Dan Piraro has a good take on B.C.
As much as I dislike JH, I can’t buy this. He used that type of effect elsewhere. I think that strip is innocent (and not funny).
I’d have to vote that that’s reading way too much into it. An outhouse has a crescent moon on it 90% of the time in fiction, and 100% of the time when an outhouse is used in fiction its for humorous purposes. Why presume that Mr. Hart intended something different from every other author in the history of slapstick?
It smells.
Well duh!
That’s the joke. If you were 3 years old, you’d probably think it was hysterical.
I believe that Hart actually addressed this point, indicating that he had come to see his cavemen not as prehistorical but as post-nuclear war survivors.
You should read some of the interviews with him late in his life. He was quite rabid - even talking about how his mother was going to hell because she didn’t believe strongly enough, IIRC. Many papers, including the Mercury News, dropped BC because of this clear bigotry.
That’s how I read it, and I’m not religious. But I suppose I could see the other reading.
As for the outhouse one, I think it’s a stretch to consider that to be a slam on Islam. If it is, it’s really, really subtle.
I wasn’t here at the time the strip was published, so I don’t know the various interpretations that were bandied about.
But I sure do remember seeing it in my Sunday paper. My interpretation was the same as yours, and I was outraged by it. (For the record, I’m not Jewish.) Of course, when I brought it up to my Catholic cousin, just as you say, she couldn’t see why it should be offensive.
I eventually stopped reading B.C. because of this and other examples of brute proselytizing…and also because Hart was so busy doing this that he forgot to be funny.
It’s true that his replacement has knocked this stuff off, but he too rarely gives me any reason to laugh.
I understand all that, but he also wrote many stupid and innocent comic strips. I think that this particular one is not anti-Muslim. I completely agree that other strips were anti-Semitic and a host of other stupid things.
Sometimes and outhouse is just an outhouse.
SLAM is written in the interior of a giant I. Look at it again. He was insulting Islam and screwing with his editors.
I’ve never understood the ‘Christ Killer’ animosity towards Jews. Isn’t the death of Christ the fundamental point of the religion? What would have happened if Christ wasn’t killed? Wouldn’t that mean he didn’t die for the sins of Man? Wouldn’t everyone be going to Hell then?
Looks to me like the Jews did the Christians a huge favor.
The menorah association is just so weird, though. I could see if it was just a passover thing but the menorah is only associated with Hanukkah…right?
It’s just weird.
Or not. That, IMO, is a fairly stretched way of interpreting that particular sound effect, especially one that is fairly standard and innocuous otherwise. You can interpret it that way, but I think it would be a mistake.
IIRC, the strip originally ran in December, the month of Hannukah and of Christmas. Most Christians don’t make a big deal of the crucifix at Christmas, but some do, especially if they’re trying to make a point.
No, it ran at Easter, and Hart specifically called the menorrah “a symbol of Passover,” which it isn’t. At all.
It was like using a Christmas tree as a symbol of Easter.
It was his Easter strip that year. He probably used the Menorah just because it’s a well-known symbol.
Note in the linked article that he also said bread was a symbol of Passover!
Massive bigotry fail!!!
To me that reads like it’s just using a Jewish symbol for the sake of using it, then. Or rather for the sake of putting it down. Like if there was some tie in with the Last Supper/Passover thing, that might be sort of interesting. But as it is…not really.
Dog whistle
A figure of speech or imagery intended to send a message to a certain segment of people, and be ignored by others (or at least provide deniability if others detect a message).
And towards the end, Hart was anything but subtle.
Team Stupid Joke.
Both of those strips go pretty far in validating the universal comic punchline theory.
Edit: The Piraro one works, too.