When I was approached with the idea of doing a column about editorial cartoons, I wasn’t sure if it’d result in a great outcome. The initial idea was to pick a cartoon from the previous week and explain its meaning and explain why I drew it.
The column has evolved into, well, I’m not sure what, but its initial goal has been long lost. I was appalled — insert rolling of the eyes here — at the fact that the editor at the time would ask me to explain my art.
This week, a couple of people asked me about Monday’s Daily Forty-Niner editorial cartoon. In the cartoon, a Los Angeles City College student is being interrupted by an angry professor right before he was about to start his anti-gay marriage speech as part of an open-ended public speaking assignment.
Was this cartoon supporting the student supporting anti-gay marriage? Was I saying that liberals don’t let people speak their minds? And why is the professor’s face so pink?
As an editorial cartoonist, I feel as though one should never have to explain the meaning of the artwork. If you cannot take a joke, it sucks to be you. If you take the back page of the Union Weekly too seriously, well, you’re really worrying me.
Is this a freedom of the press cry? You bet your liberal, conservative, independent or I-don’t-care ass it is.
You see, the beauty of editorial cartoons is that you get to express yourself in a way that is entirely different from other journalists. We get to toy around with both art and politics. Pulitzer Prizes are given to editorial cartoonists, so it must be something good, right? Wrong.
The editorial cartoon in the New York Post last week is a perfect example of editorial cartooning gone wrong.
A little Googling of editorial cartoonist Sean Delonas, the man behind the infamous racist Obama cartoon, will reveal where his ideals stand in the political spectrum. From gay marriage to Heather Mills’ prosthetic leg, the guy is obviously on the conservative side.
Although I don’t think his cartoons are funny, or even agree with their messages, I certainly believe the man has a right to exploit politicians with his pen and sketch pad as much as politicians have given themselves the privelege to hide things from the public.
Having this right, however, comes with responsibilities. As a Mexican-American, I truly believe that racism is still alive. I live it everytime I go to a shopping mall and a white lady holds her purse extra tightly as soon as she sees my shaved-head walk by. I also think that humor is one of the best tools to combat the bigoted idiots of the world.
But if you’re going to draw a cartoon that you know is going to carry a heavy message for a certain audience, you better be prepared to back up your work. Publishing an apology for one’s work is an ultimate show of cowardice.
Shame on you, Delonas, for apologizing for your work and for not being able to hold onto your beliefs. Or whatever.
-Julio Salgado
The cartoon isn’t racist. It’s a bad cartoon, but the chimp is literally the chimp “Travis” that mauled a woman in Connecticut. It was the dominant story in the Post. The cartoon was taken almost directly from one of the photos of the dead chimp. The joke was that the mad chimp was the author of the stimulus bill, which was the other major story. It didn’t work well, but no cartoonist is on every day of the week.
I’m amazed at how many morons are determined to see it as racist when it so evident that it was about neither the president nor race. You’re right though. He owes no apology. Sharpton and NAACP owe an apology for their shameful opportunism.
Sean Delonas didn’t apologize for the racist cartoon. He in fact told CNN that it was “absolutely frigging ridiculous” that anyone could see his cartoon as representing Obama. He has since been muzzled.
His paper issued a half-apology, and the owner of the Post apologized. He cannot be responsible for what his bosses do.
I also find his cartoons unfunny, as well as simplistic and mean-spirited.