This Week's Sneak Peek

Friday, I posted a fictional complaint about a real editorial cartoon by Republican cartoonist Michael Ramirez. The fictional complaint was based on a real complaint about a more recent cartoon of his, into which I crammed bits and pieces of other complaints about it.

In his cartoon, a man with a large nose and snarling mouth, labeled “Hamas,” stands bound with ropes to four alarmed children and a cowering woman in a hijab. “How dare Israel attack civilians …” he says.

On social media, several readers called it “in poor taste.” In a post on Instagram, Palestinian American poet Remi Kanazi wrote: “This is the Washington Post. This is the kind of anti-Palestinian racism that’s acceptable for publication.” Left-wing British activist Owen Jones called the cartoon an example of “racist dehumanization.”

Those complaints got the cartoon yanked from the Washington Post's website, only for it to be more widely circulated elsewhere than it might have been otherwise.

In old Blighty, the Guardian fired editorial cartoonist Steve Bell after Bell went public over a spiked cartoon of his based on the famous David Levine cartoon of Lyndon Johnson showing off his gall bladder operation scar shaped like Vietnam. Bell's cartoon had Benjamin Netanyahu preparing to remove a Gaza-shaped scar on his own belly; a Guardian editor thought it reminded him not of LBJ, but of the Jewish lender Shylock in Merchant of Venice demanding his "pound of flesh" — an allusion made nowhere in the cartoon.

Charging a cartoon of being anti-semitic, or anti-Arab, or racist, may be unfair when that was not the cartoonist's intent, but it works. Whatever argument the cartoonist intended to forward is immediately shut down, discarded, and forgotten, and the subject is changed to How Dare You, You Fiend!

Granted, there are cartoons that are genuinely any or all of those things. I see plenty of them when I'm rummaging through the century-old cartoons for my Saturday postings.

But the point I was trying to make Monday is that Michael Ramirez (with whose viewpoint I generally disagree) belongs to a school of cartooning that routinely if not always employs gross caricature. That school and its alumni include Clay Jones, Ted Rall, Mike Lester, Chris Britt, Joey Weatherford, Mike Peters, Tom Toles, and just about every British and Australian editorial cartoonist who has ever wielded pen and brush.

Critics who seize upon every oversized nose to censor any cartoon they think offensive remind me of a cartoon Signe Wilkinson drew when faced with similar attacks.

"My New Caricatures" by Signe Wilkinson in Philadelphia Daily News, 1992?

Divertimento

Earlier this month, the Proceedings of the Natural Institute of Science -- whose acronym attests to their not being entirely or exclusively serious -- published a series of articles finding a lack of racial and gender diversity among New Yorker cartoons.

In the 47 issues we examined, we recorded 1,810 characters in 639 cartoons by 70 cartoonists. 94.7% of these characters were judged to be white (thus 5.3% were non-white), and 70.6% were judged to be male (29.4% female) (Table 1). For reference, about 72% of the US population is estimated to be white (this categorization includes Hispanics) and about 51% is estimated to be female. ...

This problem of underrepresentation of minorities and females should be an easy fix. Cartoonists can simply draw more female and minority characters. This would amount to more than just pandering. ... For his part, Robert Mankoff can also begin to encourage cartoons featuring more women and minority characters.

I'm not a New Yorker cartoonist, and I do try to diversify the people in my work, but doing so can occasionally distract from the joke. Take for example, the two white guys in this 2001 cartoon:

The boys in this cartoon represent a certain "gay clone" prevalent at the time. There have been certain stereotypical types of lesbian or non-white characters that I could have drawn instead, but I think I would have been accused of being mean-spirited if I had.

The PNIS study (I warned you about the acronym) notes that female cartoonists tend to draw more cartoons about females than male cartoonists do. I would note that female New Yorker cartoonists also tend to draw more autobiographical cartoons than male New Yorker cartoonists do. Still, Roz Chast, for example, is less likely to be accused of sexism if she draws a cartoon in which a female character appears in a not-so-flattering situation than if, say, Christopher Weyant drew the same cartoon.

Sexism and racism aside, there are other considerations when casting the characters in a cartoon. Crowden Satz, a contributor to the Wall Street Journal and other publications, took issue with the PNIS study in a Facebook post today.

For humor to exist, the reader's brain has to be, very quickly, jarred out of its rest position. Setup + unexpected twist = funny. So what happens if, in addition to the gag, the characters don't fit expectations in the setup? Such as, for instance, the overbearing executive is played by a slim woman rather than a big fat old white guy? Well, the humor train gets derailed. One's brain pauses to say to itself "Hey, look at that character. Why is there a slim woman yelling instead of an old guy? What's going on? Is she the boss or what?"

The third installment of the study examined this tendency of cartoonists to draw white males in certain professions (bosses, mobsters, doctors) and white women in others (secretaries, molls, nurses).

One of the professions included was "God," represented 100% of

the time in New Yorker cartoons as a white male. Here again, if a cartoonist tries to break stereotype, the reader is apt to be confused -- unless it is the point of the cartoon, such as the 1975 Bill Plympton cartoon for the Soho Weekly News at right, which depicted Alabama Governor George Wallace, paralyzed in a 1972 assassination attempt, rising from his wheelchair and praising the Lord for the miracle.

Divorced from this context, the reader might be left thinking that maybe the cartoon was about one of the Supremes having just died.

One could, I suppose, draw Morgan Freeman in the role of God; but he's played other characters in the movies, too, including some decidedly unholy men that the reader might have seen on screen more recently than the Bruce/Evan Almighty flicks.

Still, it might work, if every cartoonist in the country were to agree that cartoon God would henceforth always be Morgan Freeman.

R.C. Bowman on the German Vote

It has been ages since I've posted any cartoons from The Minneapolos Tribune Cartoon Book for 1901: Being a Collection of Over One Hundred Cartoons by R.C. Bowman. So let's take a look at an ethnic voting bloc that you hardly ever  hear about any more:

How Teddy lost the German-American Vote While in Milwaukee.

Clearly, Mr. Bowman was being facetious with this caption; as noted before, he was solidly in favor of the McKinley-Roosevelt ticket in 1900 and would hardly have crowed about a setback to its prospects. Here, the Milwaukee G.O.P., wearing wooden clogs and pants with a pretzel motif, is trumpeting "We're with you, Teddy, man for man" and "Hoo-rah for hoo-rah and high wages!"

Given the party's determination to torpedo wages here in Wisconsin these days, there have clearly been some drastic changes in the state G.O.P. in the last 115 years.

Milwaukee was known as the "German Athens" for its large population of German immigrants, who ranged from farmers to brewery entrepreneurs to outspoken socialists. Generally speaking, German-American voters in 1900 tended to oppose both Bryan's "repudiation" policy (allowing holders of government bonds to "repudiate" the terms of the bond and to demand payment in coin for a bond purchased with paper) and overseas expansion under McKinley as a result of the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War.

The German American Vote: "Well, wouldn't that jar you? Some old geeser up there takes me for a sucker."

R.C. Bowman here remains confident that the German-American vote will go Republican, rather than be tempted by William Jennings Bryan's proposed 16-to-1 exchange rate of silver coinage to gold, or his campaign against American imperialism. The lure in the cartoon is labeled "16 to 1," and the worm is labeled "Imperialism bait."

Aside from Milwaukee, major German-American communities included Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, New York, Baltimore and the Northern Kentucky area along the Ohio River. By 1900, the populations of the cities of Cleveland, Milwaukee, Hoboken, and Cincinnati were all more than 40% German American; and the percentages in Omaha, Nebraska and Dubuque and Davenport, Iowa were even larger. Of the states in which these communities lie, only Kentucky and Missouri -- the ones in the "Solid South" -- went Democratic in the 1900 presidential election.

Carl Schurz: "Mister, don't you want to buy a dog? He's tame as a kitten (if you keep the muzzle on)."

Uncle Sam: "Carley, you may not know it, but you're an awfully funny feller."

German-born American Carl Schurz was a revolutionary who had moved to Wisconsin after the failure of Europe's 1848 liberal revolutions. By 1900, he had been Lincoln's ambassador to Spain, a brigadier general in the Civil War, chief editor of the Detroit Post, Senator from Missouri, and Rutherford B. Hayes's Secretary of the Interior. He was also a frequent cartoon target of Thomas Nast. A liberal Republican "Mugwump," he supported Democrat Grover Cleveland over Republican James Blaine in 1884; and while he did not support Bryan in 1896, he was won over by the Democrat in 1900 for his anti-imperialist policies.

The muzzle in this cartoon is labeled "Republican legislation"; Schurz was not a fan of the economic policies of William Jennings Bryan, who peers out from behind a log in this next cartoon.

"Too old a chick to be caught by chaff."

Those wooden shoes are back as a signifier of German-Americans in this cartoon. Today, they would only be associated with the Dutch, if anyone. I have no idea whether there was some association of pigeons, grouse, plovers, or whatever kind of bird that's supposed to be with German-Americans, but I guess Germans may have tended to walk around Minneapolis wearing poofy hard-billed caps and oversize bow ties.

At least the bird isn't wearing pretzelhosen.

We Are Charlie Hebdo

"100 lashes if you don't die of laughter!"

Terrorists killed at least 12 people, including policemen and cartoonists, at the offices of French satirical magazine newspaper Charlie Hebdo (loosely translated as "Charlie Weekly") this morning.

The cartoonists assassinated were Jean "Cabu" Cabut, Georges Wolinski, Bernad "Tignous" Verlhac, and editor Stéphane Charbonnier, who signed his cartoons "Charb."

In 2006, Charlie Hebdo had reprinted the caricatures of Mohammed that had appeared in the Dutch magazine Jyllands-Posten and added a few of their own. The cover at right was from a 2011 issue whose conceit was that Muslims had taken over the magazine that week. Islamic terrorists responded by fire bombing the offices. Charlie Hebdo responded in turn with a cover showing a stereotypical Moslem and one of their own cartoonists deep in a wet, sloppy kiss.

Charlie Hebdo was an equal opportunity offender, running scandalous cartoons about not only politicians and celebrities, but also the Catholic church, Jews, and Muslims which would never get past an editor in the United States. One cover showed a Nazi SS guard and an Orthodox Jew deep in yet another wet, sloppy kiss. Other cartoons have depicted the Pope having sex, with and without condoms, and various other lewd and scatological acts. Another depicted the Holy Trinity as a three-way. Charlie Hebdo is not so much Punch as it is Hustler with fewer photographs.

"Still no attack in France."
"Wait! We can send best wishes till
the end of January."

The magazine newspaper has been under guard by police due to the continued threats against it, but has refused to back down. Charb recently drew a poke in the eye of  the terrorists with the cartoon at right. (This must have been drawn before a series of attacks in December in Joue-les-Tours, Dijon and Nantes.)

Centuries ago, Christianity was mired in its Dark Ages while Islam was alive with intellectual activity, science and art -- and, yes, satire. After attacks from rural, anti-intellectual barbarians from East (and from the ascending West), Islam sunk into its own Dark Ages, which these terrorists hope to spread around the world.

Nous sommes tous Charlie Hebdo.

We are all Charlie Hebdo.

Update: The American Association of Editorial Cartoonists has issued its condemnation of the attack: "Cartoonists and journalists around the world should be permitted to express themselves freely without fear of reprisal. These types of attacks only serve to illustrate how important the free spirit of cartoon commentary is, and how cartoonists make a difference in helping to expose hypocrisy."

Q Toon: In App Ropriate

As American media have begun to realize how boring the next two years of Democratic presidential run-off will be if Hillary Clinton is the only one running off, some have been casting around in search of potential challengers.

The loquacious former Governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer, was considered to be one possible rival.  That is, until he offered the National Journal his two cents on soon-to-be-former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's surprise loss in a primary race for reelection.

"Don't hold this against me, but I'm going to blurt it out. How do I say this ... men in the South, they are a little effeminate. ... They just have effeminate mannerisms. If you were just a regular person, you turned on the TV, and you saw Eric Cantor talking, I would say—and I'm fine with gay people, that's all right—but my gaydar is 60-70 percent. But he's not, I think, so I don't know. Again, I couldn't care less. I'm accepting."

This display of candor has effectively removed Schweitzer from presidential level consideration. I mean, you can't just go around questioning the he-manliness of every gentleman from below the Mason-Dixon line if you want to be taken seriously.

That sigh of relief you hear is from the Senior Senator from South Carolina.

Corinthia College

The current war of a word over the name of the Washington Redskins reminds me of when many colleges and high schools were going through the same debate back in the 1980's.

Two colleges in my area had teams known as the Redmen and the Warriors. The Carthage Red Men were originally named as the counterpart to a sister school's Blue Men, but the college flag showing a letter "C" sporting Native American warrior feathers left no doubt what the name had come to mean. The Marquette Warriors could just as easily have had a blue-faced kilt-wearing Pict wielding a claymore for their mascot, but in their case, Warrior meant "Willie Wampum."

To their credit, these colleges ultimately yielded to public pressure to change their team names (now Big Red and the Golden Eagles), but not without a good deal of rancor and resistance.

Drawing a comic strip about higher education for a student newspaper on a campus whose sports teams offended no ethnic sensitivity, I was inspired to introduce a sports department to my fictional campus. You may want to click on this image to embiggen:

The catch, as far as this gag goes, was that I had to come up with a team name that was ridiculous yet truly offensive. Most cartoons attempting this topic imagine insulting depictions of white people -- crackers, honkies, palefaces, trailer trash, etc. They're demeaning terms, but they demean the dominant majority culture, so it's okay, the theory goes. As a result, they annoy, but don't wound.

My next installment in the series was the last on this topic. I think you'll quickly see why.

I imagine that Corinthia College's sainted coach Elpirt Yalp would have been considered quite liberal in his day for his admiration of Negro Culture, to use the terminology of the time. But popular sensibility had risen above his lofty ideals by the 1980's. The Theater Department would have ceased performing darkie songs in blackface in the 1970's -- although there might still have been a fraternity forcing their pledges to do it.

In the end, one can claim that appropriating someone else's heritage for a sports logo, however well-intentioned it may have been once upon a time, never remains benign for long. A tomahawk chop becomes popular. The cartoonist designing your logo produces a racist caricature.

If you want an ethnic mascot, you might just have to look to your own background. The Minnesota Vikings and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish are free to celebrate their own heritage in a way that the Coachella Valley High School Arabs cannot.

Better yet, choose a feisty or majestic animal, or a respected profession. (Sorry, but "The Packers" is already taken.)

1900 Cartoons of R.C. Bowman, part 4

Russia: "Now, gentlemen, don't get excited. There's no hurry."

One thing I find particularly interesting about this series of cartoons is the pre-World War II depiction of Japan. The human in the front of the group above represents Japan, and is very different from the buck-toothed, coke-bottle-glasses wearing stereotype that my post-war generation grew up with.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall./ Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

The Boxer Rebellion marks Japan's arrival as a world power. While Germany, Great Britain, Russia, France and the U.S. all sent troops to China, the largest contingent was from Japan -- even though the Japanese are represented by the smallest fellow in the above cartoons.

It turns out to be a hornet's nest.