we’re collecting networks of croneyism, I was at school with him, though I doubt he remembers me. His Jewishness never crossed my mind as I drew him as it’s wholly irrelevant to the story or his actions, and it played no conscious role in how I twisted his features according to the standard cartooning playbook. Likewise, the cute squid and the little Rishi were no more than that, a cartoon squid and a short Prime Minister, it never occurring to me that some might see them as puppets of Sharp, this being another notorious antisemitic trope. As for the pig and the “Dignity Shreds”, I think I painted them red as like scraps of licorice, again not appreciating they could also be interpreted as blood, repeating yet again antisemitic blood libels that have recurred poisonously for millennia. Finally, fatally, many people assumed the yellow polyps on the squid were gold coins and the truncated Goldman Sachs logo simply read “Gold Sacs”.

For this I apologise, though I’m not going to repeat the current formulation by saying I’m sorry if people were upset, which is always code for “I’ve done nothing wrong, you’re just oversensitive”. This is on me, even if accidentally or, more precisely, thoughtlessly. It’s a personal mantra of mine that satirical cartoons are like journalism, all about Afflicting the Comfortable and Comforting the Afflicted. In other words, I should never attack people less powerful than me (which narrows the field more than you might imagine) and I should only attack people for what they think, not who they are.

So by any definition, most of all my own, the cartoon was a failure and on many levels: I offended the wrong people, Sharp wasn’t the main target of the satire, I rushed at something without allowing enough time to consider things with the depth and care they require, and thereby letting slip in stupid ambiguities that have ended up appearing to be something I never intended. But as I’ve always said, once my work is in the public domain, it no longer belongs to me but to the beholder, in whose eye offence dwells just as surely as beauty.

Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. To work effectively, cartoons almost more than any other part of journalism require eternal vigilance, against unconscious bias as well as things that should be obvious and in this case, unforgivably, I didn’t even think about. There are sensitivities it is our obligation to respect in order to achieve our satirical purposes. Despite the tyranny of the deadline, in future I’ll make sure I’ve drawn what I really mean, and mean what I draw.

Addendum added Sunday 30th April 2023

On Sunday morning, 24 hours after I sent it, someone on Twitter reposted a direct message in which I thanked them for backing me against the growing number of accusations that the cartoon was antisemitic. In that DM I said that offence was in the eye of the beholder, a point I repeated in my apology, written three hours later, but the way I worded it it appeared that I accepted no responsibility. I misspoke. At the time I was still processing the storm I’d inadvertently caused, and to be honest I was in a state of shock as I’d never intended - idiotically, crassly and carelessly - to depict antisemitic tropes. Between that DM and me writing my apology, I fully realised the depth of my mistake.

What I’m feeling now is enormous regret, idiocy and deep shame at the needless upset I’ve caused to people through my thoughtlessness, people I never intended to offend. I also feel shame at my own stupidity in failing to apply the rigour I called for in the apology. As I should.

Quite hard to believe given the level of detail and if as he says the cartoon was meant to focus on Bojo

[Oliver_W]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

Then I appreciate that as a consistent position.

Do you at least see the point I was trying to make?

Sort of.

I don't see it as a valid comparison though - when whatabouting why not invoke another racial caricature, rather than one that mocks a religion?

[The Slim Reaper]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

Sort of.

I don't see it as a valid comparison though - when whatabouting why not invoke another racial caricature, rather than one that mocks a religion?

Because for the 857th time, I wasn't commenting on cartoons. I'd already said that with hindsight I was wrong about the hebdo cartoons at the time, and my first post in this thread gives a comment on the guardian cartoons. I was pointing out how the reactions of the wider public are in complete contrast with each other.

There was almost euphoric glee at the time of Denmark/Hebdo, and yet within an instant, these cartoons were (rightly) accused of using AS imagery.

[Liam-]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

Because for the 857th time, I wasn't commenting on cartoons. I'd already said that with hindsight I was wrong about the hebdo cartoons at the time, and my first post in this thread gives a comment on the guardian cartoons. I was pointing out how the reactions of the wider public are in complete contrast with each other.

There was almost euphoric glee at the time of Denmark/Hebdo, and yet within an instant, these cartoons were (rightly) accused of using AS imagery.

Because as much as Dianne Abbott got steamrolled for her clumsy, thoughtless delivery, she was right in saying that there is a hierarchy of racism, some forms are seen as much more acceptable to condone than others, anti-black racism is accepted again, anti-Asian racism is more than acceptable, it’s officially condoned by the British government, antisemitism is rightfully held in contempt, it’s just plainly clear that other forms of racism aren’t held to equal levels of contempt

[Oliver_W]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

Because for the 857th time, I wasn't commenting on cartoons. I'd already said that with hindsight I was wrong about the hebdo cartoons at the time, and my first post in this thread gives a comment on the guardian cartoons. I was pointing out how the reactions of the wider public are in complete contrast with each other.

There was almost euphoric glee at the time of Denmark/Hebdo, and yet within an instant, these cartoons were (rightly) accused of using AS imagery.

But also for the "857th time", the two examples aren't comparable, outside of your shifting moral views regarding them.

The AS imagery in question would be better compared to one of these tabloid doodlings:

Spoiler:

[MTVN]

I suppose one difference in these cartoons is that the artist won't be getting any murdered anytime soon for his drawing. I think it's always inadvisable to use religious tropes in cartoons because we should be better than that. The Charlie Hebdo writers and artists only ended up being defended so much because they or their colleagues lost their lives for it which is a much greater evil than the cartoon

[Oliver_W]

Was it the terror attack on Hebdo which led to International Draw Muhammed Day?

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by bitontheslide

it's about money, thats why they removed it.

But who's gonna stop reading a Newspaper because of a skit that they didn't like?

The Guardian have blown it way out of proportion imo, and should've told the 5 people trying to get it banned to politely **** off.

There's nothing wrong with disliking the skit btw (personally I didn't find it funny) but to be mortally wounded by it is bizarre imo, that's not aimed at you BOTS, that's just at people in general.

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

Because there isn't anything to reconcile. Either we're all free speech absolutists, or we're not. I've learned over the years that I am not, and I don't think that many people are either, it's just that they all pretend they are.

Depicting Mohammed pissed off 1.5-2billion people, whereas the guardian cartoon only pissed off 2-300k Jews that live in the UK, so surely guardian cartons are better (turning your framing around)?

A religion is made up of people too, however hard you try to make it about a faceless religion versus one living man.

The Gary Lineker and Mae Muller scenarios make me believe you on some people all of a sudden being anti-free speech when they're normally pro.

I'm not just talking about on TIBB, I saw some people on other sites wanting those two silenced just for having an opinion that didn't align with their own viewpoint.

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by MTVN

I suppose one difference in these cartoons is that the artist won't be getting any murdered anytime soon for his drawing. I think it's always inadvisable to use religious tropes in cartoons because we should be better than that. The Charlie Hebdo writers and artists only ended up being defended so much because they or their colleagues lost their lives for it which is a much greater evil than the cartoon

Tbf negative stereotypes of communities can be funny if delivered well.

Just look at GTA as an example, nearly every community has been ridiculed at some point or another, and the grand majority of them are delivered really well.

The only thing about negative stereotypes I feel that you have to be careful of is that you need to make it incredibly funny, otherwise it will come across as mean spirited to the audience.

But it's more of a quality issue here than a morality issue imo.

The Charlie Hebdo writers like you've said that escalated way further than it ever should've gone, the people offended at that Cartoon should've accepted it's existence but don't support it if it's that offensive to them, but like a lot of people these days they turned it into a moral crusade and did something monstrously evil in return.

[The Slim Reaper]

Originally Posted by Mystic Mock

The Gary Lineker and Mae Muller scenarios make me believe you on some people all of a sudden being anti-free speech when they're normally pro.

I'm not just talking about on TIBB, I saw some people on other sites wanting those two silenced just for having an opinion that didn't align with their own viewpoint.

I'm definitely pro free speech. I'm just not a free speech absolutist anymore (which I think I used to be - although I'm not 100% sure that was ever the case if that would have been really tested). I don't want speech silenced or restricted, but I also recognise that some speech is purposefully hateful and used only to inspire the worst in us.

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

I'm definitely pro free speech. I'm just not a free speech absolutist anymore (which I think I used to be - although I'm not 100% sure that was ever the case if that would have been really tested). I don't want speech silenced or restricted, but I also recognise that some speech is purposefully hateful and used only to inspire the worst in us.

Tbf I get what you mean.

Because for example if we took freedom of speech to it's truest form I don't think that I could support people freely inciting hatred and violence either, amongst other things that would probably be said if it were legal to say them.

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by Mystic Mock

Tbf I get what you mean.

Because for example if we took freedom of speech to it's truest form I don't think that I could support people freely inciting hatred and violence either, amongst other things that would probably be said if it were legal to say them.

like say the trans mob against JK or Posie Parker?

[The Slim Reaper]

Originally Posted by Mystic Mock

Tbf I get what you mean.

Because for example if we took freedom of speech to it's truest form I don't think that I could support people freely inciting hatred and violence either, amongst other things that would probably be said if it were legal to say them.

Exactly my point.