Failure™ Magazine

Graphic Violence

Casualties from the War on Cartoons.

Written by David Wallis   Filed under Arts & Entertainment

It merits mention that understandable motives can drive editors to kill. The world changes so fast that a political cartoon drawn today can become dated tomorrow, and sometimes a promising idea just doesn’t work on paper. Editors also keep their creative types from breaking libel laws, flouting industry ethics and gratuitously offending people. Insult should be a byproduct of a reasoned argument rather than a goal in itself.

Too often, editors fail to make that critical distinction. They squelch compelling cartoons out of fear of angering advertisers, not to mention blacks, Asians, Hispanics, gays, Catholics, Jews, Muslims and Midwest grannies. They even fear getting noticed. Cartoonist Milt Priggee remembers what an editor told him soon after he joined The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington: “If you want to survive at this paper, you’ve got to stay under management’s radar. Don’t do anything good. Don’t do anything bad.”

Internal politics dooms many compelling cartoons. Consider Kirk Anderson’s 2002 cartoon on the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal, which portrays a Vatican “fireman” rescuing a priest from a burning church while ignoring a screaming child trapped in the flames. Anderson’s paper, The St. Paul Pioneer Press had irked the local diocese for several years. But it repaired relations with the church by publishing an essay by the city’s new archbishop. Anderson, who was later downsized, believes his editor spiked his cartoon rather than risk “rocking the boat” even though that is arguably the cartoonist’s job.

Admittedly, religion and cartoons can make for a volatile cocktail. In 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten unleashed an unimaginable fury by publishing 12 cartoons featuring the prophet Muhammad. Flemming Rose, the editor who conceived the project, intended to bring attention to increasing intimidation of the free press by Islamic extremists. He never imagined what would follow.

The Muhammad cartoons sparked riots that caused more than 100 deaths worldwide. Mobs torched the Danish embassies in Lebanon and Syria. Protesters in Nigeria destroyed more than a dozen churches. Palestinian gunmen chased Danish aid workers from Gaza. And Saudis boycotted Danish cheese.

Meanwhile, Islamic extremists in Denmark fanned the flames by taking the cartoons on what amounted to an outrage tour of the Middle East. But these bad-will ambassadors did something else that has not been widely reported. They not only circulated the 12 controversial Danish cartoons but also three appalling drawings that had nothing to do with Jyllands-Posten. One portrayed Muhammad as a pedophile; another placed a pig snout on the Prophet’s face; the third cartoon depicted a dog raping a praying Muslim. By reproducing the three foul images, one blogger noted that the Muslim activists “have managed to out-blaspheme the infidel Danes.”

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