There was a cartoon published today about which you have surely heard.
No fewer than 5 diaries (and now a front page post) have been written on this site already today on this subject. The include items such as this:
This kind of shit stinks for itself.
Exactly one has tried to assuage the outrage, and that diarist has been subjected to hide ratings and hundreds of comments, most of which were disagreeable.
This outrage is unfounded and needs to stop. Details below the fold.
The people up in arms over the cartoon are surely still smarting from the magazine cover, coincidentally also originating in New York, before the election. This abomination by The New Yorker was deserving of the backlash. Vanity Fair's lame attempt to even the score made things even worse. But this new cartoon-troversy is very different indeed.
Before getting too deep too quickly, let's review a bit more of what has been written already.
Sam Stein, you know, the blogger President Obama called on at his first presser, says today:
The drawing, from famed cartoonist Sean Delonas, is rife with violent imagery and racial undertones.
:snip:
At its most benign, the cartoon suggests that the stimulus bill was so bad, monkeys may as well have written it. Others believe it compares the president to a rabid chimp.
Yeah, comparing a president to a chimp is beyond the pale. If someone were to do that on this site, they surely would be showered with a hail of HRs, right?
Al Sharpton, on his website:
Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder whether the Post cartoonist was inferring [sic] that a monkey wrote it?
Hmm, I guess no one has heard that old line about a thousands chimps typing away at a thousand typewriters will someday write a great novel? This old gag was nicely parodied on The Simpsons. Mr. Burns pulls out a page from one of the monkey "authors" (who is also smoking a cigarette), and reads:
It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times...? You stupid monkey!
And I know people on Daily Kos are not fans of The Daily Show, so I went ahead and found this ancient archival clip from Nov. 5th, 2008 (nothing special happened the day before that). In this clip around the 2-minute mark, Jon Stewart (he is the host of the show) states that the Electoral College was created by "mentally-defective orangutans".
The examples posted are merely a few to prove the point that we here without enough sense of humor today are missing: Monkeys are funny. Granted, the story about the chimp attacking a woman's face resulting in the chimp's death is not a funny one. But, the timeliness of that story lends itself to the fodder for the cartoonist's attempt to be funny. Personally, I find the comic to be gruesome and opposed to my view on A.R.R.A, but it is slightly funny, and not racist.
Ostensibly, the troll ratings were handed out to the other diarist defending the cartoon because of "copyright violations". Why weren't the rules equally applied to the earlier diary (decrying the cartoon) which was rec'ed by many including a front-page editor?
There have now been maybe thousands of comments written here just today on this topic, so obviously I haven't had time to check them all. I commend those who have taken a more measured approach to their reactions. This is reflected even in some of the comments by leaders in the black community such as Kossack & Governor David Patterson. who merely asks for more inforamtion:
It would be very important for the New York Post to explain what the cartoon was intended to portray.
The point I want to make today is this: If we want to be taken seriously instead of being labeled overrated and worse than nazis or whatever, let's be more discerning about the things over which we get whipped into frenzy.
Torture? Check.
Oil maggots? Check.
A political cartoon that toes, but does not cross, the line? Maybe we should lighten up just a bit this time.
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Update:
The NY Post has released a statement:
"The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist."
Also, I removed the YouTube because I didn't have permission to post it and no one was watching it anyway.
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Update II: (Feb 19, 5:56 PM PST)
Keith Olbermann is reporting "a non-apology apology" by the NY Post