Cartoonists With Attitude

From an Associated Press story, reporting on the widespread objections among mom-bloggers to the “new Dora” doll planned for October:

Mattel and Nickelodeon both say there are two major misconceptions about the new Dora, which is not replacing the “Dora the Explorer” cartoon, but will be a new interactive doll aimed at the five-to eight-year-old, or tween market.

“People care so deeply about this brand and this character,” Leigh Anne Brodsky, president of Nickelodeon Viacom Consumer Products, says. “The Dora that we all know and love is not going away.”

“I think there was just a misconception in terms of where we were going with this,” Gina Sirard, vice president of marketing at Mattel, says. “Pretty much the moms who are petitioning aging Dora up certainly don’t understand. . . . I think they’re going to be pleasantly happy once this is available in October, and once they understand this certainly isn’t what they are conjuring up.”

Part of the confusion stemmed from the silhouette that was released, which made Dora look more like a Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan than a young girl. For the record, the doll does not wear a short dress, but a tunic and leggings. And while she looks older (she’s supposed to be about 10), with longer jewelry and longer hair, she doesn’t have makeup and seems pretty much like a 10-year-old girl.

Nickelodeon and Mattel say that as part of unrelated research, they found parents wanted a way to keep Dora in their children’s lives and have their daughters move on to a toy that was age appropriate.

“The idea is Dora for more girls,” Brodsky says. “The whole point was this was created because moms said help us.”

Oh, those silly, silly moms! When will they realize that Nickelodeon and Mattel only want to help?

But then again… compare and contrast:

(Also, it looks to me like maybe the image on the left is wearing a dress, which cuts off at knee-level, as opposed to the tunic on the right which cuts off much higher and is worn with leggings. Silhouette found here and here.)

Confusingly, there’s another silhouette illustration of the New Dora I’ve seen, which is just the non-silhouette illustration with the details blacked out. As far as I can tell, Mattel released two different teaser silhouette drawings, but I’m not sure of the timing.

Honestly, assuming the newer illustration reflects what the doll will look like, things could be much worse. The original Dora will still be on TV. Dora’s new outfit is funky and fashionable, without being overly sexualized as the Bratz outfits are. And I’m always happy to see a mainstream doll that’s not white. There’s still a ton wrong, but there are way worse dolls on the market.

But still — the original Dora was ever so much cooler.

More blogging about “New Dora”:

Womanist Musings: Dora The Explorer Matters To Boys
Sociological Images: Seeing Is Believing
Viva La Feminista: Why Mattel and Nick Have It Wrong (Highly recommended. Check out her Dora tag as well, for more Dora-themed posts.)
The Hand Mirror: Dora’s new silhouette announced
Embrace Your Age: Keep Dora Exploring!
The Mommy Files: Dora The New Sexy Explorer
Feministing: The New Dora
Shakesville: Sooo

Finally, let me link to my own post from 2007, to make the point that this isn’t the first time Dora’s owners have thought “boy, if we could only sell a thinner, more girly Dora doll, we’d make a killing!”

There’s an incredible lack of understanding about cartoons and illustrations in the media. No one seems to know the difference between illustrations and cartoons, what’s drawn and what’s photshopped, what’s traced, what’s swiped, what’s satire and what’s not. I think the infamous New Yorker fist bump cover by Barry Blitt was a good example of the first and last of those points. Now Blitt’s under criticism again for his work.

O’Reilly calls a Blitt illustration accompanying Frank Rich’s Sunday column a “cartoon” and an “atrocity” for depicting the Statue Of Liberty holding a whip. (Didn’t people draw things like that years ago?) O’Reilly doesn’t think torture is an outrage, just an illustration defiling a statue. Putting that incredible cognitive dissonance aside, O’Reilly doesn’t seem to understand the basic concept of cartooning, illustration or even opinion for that matter. Blitt was only doing his job in illustrating Rich’s concepts presented in the column. It wasn’t a cartoon. It was also on the Op-Ed page where I thought opinion was warranted.

Another thing: Cartoonists–or illustrators in this case–are never mentioned by name. O’Reilly wouldn’t cite an offending column in the Times without noting its author. Why no credit to Barry Blitt?

I give O’Reilly 5 loofas (out of 5) for this Pinheaded segment.

(via Comics Reporter)

1. LGBT murders in Brazil up 55 percent. Trans people and sex workers have been particularly targeted: “‘A transvestite is 259 times more likely to be murdered than a gay man,’ says the study which is based on media reports, since there are no official statistics on hate crimes in Brazil.” I’d assume a study based on media reports is understating the true extent of the problem, since not every murder is reported.
2. Meowser’s post on airlines charging fat people extra is the best I’ve read on the subject. Go read this is you have any interest in the issue at all. She also brings up a factor that I haven’t seen any news reports mention: this is an issue in part because the airlines have been making the seats narrower and narrower in recent years.
3. Slut-Shaming From Sextexting Leads To Teen Suicide. So horrible. And as Renee says, “This is not about sextexting, this is about gender based harassment and slut shaming.”
4. Define Rich! “We have lost our definition of rich and I believe it was done intentionally. If you are rich, then what better camouflage is there than to undefine “rich”? And, what better way to undefine “rich” than to have an argument accepted that “rich” can not really be defined?”
5. Malcolm Gladwell, “Black Like Them.” “The success of West Indians is not proof that discrimination against American blacks does not exist. Rather, it is the means by which discrimination against American blacks is given one last, vicious twist: I am not so shallow as to despise you for the color of your skin, because I have found people your color that I like. Now I can despise you for who you are.” Via Ta-Nahisi.
6. It’s too cute, my brain may just explode.

If you want to annoy an anarchist, say something like this: “Anarchist organization? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?” And then scoff dismissively.

Certainly puts a twitch in my bomb-throwing arm. But the recent movement of atheist churches has provoked thoughts similar to that anti-anarchist canard. Isn’t an atheist religion kinda, I dunno, a contradiction in terms?

Given the past 8 years, which were really a topper to the past 30 years of ascending fundamentalist Christian political power, I understand why my fellow atheists would start to band together.

More than ever, Americas atheists are linking up and speaking out even here in South Carolina, home to Bob Jones University, blue laws and a legislature that last year unanimously approved a Christian license plate embossed with a cross, a stained glass window and the words I Believe (a move blocked by a judge and now headed for trial).

Check out that note of surprise: “even here.” More like “definitely here.” Atheists feel surrounded besieged in The Bible Belt, so it’s only natural they would seek each other out for comfort and security. And I really appreciate the likening to the queer rights movement:

Its not about carrying banners or protesting, said Herb Silverman, a math professor at the College of Charleston who founded the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, which has about 150 members on the coast of the Carolinas. The most important thing is coming out of the closet.

Emphasis mine. All well and good. Getting politically organized and active in defense of true religious freedom including the freedom from religion (pace Mitt Romney) via groups like the Secular Coalition for America or the United Coalition for Reason is long overdue. The ACLU can’t do all the heavy-lifting.

My reservations kick in when I start thinking about joining such a group. Granted, I am not much of a joiner (a condition common to cartoonists and, um, cranks alike.) Occasionally I like to hang out with a fellow atheist and gripe about creationism or fundamentalism or The Pope. Yet I like myths, gods and rituals. The problem with creationism is not the creation story itself, but the insistence that it replace science in explaining origins of the universe. Yet myths have a cultural, symbolic explanatory power that can be useful. The question is, to what use is a powerful myth being put? Or in whose interests? I am much more in sympathy with raging liberation theologian and Marxian critic Terry Eagleton, who insists on viewing Jesus as a revolutionary against exploitation and for the poor, than, say, Christopher Hitchens, who is an asshole.

The challenge for atheists is not an argument of absolute truth or the infallibility of science. Everyone loses the first and only an idiot believes in the second. The challenge is storytelling. What is the atheist myth of creation? Of righteous living? Of a “purpose-driven life” (to borrow a popular homophobe’s phrase)? If that can get sorted out, another challenge lies down the road: How do you prevent that from ossifying into dogma? For any new movement, I cannot recommend enough periodic viewings of Monty Python’s great film on religious and political organization, The Life of Brian.

Splitters!

Megan McArdle on Specter switching to the Democrats:

On the other hand, I remember when that savvy political prognosticator, Jim Jeffords, sealed the doom of the Republican Party in the Senate. I hope that Specter has better sense than Jeffords in titling his next self-serving autobiography.

Because, you understand, absolutely nothing happened after Jeffords’ switch in May of 2001 that may have significantly altered the political landscape, of which Jeffords was clearly an idiot for not predicting.

Seriously?

Update: Jesus Christ. Is this shit contagious?

Look, I realize that this arbitrary count of 60 Democratic senators doesn’t actually mean a lot legislatively, because they aren’t marching in lockstep on numerous important issues like EFCA and health care and judicial nominations. But this insane “we’ve got them right where we want them” whining from the right and the pseudo-libertarians sems desperate to imply that Democrats are inherently just as big a pile of screw-ups as Republicans, so naturally they’re going to crash and burn just as badly as… umm… they did.

It’s like a bunch of arsonists telling firemen as they rush into a building “you guys suck. That building is totally on fire.”

(th)ink by Keith Knight
the K Chronicles by Keith Knight

*THE MIKEY J COLLECTION..
What a weird and wild experience we had visiting this exhibit last week. If this exhibit ain’t on tour by next year, I’ll eat my shorts.

Click here to see some of the exhibit.

*LETTERS/EMAILS OF THE WEEK…

RE: SEATTLE/K CHRONICLES STRIP

Keef!

Looking for a new place to move? Why not try Vancouver? All the beauty of Seattle and San
Francisco but fewer guns and it comes with health care.

D.
Stettler, AB

—-

Hey Keith — I work at 826 Seattle — we met there and at a few events
you’ve done up here.

I just read the most recent K Chronicles in Salon.com!

You know Seattle would be psyched to have you! The weather is turning
awesome now — the farmer’s markets are reopening….

Also, my husband and I had a baby right around when you guys did — we could
open up the first 826 daycare center!

Wherever you end up, best of luck to you and the fam –

-A.
——

Long-time fan of your work, long-time Seattelite.

You’d love it here! A whole new set of genres to mock, for sure. Seattle is home to a
deeply rooted breed of passive-aggressive folk, who have slowly been supplanted over the
16 years I’ve lived here by people who sometimes speak their mind. Seattle still has
strangely Swedish overtunes, decades (100 years?) after the dominant population was
Nordic. Lutefisk is unfortunately widely available.

But it’s a pretty phenomenal place to live. The schools are the worst part. We have many
schools that are comparable to the worst of inner-city academics — not the violence
(there’s a little), but the scores and outcomes. Also some great ones.

Which t(ea) shop is your sister’s?

G.

(the t(ea) gallery!!-kk)
—–

K.

Seattle may be the only other west coast city that us real San Franciscans approve of.

By the way, I’m really delighted that the Chron is carrying your daily. (Crossing my fingers daily, I like newspapers.) I actually believe that the form fits your talent better than the weekly. Who’d a thunk? And you resisted it all these years.

Cheers,

M.

*L.A. TIMES FESTIVAL OF BOOK WRAP-UP..
Thanks to everyone who came out to the coolest (weather-wise) Book Fest that I’ve done since moving down here. I was busy signing and selling at the McSweeney’s booth in between trips to the Green Room, where the spread of eats was quite nice. Plenty of cee-lebs like Bob Barker, Valerie Bertinelli and Cloris Leachman were in the house.

*CONGRATS ON THE FIRST 100 DAYS, PRESIDENT OBAMA!!
And what better way to celebrate than having Arlen Specter switch parties, Sojourner Truth get serious props and Keith Olbermann calling out Sean Hannity?

Cheers!!

Lord Reagan signed a document that would be characterized as “liberal” by today’s media. Three concise sentences in the UN Convention Against Torture demolish the arguments made in favor of torture in the last eight years. I wish people could read.

Article 2
1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

Not bad for a guy that funded death squads.

Related: Tom Tomorrow, Ted Rall and Lloyd Dangle are also on the torture beat this week.

It’s time for another installment of  WEIRD ‘70s POP LYRICS!  This week: “Clair.”

“Clair” was a 1972 hit for Gilbert O’Sullivan, the pseudonym for London-based singer/songwriter Raymond O’Sullivan, climbing to the #2 Pop Single on the Billboard chart.

Listening to this as a kid, nothing seemed amiss because although I must have heard this song dozens of times, I never paid attention to the lyrics in the least.  If you’d asked me what it was about, I would have remembered the only lyrics that stuck with me, the opening lines “Clair, the moment I met you, I swear,” and said that it’s some cheesy song about some guy who likes this girl named Clair.

When I listened to it recently and actually listened to what this guy is singing about my jaw dropped.

Yes, this is it, folks.  The weirdest of all the weird ‘70s hits.  And get your pitchforks and torches ready because this one is so weird, you’ll suspect it’s criminal.  Or at least evidence of criminal, deeply immoral activity.  Seriously.  It’s hard to look at these lyrics and not wonder why Scotland Yard didn’t pay Mr. O’Sullivan a visit.

Okay, here we go.

As I said, the lyrics open up innocuously enough.  After some carefree whistling:

Clair, the moment I met you I swear,
I felt as if something somewhere,
Had happened to me,
Which I couldn't see

And then,
The moment I met you again,
I knew in my heart that we were friends,
It had to be so,
It couldn't be no

Like a million songs, this one’s about love at first sight.  What could go wrong from here?

But try as hard as I might do I don't know why,
You get to me in a way I can't describe,
Words mean so little when you look up and smile,
I don't care what people say,
To me you're more than a child,
Oh! Clair, Clair

Clair, if ever a moment so rare,
Was captured for all to compare,
That moment is you,
It's all that you do

“To me you’re more than a child.”  Okay, so it’s about a guy who’s in love with someone younger than he is.  That’s an issue for a lot of couples, no problem.  And clearly he doesn’t literally mean “child” (even though she has to look “up” to him to smile); he means a younger adult who O'Sullivan's wizened, jaded friends would dismiss as a child.  Right?

But why, in spite of our age difference, do I cry?
Each time I leave you I feel I could die

So the age difference is an issue, but it’s sweet — he can’t stand to be without her.

Nothing means more to me than hearing you say,
“I'm going to marry you,
Will you marry me, Uncle Ray?”
Oh! Clair, Clair

“Uncle?”  Wait a minute.  “Uncle Ray?!”  Is this really about a romance between Ray (O’Sullivan) and someone young enough, and familially close enough, to call him “Uncle?” 

Let’s back up.  Maybe it’s not about a romantic relationship.  He did say that when he met her, he knew they’d be “friends.”  And yet if he's just singing about an especially cute little girl who's his little pal, the lyrics are awfully overwrought.  Each time he leaves her, he could die.  And “nothing means more” to him than hearing her talk about marrying him.  And if they were just friends, why would he not “care what people say,” insisting she’s “more than a child”?

Um, just how young is she?  And how exactly do they know each other?  The answers:

Clair, I've told you before,
Don't you dare,
Get back into bed,
Can't you see that it's late

What?!  

No you can't have a drink,
Oh, all right then but wait just a bit,
While I, in an effort to baby sit,
Catch of my breath what there is left of it.

He’s babysitting her?!  

You can be murder at this hour of the day,
But in the morning this hour,
Will seem a lifetime away,
Oh! Clair, Clair 

Oh, Clair.

And the song ends with the sound of a little girl, perhaps five, giggling.

Dear Washington Post blogger,

A photograph is not a caricature, so please don’t put it in a “what’s the best caricature?” poll, okay? Because the fact that a plurality of readers of a blog about cartooning, voted for the photo as the best caricature, is just embarrassing.

Via: Kevin Moore and Matt Bors, both of whom recreate John Sherffius’ feat of caricature in about five minutes.

ETA: Just to be clear, I’m not anti- using photos. I use photos all the time. But it’s not caricature.

Thanks a lot Specter… I put you in a crappy cartoon that characterizes you as a dogmatic Republican, and you totally blow it out of the water by switching parties. I’m sure next Boehner will resign his seat in Congress to become head of Amnesty International…

Actually, in the end, Specter putting a “D” next to his name doesn’t change much (for the Democrats, anyway). He’s still going to vote how he wants to vote on stuff, and he’ll probably still use right-wing rhetoric on stuff like torture. And this week’s ‘toon will still be crappy…