Drawing Conclusions
Controversial cartoonist exhibit asks where you draw the line
Writer:ANDY NEWMAN, Pittsburgh City Paper
In 1994, post-Paula Jones but pre-Monica Lewinsky, editorial cartoonist Clay Bennett drew Bill Clinton wearing the familiar "I'm with Stupid" T-shirt, the arrow pointing not to the side but to the source of his trouble: downward. It's funny, but it wasn't published, because Bennett says that editors at his newspaper, the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, ruled it "inappropriate for a family newspaper."
More recently, J.D. Crowe drew Attorney General John Ashcroft to resemble the famous still of Jack Nicholson breaking through a door in The Shining, saying "Heeeeeeere's Johnny." Also funny, albeit in a more biting way, but also not published. Crowe explains that the cartoon was spiked because editors at his newspaper, the Mobile (Alabama) Register, ruled it "was a cheap shot, too unflattering and too unpatriotic."
Originals of both of the cartoons are part of the exhibit, Too Hot to Handle: Creating Controversy Through Political Cartoons, currently showing at The Andy Warhol Museum. While several of the 50 cartoons in the exhibit were similarly killed by editors, most of the work was published and drew the ire of offended readers. The exhibit, deftly co-curated by art historian Sylvia Rhor and Post-Gazette cartoonist Rob Rogers, displays alongside originals of the cartoons the artists' explanations of the impetuses of the work, and, if it was in fact published, the reaction it generated. Also included are comments from outraged readers, many of them never published as they went directly to the cartoonists from readers who both viewed and responded to the work via the Internet.
The feedback is not what you'd call constructive -- unless cartoonists find threats of physical violence edifying. In a Rogers' cartoon, the alleged Washington, D.C.-area snipers have this exchange: "I want to kill this one." "I saw him first." "Yeah, but I've had more practice." In a panel directly below it, three characters representing the states vying to prosecute the duo -- Maryland, Alabama, and Virginia -- say the exact same thing to one another about the snipers: "I want to kill this one." "I saw him first." "Yeah, but I've had more practice." The cartoon drew this response from the Web: "You obviously draw moral equivocations between a state executing a cold murderer and a cold murderer murdering an innocent citizen. Maybe you should be executed in the name of common sense. Fuck off and die, dumbshit."
Generating particularly visceral responses are cartoons whose commentary is perceived as anti-American. After Doonesbury creator Gary Trudeau lashed out against anti-French tirades in a cartoon (written in French) that concludes -- in translation -- "Because you are jingoistic, self-regarding conquer-monkeys," a reader responds, "If you are so in love with the French, why don't you take your liberal communist ass over there and stay? You are not wanted here. Leave. Good riddance. Start praying, nutbar. Your maker calleth."
Ted Rall, whose work is featured in these pages, is characteristically provocative when, in a cartoon he published a year after the Sept. 11 attacks, he suggests that President Bush secretly is grateful for the way in which the tragedy benefited his popularity. Bush is depicted praying on his knees, "Please Osama ... I need another one ... Make it big, OK?" In accompanying text, Rall writes, "The cartoon naturally aroused indignation from those who saw truth in it, which is usually the case."
Of course, anointing oneself a truth-teller and dismissing those who disagree with you as threatened by these uncomfortable truths is an odd posture for a social commentator. After all, couldn't someone in the Bush administration just as easily say that Rall's own indignant cartoon was aroused by the "truth" and righteousness of Bush's so-called war on terror? Is Rall suggesting that his own dissenting opinion should be elevated, that truth is his province exclusively, that those who disagree with him should be dismissed out of hand?
Rall's self-indulgent comment notwithstanding, the exhibit overall has much to say about the state of dissent in the country now. The sense you get, chuckling at the cartoons and reading the outraged response they elicit, is that editorial cartoonists are, at the moment, perhaps provocateurs in the purest sense. They reach a mass audience, their messages are read even by those who don't bother to read 700-word columns as they're flipping to get to the sports pages and, most importantly, they employ humor to wade into difficult subjects. If what Abbie Hoffman said is true, that sacred cows make the best hamburgers, then this is perfect exhibit for summer: It's a veritable cookout.
Too Hot to Handle: Creating Controversy Through Political Cartoons runs through Aug. 31 at The Andy Warhol Museum, North Side. 412-237-8300.
The featured reader
feedback is not
what you'd call
constructive --
unless cartoonists
find threats of
physical violence
edifying.
