I just got done telling someone that I wasn't going to jump on the bandwagon of criticizing the work of other cartoonists, which is a major topic of discussion in editorial cartooning circles these days. This means, of course, that I'm going to do the exact opposite right now and criticize someone else's work (although it is a criticism of substance, not form)...
One of my main influences for
this week's 'toon was a recent editorial cartoon by
Jake Fuller:
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Jake Fuller
Artizans
Jun 13, 2008
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To be fair, Fuller is surely not the only one to have drawn a caricature like this... I counted at least half a dozen other similar depictions in the last week alone. Also, to my knowledge I have never met Fuller, so it's not a personal beef.
However, cartoons like this still seem to me to be a clear abuse of editorial and artistic license. There is no argument being made... it's nothing more than a crass exploitation of social fears and preconceptions. As has often been noted, there is a staggering ignorance in cartoons like this of the historical similarities with WWII-era
racist depictions of Japanese people. I think it's safe to say that caricatures of that nature have now been universally discredited. What's next, Obama in blackface? (Well, maybe that's not
out of the realm of possibility...)
Perhaps the most objectionable thing about caricatures like this is how misleading they are, especially considering how many of the Guantanamo detainees have apparently been
children who don't have the ability to grow scary-looking beards. Contrast Fuller's vision of what a detainee looks like with
this image. It takes a small amount of
reading to find out who these people really are, to make sure your cartoon has a basis in solid journalism.
I suppose it's too much to hope for cartoons like this to just go away, but neither should the offending artists hope to avoid criticism when they draw them.
Tidbits:
- Vincent Rossmeier predicts that Michelle Obama will become a focus of attention for the GOP attack machine, if she hasn't already. Quoting a conservative writer on the alleged videotape where she denounces "whitey":
"No tape exists ... This is the '08 version of a really weird conservative urban legend that pops up every four years. The names change, but the basics remain the same: 1) It always involves the wife of the Democratic presidential candidate; 2) it always portrays the wife -- not the candidate -- committing some anti-American, unpatriotic act."
- The third square of the 'toon was a reference to a recent AP article by Nedra Pickler, which gave an essentially unopposed platform for "fringe Republican operatives" to question Obama's patriotism. It also generated a significant protest from readers:
That kind of media shortcoming has become predictable; reporters love to quote partisan Republicans about how deficient Democrats are. And in the past it would have likely produced angry denunciations online within the liberal blogosphere -- a blog swarm, perhaps...
But nearly 15,000 letters sent in just a matter of days in response to a single news wire article? That's something else entirely and could mark the dawn of a new era in progressive media activism. The phenomenon has received very little mainstream media attention (journalists probably don't want to encourage this sort of thing), but make no mistake: It was a very big deal.
