You’re taking this too literally. Bottom line: the bill (cartoonist says) was so bad it’s like a chimp wrote it. The chimp got shot, so they need to find a new one.
I assumed there was more than one. Since you seem to be on a language precision kick, let me rephrase: “Well, that’s different then. I mean, if some talking heads pointed this out it MUST be true!”
-XT
Here’s something else about the cartoon, that has nothing to do with race. Let’s say it was a potted plant in the cartoon, instead of a chimpanzee. Or lets say it was a mountain lion that was shot in real life and that was what the artist drew.
What does one have to do with the other? Did the stimulus bill die? Did someone in authority kill it? What is the artist implying about the bill, other than he disagrees with its worth? Am I making any sense? I don’t understand why a bill which just came into being and is alive and well would be compared with anything shot by anybody.
I guess that’s the root of my claim of mediocrity. It’s like he had the “joke” pre-written and this was the most convenient news story he came up with for the riff.
I’m not Ocean Annie, but the answer is pretty clear to me: it represented the (unfounded) allegation that Bush has subhuman intelligence.
If Bush had been black, though, depicting him as a chimp would also (and much more strongly) have suggested the classic racist allegation that blacks as a group have subhuman intelligence. And that’s some seriously nasty baggage that just isn’t present when a white man (or woman, for that matter) is portrayed as a chimp.
I…see. So, since they DID represent Bush as a chimp (and of course since he is white) they simply meant that he was stupid. However, had he been black they would not have meant he was stupid but instead it would have been a racist remark.
That is remarkably circular logic. Not that I doubt that had they represented him as a chimp that it would have been assumed it was all about the racism…judging by this thread I think the probability exceeds 1.
I guess people are going to see what they want to see…and are going to jump any number of hoops to do so.
-XT
This is the first I’ve seen the picture. While I agree the connection is undeniable, it doesn’t negate the true meaning of the cartoon. After watching the Connecticut incident, I would never have connected it to the President or the stimulus. Perhaps the chimp shooting sparked the imagination of a cartoonist, but it is where his imagination took him that is disturbing.
How are you intuiting the “true meaning?”
That’s the point, though. It’s a satirical comparison of two unlike events, like when a Daily Show joke connects Kim Jong Il and his nuclear program to Disney cartoons by calling him “Kimmy Neutron” and “Kim Possible.” Unlike the Daily Show, the Post cartoon is unfunny and unenlightening, but the whole point is the unexpected connection. That’s where the humor is supposed to come from.
It’s only disturbing if you think he intended the chimp to represent Obama - who did not create the bill, and didn’t make an ass of himself in debating it.
In fairness, in many photographs he bore a striking resemblance to an actual chimp. And he did maul Chancellor Merkel that one time, but she managed to escape by distracting him with a banana.
Good point.
-XT
I guess it would have been funnier if the chimp had been a caveman instead.
Ok, well not *that *funny and then we wouldn’t have anything to talk about.
I just saw this piece of shit. There’s no way in hayl this could have gotten through clearance without someone willfully turning a blind eye to the obvious. I can’t imagine the Post being that sloppy on accident.
Aside from the racist imagery that practically leaps off the screen and squishes my eyeballs every time I look at it, my biggest criticism is that in the absence of familiarity with the mauling chimp story, most people are going to go WTF?! when they look this. It doesn’t even taken an Al Sharpton type to raise an eyebrow at what looks like two cops simply gunning down an ape that, racistly or not, symbolizes the president. That alone trips my offensiveness meter big time. Make it a potted plant getting shot the fuck up and the stink of assassination would still be there.
Even if you are familiar with the stupid chimp story, the connection with the stimulus bill is so tenuous that it might as well be non-existent. So it really amazes me that people are saying this is the “obvious” interpretation. First of all, the main complaint by conservatives is that the stimulus package is full of pork and is “socialist”. But when most people think of 100 monkeys typing a document, do they think of greed and Marxism? No, they think of gibberish. So the comic fails to effectively link the chimp to what the stimulus bill really represents to its critics.
Like Squink, I think a typewriter is needed in the scene to solidify the allusion. But all we’re presented with is a slain chimp laying in a puddle of blood and two cops extending guns. A dead chimp doesn’t immediately make me think of “100 monkeys at a typewriter”. My awareness that chimps aren’t monkeys prevents me from immediately making that association. A prop like a typewriter would at least help me overcome this.
I think both the artist and editor(s) should be held accountable for this stupid thing. It was unfunny and offensive, and anyone halfway competent should have seen the implications.
And yet, what seemingly DOES spring to your mind (and others in this thread) is: ‘The chimp must be Obama! Even though he didn’t write the stimulus bill, if it’s a chimp it HAS to be a racist slur directed at the president!’.
I know that some of you really do see it that way. Which sort of says something about the direction of some of ya’lls thought process right there. I guess it says something about my own that it never even crossed my mind to view it that way.
-XT
It’s so ridiculously disingenous to divorce Obama from the bill’s authorship, that I have to think only a moron could believe this is a convincing argument. Even though Congress technically has written it, it’s constantly refered to, even by FOX news, as Obama’s stimulus plan. Just like war in Iraq is often refered to Bush’s war even though Congress is the one that signed off on it. This is hardly a novel concept, branding a piece of legislation with the president’s name even though it came out of congress.
But help me out here: why does the cop in the comic refer to the next bill’s author as “someone”, if he’s actually refering to what can be considered either a group of individuals (“they”) or an single entity (“it”)? Why would “someone” be used if Congress is the one symbolized by a solitary ape?
I also wonder why the realities of the bill’s authorship matter to you in your interpretation, but not the reality that chimps aren’t monkeys. Linking an ape to the Infinite Monkey at a Typewriter Theorem takes far more mental machinations than linking the stimulus bill to the one person giving press conferences, gladhanding Republicans, and traveling all over the country trying to promote it.
I hate to be mean to you, but it’s because you’re retarded.
In fairness, so did Clinton. Let’s face it, all of us Homo sapiens kind of look like chimps.
So am I the only person who initially (while still unaware of the pet-chimp-shooting incident) looked at this cartoon and thought, not “chimp as Obama”, but rather “cops shooting black suspect”? If so: huh.
I think this idea is stupid.
Not at all. While I don’t think it’s racist either, I can see where it would look the part. Similar to the Obama sock monkeys that were being sold during election season or the boy named Adolf Hitler, this really is a “what was he thinking” sort of thing. Fair or not, reasonable or not, logical or not, certain things are just going to carry connotations. A certain portion of the population is going to knee jerk on this (and not just liberals).
To be perfectly honest, I almost think the cartoonist knew full well what he was trolling for.
The racists overtones are so overt that I can’t help thinking that a lot of you are being disingenuous with the “What racism? That ape obviously meant x!” routine. I’d be willing to buy that the cartoonist is just crappy at his job (not knowing anything about him/her), but any half-way competent editor should have slapped it down immediately.
For the record, I’ve seen seven or eight threads about this today (none of which were on political or news sites, as I don’t usually frequent those), and not ONE had a significant portion of the people not immediately see the problem. Perhaps you should consider the possibility that it’s you being dense, not the rest of the country.
Well, coming from you that means…ok, absolutely nothing. Sort of the equivalent of a turnip pointing and laughing at a ground hog.
But on Fox they spell it ‘disingenuous’ and ‘referred’. However, they obviously have editors which sadly, you don’t.
I would have to say you are beyond help, but I’ll do my best. It seems obvious to me that the cop is referring to the chimp as the ‘someone’…I’m not seeing the big mystery to be honest. I’m not subscribing to the chimp=Congress theory…that was some other posters idea, though this seems to have escaped your keen eagle eyed grasp. A close reading of what I wrote will indicate that my own theory was chimp=chimp…which is subtly different.
It doesn’t, actually, but again, you seem to have failed to actually grasp what I DID say. I’m sure, however, with one so keen as you have proved to be that you have unerringly hit upon the real motives of the comics author who was actually just trying to slip this one past us all. Luckily for the world we have folks like Sharpton and yourself to catch them at it and cut right to the heart of the issue, unmasking their nefarious plan to both slip a racial slur past us PLUS, undoubtedly, to put in a plan to assassinate the Pres. And you have of course caught me out as well, since no one would believe such an obvious tissue of lies. That and I’m sure outing me as a closet Republican…or something. You were getting a bit vague there at the end, but I’m sure it would be fascinating if only I had my translation kit with me.
-XT
You are right. I can’t determine what the cartoonist was thinking or his motive; however, it is fair to consider the Post’s ideological slant, the pattern of race baiting in right wing media, and the cartoonist’s body of work.
What is disturbing to me is unapologetic racism in times of economic turmoil and the fact that intelligent people defend it.
What disturbs me in these troubled economic times is the not so intelligent people who toss around the term racist and racism so glibly. To paraphrase, there is a pestilence upon this land, nothing is sacred. Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress in this period in history…and the vile unwashed but very fervent faithful seem to toss about ‘racist’ at the drop of a chimp.
-XT