Mark Knight is our (AU) best tabloid cartoonist. Is his Williams drawing racist?

https://theconversation.com/mark-knight-...ist-102990

EXCERPT: . . . I have long thought Mark Knight the best and most intelligent tabloid cartoonist in Australia. I find it inconceivable that he deliberately sat down to draw a racist cartoon and accept his explanation of purpose at face value. Race is a real, if second order, category in how most people will assimilate the image of Williams; it is not “not there”.

I can imagine an Australian past when this cartoon, which shows Williams jumping on her racquet with a dummy on the ground, would have been less controversial. Williams has been dominant long enough that she might well have thrown a similar tantrum, say, in the 2002 Australian Open. Had she done so, the same cartoon would probably have passed with little comment.

[...] here’s the rub: in the endless passion play of US culture, there is no way the cartoon will now be read as non-racist in the US and, therefore, internationally. An artist’s intention cannot control the way images circulate any more.

[...] Cartoonists have to compress their images, so they often use stereotypes. This objectifies the subject and is thus, inevitably, an othering process. That is how representation works in general and how satirical representation works in particular. You just cannot draw Serena Williams without drawing her female and black. So should she never be drawn? Even when she has plainly made herself a topic of interest in a very public way? Is silence better than risk of offence?

The National Association of Black Journalists has accused Knight’s depiction of being “unnecessarily sambo-like”. They certainly have a point, particularly about Williams’ hair and lips, which could have been drawn more demurely without loss of fidelity. On the other hand, those who comment on Naomi Osaka being depicted as “a petite blonde” seem to miss that her skin tone is almost identical in the cartoon to Williams’.

So, is there any way of drawing an angry and powerful African-American woman and quarantining the image from old racist stereotypes? Should Knight just not have gone there? By all means make up your own mind....

MORE: https://theconversation.com/mark-knight-...ist-102990

When I was younger, in the days of the newspaper, I was always eager to turn to the editorial pages to look.at the cartoon of the day. Cartoons with political subjects mostly but occasionally about a current issue making world or local/country headlines. Maybe that's the problem, no newspapers anymore and the daily dose of political satire/humor/cartoons. 

Regardless, this Serena cartoon hubbub for some reason made me think of the Port wine stain birthmark on former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's balding head. Never knew what a cartoonist might do with that. It was depicted as everything from a map to the hammer and sickle. Funny as hell but I never took the cartoon seriously but in today's climate, to think it bumorous is probably taboo.

(Sep 12, 2018 01:03 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Regardless, this Serena cartoon hubbub for some reason made me think of the Port wine stain birthmark on former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's balding head. Never knew what a cartoonist might do with that. It was depicted as everything from a map to the hammer and sickle. Funny as hell but I never took the cartoon seriously but in today's climate, to think it bumorous is probably taboo.

I expected to see an announcement this morning that Norm Macdonald had also had his upcoming show canceled, too, not just his appearance on the Tonight Show. But perhaps he averted that by groveling on his knees all night with apologies to the high priests of Outrage and Shaming. Putting on sackcloth and ashes, and walking out into the cyber-streets wailing loudly and bitterly with remorse. His facetiousness disturbed more than just #MeToo sensibilities. (Norm Macdonald ‘Tonight Show’ Appearance Is Canceled After #MeToo Comments)

Comedians, humorists, and satirists are going to have to adjust to the fact that they're living in an era again where there are many "sacred things" which they can't touch without severe consequences. Since the incremental decline of censorship and moral / religious backlash beginning in the 1960s, they had become spoiled by the increasing degrees of "freedom" to be able to poke fun at anything. It's naïve, the belief that sacrilegious and blasphemous boundaries stem largely from religion and rigid table etiquette rather than a deeper, prior in rank source in the human psyche. In the years before he died, George Carlin was remarking about how rattled and unexpected it was to see the reactions from college campus students.

I don't know how Jerry Seinfeld survives with his steadfast apathy. A few years or more ago his own Generation-Z, teenage daughter was constantly lecturing him about his ideological incorrectness. As if a grandmother scolding a grandson about vulgar language.

~

The leftist media and Twitter mobs are just loud minorities that mislead people into thinking that Americans, at large, care about any of this. God help the leftists the day they finally drive enough regular people from their platforms to make new platforms competitive.