Cartoons vs. APLs

It's been a bad month for cartoons. Surely, Charles Schultz in his best days could not have foreseen the shitstorm that a few cartoons have caused. Whether it's lampooning our government's treatment of disabled veterans insensitively, the Danes blaspheming the Prophet Muhammed, or more recently, Iran seeking New York magazine-like contest entries for Holocaust-oriented yuks, it's clear that cartoons have become no laughing matter.

Perhaps if we go back to Krazy Kat and Ignatz mouse, we'd find violence in our cartoons that could be similar to the reactions occurring today. However, like the Three Stooges, the old cartoons were oriented toward slapstick and physical humor, not provoking attacks with pointed sticks and physical violence like those of today. Where has everyone's sense of humor gone?

Imagine if all cartoons were taken literally - or better yet, if the special interest groups corresponding to some of the cartoons took public offense to their depictions in them. Bald children the world over would see Charlie Brown shut down permanently; cavemen would lash out at the horrors in every B.C cartoon. Should parents revolt when their entire value systems are laid to waste by the cruel humor in each Family Circus panel? What about the awful characterization of our military through Beetle Bailey?

When last I checked, cartoons were meant to deliver truth through satire and irony, allowing people the flexibility to laugh at situations that had real life truths but may not often be seen clearly. Cartoons allow a view from another angle, exposing reality from the alternative side of humor, dark as it may sometimes be. However, I suppose there are those who believe that they or their beliefs are beyond laughter and, concomitantly, beyond reproach.

A co-worker said yesterday that those that were burning buildings and violently protesting the "bomb-turban" cartoon were proving the artist/author right, and so they are. While there are certainly limits to free speech (an envelope that the Enquirer, Star, etc. push every week, for example), expression of one's viewpoints should not only be permissible, it's healthy. Through exploration, perhaps we can all come to a general understanding of how we are perceived in the world and repair those elements that offend or frighten others - or better yet, if they are misunderstood, those can be corrected as well. Maybe some things are sacred and some sensitivity training is in order for a few things, but violent reactions to cartoons that shed a different light on circumstances seems to me to be a poor way to demonstrate that an inaccuracy has been portrayed.

"Many a truth is said in jest."