The painted parking line makes it look downtown. We sure don’t have stuff like that here in the outer core.
Yes, I saw that. And it’s all well and good. But I hope that you will acknowledge at least one thing that is sorely out of place, and had nothing to do with the original ape shooting incident — that dialog. There are many things the cartoonist could have had the cop saying. He chose just about the worst possible one.
It certainly impressed me as urban until I paused to examine it under the advice of Loach. But that’s the art of inuendo. The cartoonist, if he is a bigot, needs an out.
Not defending it as a good cartoon. Just the opposite. I am not a fan of political cartoons. From what I have seen of him this guy is probably the worst I have ever seen. He is not insightful, clever, funny or thought provoking. And he is a bad artist. All I am saying is that the first thing that I thought of when seeing that cartoon is that it was a put down of the legislation that he tried to tie into the biggest story of the day (at least as perceived by the the Post staff). But it did not take me long at all to realize how others might see it and react, both out of actual outrage or professional outrage (Sharpton).
I figure this was something that was slapped together at the last minute. The story was topical and the cartoonist or the editor wanted something that went with the cover. No one thought it through. Not all publicity is good. I doubt the editor wanted this kind of heat.
??? The cops were nicely done, and I thought the monkey, with his tongue hanging out, little curved arm, and holes in his belly like the end of a coconut, was just about perfect.
BTW and FWIW, (ETA link) here is what the editor and author had to say about it on CNN:
-XT
You’re more apt to connect the bill to some nameless, faceless technical writer contracted by Congress to piece words together without mispellings and grammar errors than you are able to see the connection to Obama, who signed the bill on Tues and spent the bulk of his first two months lobbying for it? Really??
No one ever cares about the drones who are paid to put bills into written format. Political satire never concerns itself with these non-entities, because it’s the people who vote for or sign off on bills that matter. I draft documents all the time but it’s my boss who owns them, just as soon he puts his name on it. If it’s a piece of crap, the first person the agency is going to scorn is him, not some cubical farmer.
You are missing the point. It’s not about some nameless drone who put the bill together…it’s about (IMHO) a MONKEY putting the bill together. While I didn’t fine the piece all that humorous I can certainly see the connection and the attempt to use a current event to ‘mocks Washington’s efforts to revive the economy’. What I’m missing is how to connect the monkey to Obama…except for the automatic assumption that monkey has to equal black man (except when it’s Bush, then it equals stupid). To me, if it was going to represent anyone it would be as the author of the comic states…Pelosi. Then monkey could equal stupid…sort of like when it was used to represent Bush.
Or maybe monkey represents our deep seated desire to subjugate all the peoples of color in this country and return things to all white rule, and the police represent the authority of the white state, with the grass representing the deep roots of white Americans and the fence representing the desire to keep my Hispanic brethren out.
Or, maybe a chimp is just a chimp by any name, though it smells as sweet.
-XT
No. No. you’re not. I WAS aware of the berserk-chimp story, and still what leaped to mind in looking at that cartoon was (Obama-as-chimp) + (shot dead) = (Obama being assassinated).
Now, maybe it’s merely my having lived through the civil rights era and the Kennedy assassination that gives me so warped a perception of such an innocently amusing little sketch.
Or maybe it’s knowing what kind of readership rags like the Post are aimed at, and what sort of people tend to gleefully pass along such cartoons with sniggering racist commentary to their sniggering racist buddies, and the likely overlap of the two sets.
And xtisme, I’m well aware of what the cartoonist and editor have said, and can only ask, do you seriously think they’d admit that they understood the ugly undertones of this cartoon? Seriously?
It would not have occurred to me that the cartoon could have a racist interpretation if someone else had not pointed it out, therefore I don’t think that such was the intent – rather, it was just a “stimulus bill is so stupid only a chimp could have written it” joke.
I say this as both an Obama supporter and NY Post reader. Look, their news coverage is shallow and (mildly) biased. Their Op-Ed pages are often tinged with bigotry and racial insensitivity. And their letters section is *frequently *downright racist. However, I’ve never gotten the sense that their political cartoons suffered from any kind of racist thinking, and I still don’t.
Well, yeah. But who did put the bill together? Or rather, whose name has the bill been branded with? You seem to think these are immaterial details, but they’re not. Saying a monkey could have written the bill, is one thing. But the comment is the cartoon implies that a monkey did write it. This allows the very reasonable interpretation that the bill’s author is being called a monkey.
Even if you exclude racist assumptions, it’s very reasonable to see the ape as symbolic of Obama based on the cop’s comment. I don’t see why it’s so hard to see this very simple and obvious thing. If you were to poll most people on the first person that comes to mind when they hear “stimulus plan”, who do you think they’ll say? I’d bet all the money in my checking account that greater than 80% would say Obama. Maybe 10% would say Pelosi or someone else in Congress, maybe. (The remaining percent don’t even know what the stimulus plan is and would probably say the first porn star that comes to mind.)
This is a stretch and it’s a pity you swallow it just because the artist said so. Compared to Obama, Pelosi has had relatively little facetime with the public with respect to this bill. I’ve not heard one person refer to the bill as Pelosi’s stimulus package.
Or maybe people want to pretend to be dense so they can’t admit that a newspaper is trying to exploit racial controversy for economic gain. Because lawd knows that never happens.
Probably not, no. However, you get into a circular argument if you simply assume they are lying, so I figured that I might as well post what they did say just out of interest. You can of course take their comments with a grain of salt, but at least everyone can read them first and THEN decide where they stand.
Personally my own Occam’s Razor is saying that this was just a bad comic that is being blown way out of proportion by people who are hunting for any indication of racism, no matter how tenuous or even imaginary. YMMV of course, and if it does then you are certainly in the majority opinion, at least wrt this thread anyway.
-XT
Congress.
Congress, Obama, the Government. The Dems. Pelosi in particular. With, in my own mind at least, Congress being the major player in pushing this forward.
You seem to be assuming that everyone considers this stimulus BILL to be solely owned and operated by Obama.
It’s the major point IMHO.
Exactly. A MONKEY wrote it. I suppose there could be some allusion to monkey = congress there, or monkey = government or even monkey = Democrats…but it’s easier for me to wrap my head around monkey = monkey, and that Congress got a monkey to write this thing FOR them. As I’ve said though, YMMV.
Ok…I’ll by that. So…Pelosi et al = Monkey then. Since they were the bill’s author. Obama was NOT the bill’s author, so how does he factor in exactly?
Ah…so, you assume the author of the comic was playing to the ignorance of the majority of people on who actually put together the bill and the various roles played in doing so? And you don’t see this as a rather tortured and convoluted and complex explanation…when there is a simpler one?
Well, I offed it as a possible alternative explanation, so I don’t know how much of it I swallowed. However, I think it’s less of a stretch than the automatic assumption that the author and editor are lying AND that they intended this joke to work by playing on the ignorance of the people…because anyone with a clue would not get it as they intended (i.e. that the monkey = Obama), while denying that they intended this all along. This seems fairly convoluted logic to me.
Alternatively, I could simply disagree with the interpretation of those in this thread, including you, who claim that this is OBVIOUSLY all about Obama.
-XT
And?
What, free speech and freedom of the press or o.k. only if you agree with what is being said? Al Sharpton, et. al., need to gird their sensibilities because they are not going to quash free speech. Why are so-called civil rights advocates railing against the exercise of one of the most fundamental civil rights? When George W. Bush was, on many occassions, compared to a chimp (or other primate), Al Sharpton, et. al., were conspicuously silent. It makes me wonder if Al Sharpton, et. al., are striving for actual racial equity or racial equity for particular individuals.
No, not solely owned and operated. But if it fails, Obama’s is more apt to lose his job than anyone else involved. Wrongly or rightly, the public perceives this to be his baby.
That’s a interpretation so tortuous that it looks foolishly disingenuous. (You’re the only I’ve seen on the internet make it so far, BTW.) No one writes bills for Congress in the world of political commentary. No one writes Congress’s bills except Congress. Even a monkey knows that.
He’s an author by association, and most people understand this easily.
Just as he played on the audience’s “ignorance” that apes equal monkeys. It’s not about reality it’s about perception, and artists do this all the time. This is the same guy who did that Jessica Simpson cartoon. Now is JS really as fat as he made her out to be? Of course not! But facts don’t matter if a potential joke is at stake.
Yeah you do that. While you’re at it, quit implying that those who have this interpretation are looking for an excuse to be outraged or have racist minds.
Certainly…just as soon as you and others stop implying I’m foolishly disingenuous, a moron, and idiot or perhaps a closet racist just because I’m not seeing it the way you are.
-XT
Who said he shouldn’t be free to draw his idiotic cartoons? No one is saying cut off his hand. What a fucking strawman. All I’m saying (don’t know about anyone else) is admit that, at best, the whole concept was poorly thought out.
Damn, people are doing that? Can I get in on it? 
Of course you can Squink. Be my guest. 
Which part do you wish to take, or do you want to open up a new line of insults?
-XT
Your accusation of strawman is a strawman, for I did not indicate what you say. I am not criticizing critizism of the cartoon, for that is itself free speech. My post was applied to Al Sharpton, who strongly implied (I heard his statement on the radio but have yet to see anything in print) that society should not tolerate or allow such expression as the cartoon in discussion.