Political Cartoons, No Laughing Matter

NEWS ABOUT STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY • FALL 2006 • VOLUME 7, NO. 1

POLITICAL CARTOONS, NO LAUGHING MATTER WALT HANDELSMAN DOUG MARLETTE CAROL RICHARDS I knew when the paper hit the streets each morning there would be a defense of my drawing, but ultimately the editor has the last word. Last December, before the rest of the world had barrage of negative reaction from the hundreds of thousands of David With that said, there are some topics that I am uncomfortable learned about a new improvised explosive device Duke supporters in our circulation area. I knew I was deliberately piss- tackling because they go beyond public policy and enter into deeply CARTOON FATWAS ing them off and fanning their hatred of what they called the “left-wing held personal or religious beliefs. by Doug Marlette known as the “Danish cartoons,” the Copenhagen Jewish-elite New York media.” (The Picayune is owned by the When the Pope issues a decree from on high, I will not draw a car- newspaper Jyllands-Posten contacted me for an inter- Newhouse family.) toon about how it will affect the billions of Catholics around the world. But I have never believed that an editorial cartoon can affect Their reaction is personal and private. If their response to the Pope in view. It had published the Mohammed cartoons a few major changes in deeply held beliefs. In the case of David Duke, I turn creates an international controversy, I will unabashedly comment months earlier and hysteria was building, but had not never truly thought that my cartoons would snap die-hard “Dukesters” on that particular piece of the issue. But the church’s doctrine is not out of their racist trance. I could only hope that my cartoons were something that falls into the broad category of what I am comfortable yet sparked the riots and shootings that were to follow creating a stir that would lead people to discuss how bad Duke would commenting on. in February and March. As a veteran political cartoon- be for our state and perhaps, just perhaps, help a handful of people When priests in the Catholic Church are caught fooling with little ist, I had provoked my own share of religious outrage make the decision not to vote for him. boys, the topic is no longer about a religious belief but has become a I believed then, as I believe now, that satire, controversy, and matter of moral and legal misconduct. I have drawn many cartoons over the years, and my article about my experience reader anger are all a part of the great tradition of editorial cartooning. ridiculing the church’s handling of the pedophile scandal. They were with journalistic jihads, “I was a Tool of Satan,” pub- I also believe the Danish cartoons about Mohammed that sparked riots strong and defendable. These were comments on men within the and deaths late last winter were a mistake to run and an example of church breaking the rules of a civilized society, not comments on the lished in the Columbia Journalism Review, had caught poor editorial judgment and misguided reasoning. The cartoons were religion or one of its saints or sacred beliefs. the editors’ eye. hateful and inappropriate. Perhaps some would argue that the Mohammed cartoons were What were the reasons, the goals, the set of expectations the meant to ridicule a group of angry, violent men within a peaceful reli- A Rubicon of sorts had been crossed with a car- Danish editor envisioned when gion who are breaking the rules of toon I drew for the Tallahassee Democrat in 2002. he commissioned a group of civilized society. cartoonists to draw the now infa- Sorry…I’m not buying it. These Playing off the Christian evangelicals’ “What Would mous Mohammed cartoons? Did cartoons were meant to poke a stick Jesus Drive?” campaign challenging the morality of he expect to create a discussion in the eye of the Muslim community, owning gas-guzzling SUVs, mine showed a man in about the core beliefs of a reli- period. The editor knew the minute gion that would somehow start a he contacted the cartoonists that just Middle Eastern garb driving a Ryder truck with a nuke groundswell of support for funda- drawing the Prophet would outrage in back. It was captioned, “What Would Mohammed mental change of the fundamen- Muslims around the world. talists? Or did he simply create a The cartoonists knew it them- Drive?” controversy for controversy’s selves the minute they put pen to “Damn you and the likes of you to the bowels of sake as a way to show what he paper. considered the overpolitical One of the cartoonists drew hell, you ignorant racist bastard!” read one of the correctness of the coverage of himself, saying he’s afraid to draw e-mails I received in complaint. Muslim issues throughout Mohammed, a hint that he knew Europe? these pieces were meant to anger, A lobbying group called CAIR, the Council on I believe the point of the car- not inform. American Islamic Relations, orchestrated a firestorm toons was simply and singularly I personally know a handful of of reaction, launching more than 40,000 e-mails to stir a controversy, and to that cartoonists that simply love to cause end it succeeded with sickening a stir. They love the hate mail. They against me, my newspaper, and my syndicate. CAIR results. Dead people; heightened Senate candidate and former KKK leader David Duke is target of Handelsman’s pointed pen. love getting people so riled up that intended to shut down servers, infect my home com- world tensions; absolutely no posi- they threaten the artist. They love the tive tangible results. attention that goes along with controversy. Their approach to cartoon- puter with viruses, and force a public apology. Quite a With that said, I also believe the violent reaction to the cartoons ing is to throw bombs and clean up the mess later. They loved these few of the e-mails threatened death and mutilation: was misguided and disgraceful. To defend the Muslim religion by Mohammed cartoons. They see them as the ultimate statement of a burning buildings and killing people only served to perpetuate the free press. stereotype the Muslims were protesting in the cartoons. I see them as having no purpose other than to antagonize. I dis- I have always opted to use humor in my cartoons whenever possi- like political correctness in many of its most absurd forms and have ble. That in no way means that I shy away from the dark, brutal images certainly felt its chill in my work over the last 15 years, but I strongly of death and evil. My cartoons against racism were not funny nor were believe that a great and courageous cartoon must engage readers, not they meant to be. They were drawn with the hope that people would drive them into frenzy. A great and courageous cartoon should make stop and think for the few seconds they spent on the editorial page someone angry but still allow them to respect your point of view. And with me each day. They were drawn with the idealistic hope that a pic-

above all, a great and courageous cartoon should not insult an entire C A

ture might just be worth a thousand words of civil discussion between R C population of people for the sheer thrill of seeing how far one can T O A R people with divergent views on a critical issue facing America. I have O T N

push the envelope. O S O

taken my fair share of heat from readers who think that some of my R N E

When people die because of the reaction to a cartoon, something P R R anti-war cartoons have disgraced the troops, or that I am somehow E I P N

is wrong. The violent protests of the Mohammed cartoons disgusted R T I E hurting the morale or patriotism of the country by pointing out that the N D T

me. It shouldn’t have happened. The cartoons were wrong. The reac- E B D

war is going poorly, and was planned poorly, and that there seems to Y

B tion was horribly inappropriate. P Y E

be no clear direction or focus or end in sight. P M E

The entire episode has driven a wedge of mistrust and anger R I S M

But my cartoons were not drawn simply to provoke. They were S I I S deeper into a world that seems to be growing further apart at each tick O S N

drawn to point out a basic weakness in American policy that I strongly I O

O N

of the clock. F

believe needs an immediate re-examination and dramatic change. W F A

Makes 19 nails in a tire seem like a good day. D L T As a cartoonist, I strongly believe I have the right to lampoon any- O

U H G A N

thing at all. It is ultimately up to an editor to look at my daily offering M D A E R Newsday cartoonist Walt Handelsman won a Pulitzer Prize in 1997 L L and throw me out of his office if he or she thinks my cartoon is unsuit- S E M T A

when working for the New Orleans Times-Picayune. T

able for the newspaper. We can argue and I can state a perfectly sound N E

12 13 By Doug Marlette

“What you did, Mr. Dog, will cost you your life. Soon you will that the reason the American media abandoned their counterparts in join the dogs…hahaha…in hell.” Europe had little to do with the moral rationales they offered for their refusal to reprint the images. I think they were simply scared. “I’M PAID TO OFFEND” “Just wait…we will see you in hell with all Jews.” The controversy around this cartoon became pundit fodder in Don’t get me wrong. I understand the impulse to go into hiding. newspaper editorials, columns, Web logs, talk radio, and CNN. I was Even though the attacks upon me were of a cyber-offensive nature, I cer- even called out on the front page of the Saudi publication Arab News by tainly felt that frisson of fear over death threats from people so unfettered The Arab journalists in the freedom, Muslims may regard the Secretary General of the Muslim World League. Although my news- by the restraints of civil discourse. Years of experience with angry room must have thought I was our tradition of self-critical humor paper’s editor had wavered after the first e-mail onslaught, barring the reader reaction have taught me that often the frustration and rage over the most powerful man in as being decadent and shameful. drawing from the print edition after it ran on the Web site, I was allowed drawn opinion tend to be tempered if not defused when a human being America. Image after image It was difficult to get across to to respond in a published editorial defending the cartoon, titled, “With is discovered behind the pen. The impersonality of the Internet further flashed on the screen criticiz- them that these volatile images All Due Respect an Apology Is Not in Order.” emboldens the resentful and powerless. Yet the ones I worry about more ing President Bush, Dick were drawn in the context of In my vast experience upsetting people with my art—including are those who don’t write. My fear is less for myself than for my family Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, the ongoing public dialogue. They Protestant fundamentalists when I skewered Jerry Falwell, conservative that they might suffer for my freedom of expression. Pope. And I was not dead. I were also unfamiliar with objec- Catholics when I lampooned the Pope, and Jews when I criticized As I told Jyllands-Posten, I did not show the e-mail threats to my fami- was not even in prison. There I tive criticism, the notion that one Israel—my answer to those demanding apologies has always gone some- ly, but they knew something scary was going on. Although I doubt I was was, standing in front of them could be harsh on those with thing like this: In this country, we do not apologize for our opinions. ever under the kind of overt threat that the Danish artists were, I couldn’t showing my daily cartoons and whom one fundamentally agreed. Free speech is the linchpin of our republic. All other freedoms flow from imagine what I would do under those circumstances and whatever the explaining why in this country Their argument always returned it. Granted, there is nothing “fair” about cartoons. They are hard to artists did in response, stand up or shrink away, seemed reasonable to me. I had not been arrested. to an appeal to me to be mindful defend with logic. But this is why we have a First Amendment—so that I wholeheartedly support the Danish cartoons. I think that the I had been invited to speak of the sensitivities of others. I we have the freedom to take positions that may not be pleasing to every- Danes’ challenge to the prohibition against depicting Mohammed is a to a group of journalists from responded that those offended one, especially to those in power. sign of societal health and, I believe, a deeper form of respect for that North Africa and the Middle had the right to free speech as The Jyllands-Posten editors were struck by the similarities between religion. The fact that we are now having this discussion and debate is a East about American political well and could voice their offense. my “What Would Mohammed Drive?” situation and theirs, and thought sign of hope, thanks to the Danes. It’s a step in the right direction to cartooning. The journalists were They wanted me to under- my experience handling it might be instructive for their readers as well as include the Muslim minority in our great Western tradition of self-exami- visiting the University of North stand that to them the Prophet Carolina School of Journalism is holy, and I answered that to for their cartoonists (50,000 Danish kroners each were offered for their nation and critique. Otherwise, the next logical question is, if we revere For a cartoonist, insult, stereotype, slander, and insensitivity are a job description. executions by a Pakistani political party with a Danish affiliation). The edi- religious taboos that have no place in our own culture, must we also and Mass Communication in us, free speech is holy. tors first wanted to know my reaction to being attacked. Had I panicked? refrain from criticizing tenets of that religion that, for example, regard Chapel Hill as part of the A Kuwaiti woman asked, “If The culture of death advanced by Islamic extremists who sanction women as chattel or encourage children to blow themselves up? Edward R. Murrow program sponsored by the State Department. I began given the choice between offering a message of love or confrontation, suicide bombers and issue fatwas on people who draw funny pictures, Those who have attacked my work, whether on the right, the left, by explaining that for a cartoonist, insult, stereotype, slander, and insensi- which do you choose?” I told her that given the choice, any of us would was certainly of a different fanatical magnitude than the protests of the Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, Protestant, Catholic, tivity are a job description: I’m paid to offend people. Then I showed one choose love, but the problem, as Dr. Martin Luther King articulated in home-grown religious true believers I was used to. But the truth is, I Jewish, or Muslim all see satirical irreverence as hostility and hate. In irreverent cartoon after another. President George W. Bush rattling his his Letter from a Birmingham jail, is that sometimes love is expressed empty head instead of his saber. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld through confrontation. Marches, sit-ins, and freedom rides were a form don’t really worry about who I might offend when I set out to create a a democracy, scathing criticism is not necessarily hatred. Just because wearing a T-shirt that reads “Shiite Happens.” of speech that provoked. “I see my provocative cartoons as a form of cartoon. If I did, I might never draw anything. it’s not worship, is it hate? Just because you’re not an Islamophile, does The State Department interpreters on hand for the conference had non-violent direct action.” The act of creation does not begin with a shudder of inhibition. I that make you an Islamophobe? their work cut out for them. Hearing them doggedly translate each car- I pointed out that as moderate Muslims, they were faced with the don’t think about who it might upset but only whether the drawing or Healthy skepticism, honest doubt, challenges to authority—those toon into Arabic, occasionally interrupted by their own giggles of same dilemma that we moderate white Southerners faced when idea is effective and says what I want to say in a lively and interesting are the sine qua non of our western culture. From Socrates to Jesus to recognition as the meanings dawned, then the delayed reactions of Klansmen burned crosses and terrorized black Americans in the name way. When I drew a cartoon in 1988 of Israeli soldiers bursting into a Galileo to Darwin to Freud, irreverence, the raised eyebrow, the toppled shibboleth (or monarch), is the animating spirit behind all human their Arab constituency, like CNN satellite transmissions from of our Christ. “The good Christian people of the South allowed extrem- garret and discovering Anne Frank, I knew I was treading upon the progress, both scientific and democratic. Our ability to tolerate charged Baghdad, was a torturous test of patience for someone like me who ists to hijack their religion and act on their behalf.” sacred ground of historic victimhood, the Holocaust. Still, when the intellectual discourse and all their attendant controversies is a measure of knows that in comedy, timing is everything. In the end I felt a bit awkward admonishing journalists who risk so inspiration hit, I was more excited about the stark directness of the the health of society. We should not cringe from exercising free speech. But it also brought home the cartoonists’ profound dependency upon much more to exercise freedom of speech—the freedom even to express concept, the ironic effectiveness of the moral juxtaposition. Naturally readers’ knowledge of issues and familiarity with pop culture. Imagine the belief, as they did in the conference, that the murderers and behead- some Jews were offended. Then came the inevitable charges of anti- explaining “Shiite Happens” to a roomful of perplexed Middle Easterners. ers who shout “Allahu Akbar” God is great, are the infidels to Islam. Semitism. But I didn’t fear for my life from the people who gave us the Doug Marlette is editorial cartoonist for the Tulsa World, creator of the It reminded me that the understanding of each cartoon depended upon Compared to them, we in the American media have so little to lose, and Ten Commandments. comic strip, Kudzu and author of the novel The Bridge. A former the kind of non-official common national language that can only grow out yet only the tiniest number of mainstream newspapers—the Philadelphia Likewise, I never considered whether my Mohammed cartoon cartoonist for Newsday, he won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize while cartooning of a free press. Something we all take for granted. Inquirer being the largest—had the guts to print the Danish cartoons. would be offensive to Muslims. Nor had I given any particular thought for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. To these Muslim journalists, who are forbidden to criticize political That capitulation—to fear, to corporate aversion to controversy—reflected to the ban on depictions of the Prophet because I did not have or religious leaders in print in their own countries, the provocative images the general debasement of public discourse in this country, an echo Mohammed in mind when I drew the picture of the truck driver; he began working on their defenses like a solvent. Smiles and laughter broke chamber of shouting heads and unhinged talk radio, with propagandists T

was simply a generic headdress-wearing Arab. Similarly, I could have H I

S the tension. If not quite warmed up, the visitors were certainly defrosted of both parties talking past each other. I felt a bit intellectually dishonest

drawn a cartoon of “What Would Jesus Drive?” with some equally A

E to room temperature. Finally, I showed them my own controversial myself, implying that what passes today for free speech in this country is

stereotypical Pentecostal foot-washer driving a hybrid. I had actually N

D Mohammed cartoons. I could feel the mood in the room turn. I was robust democratic debate. Yet what was going on across cultures in that

drawn the Prophet years before, sitting in paradise along with Buddha O P

P beginning to wonder, What Would Mohammed Drive A Stake Through room that spring Saturday in Chapel Hill was worthy of the compliment. O

and Jesus, each of them lamenting the horrors committed in their S I

T The Heart Of? Peace Be Unto Him. The passionate exchange that ensued The session ended with genuine affection among us. One of the E :

names, so I had researched what Mohammed was supposed to look C went on an hour after the session was scheduled to have adjourned. State Department interpreters—an Arab man—said to me, “This was A R

like, and it wasn’t like the kaffia-clad guy I had drawn driving the truck. T

O “Why do you make fun of the Prophet?” fascinating. I can understand and empathize with both sides, both cul- O

But as often is the case with cartoons, the artist’s intent is lost on those N

S “I don’t,” I replied. “I make fun of those who murder in the name tural points of view.” And for a moment I did feel that a mere cartoonist

offended. Cartoon images should not be taken literally. E

P of the Prophet.” could be the most powerful man in America. R I The Danish drawings were mild and even apolitical compared with N “Is nothing taboo? Where do you draw the line?” Thanks to our freedom, each of us—not just in the press but in T E

my “What Would Mohammed Drive?” cartoon, and so what struck me D “I don’t think in terms of what cannot be done, but what can,” I the expanding cyber-domain of expression—can speak his mind and B Y

as almost as fishy as the manufactured backlash in the Middle East P said. “It’s hard enough to make something up from nothing without exercise that singular power he possesses over princes and kings, E R (radical imams had distributed, along with the Danish drawings, M shackling yourself to anxiety over giving offense. I don’t set out to popes and potentates, his own unique voice, refusing to be bullied or I S S

images of dogs mounting prostrate Muslims and pig-snouted Prophets, I O offend—offending takes no creativity. But if it results from the effec- intimidated into silence. The process is imperfect, the ideal unattain- N

the better to get a rise out of street mobs) was the bad thinking here at O

F tiveness of my art, I don’t mind.” able, and like some Jeffersonian version of the movie “Groundhog

home. The harrumphing of U.S. print and network commentators over O

U I could see that they thought my drawings were random outbursts of Day,” the battle must be fought over and over again. But the First G

the offense done to Muslim feelings mirrored the pandering of politi- M anarchy, like some sort of visual Tourette tics. As newcomers to our Amendment potentially deputizes each of us as a stand-in and surro- A R

cians like the State Department’s Karen Hughes, who called the car- L Western institutions, with no knowledge of [predecessors like] Jefferson, gate for We the People. That is the true power of this country, and as I Doug Marlette: “If I worried about who I might offend, I might never draw anything.” E T T toons blasphemous and compared them to racial slurs. My sense was E Madison, or Adams and without centuries of roiling debate about press saw that day, it is the envy of the world. I

14 15 By Doug Marlette