[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

[Koumei]

I personally am completely unwilling to weigh in on either side of "It's satire" vs "It's racism pretending to be satire" for cartoons from a country I don't live in written in a language I don't know.

That's not how we do things on the internet. PICK A SIDE, SHITWEASEL.

[hyzmarca]

The thing is, in order for satire to work, it has to be recognized for what it is. And Poe's law does apply. Absurdly exaggerated satirical straw-man racist statements are, by themselves, completely indistinguishable from serious racist statements expressing sincerely-held beliefs.

The fact that people have a difficulty telling the difference is a failure on there part. If people believe that the satirist's satirical exaggerated racism is serious, then the satirist has failed.

And these guys failed so hard that a couple of the people they were defending with their satire actually shot them.

That's the equivalent of Mel Brooks being shot by Jewish terrorists because they thought that The Producers was Anti-Semetic. And if that happened, I think we'd all agree that Mel Brooks's execution was seriously screwed up somewhere.

I don't deny that they might have some anti-racist message. But they're absolutely terrible at expressing it.

[Kaelik]

The thing is, in order for satire to work, it has to be recognized for what it is. And Poe's law does apply. Absurdly exaggerated satirical straw-man racist statements are, by themselves, completely indistinguishable from serious racist statements expressing sincerely-held beliefs.

The fact that people have a difficulty telling the difference is a failure on there part. If people believe that the satirist's satirical exaggerated racism is serious, then the satirist has failed.

"IT CAN'T BE SATIRE BECAUSE I DON'T SPEAK FRENCH"

Has to be the dumbest thing you have ever said, and that's honestly impressive.

And these guys failed so hard that a couple of the people they were defending with their satire actually shot them.

Since they were never defending hardline right muslim terrorists, this is just wrong.

[DSMatticus]

1) We are a bunch of people who do not speak French and do not live in France. We can barely even (not really) read Charlie Hebdo, and even if we can, we have only the bare minimum context for what they are trying to say. We are not really qualified to have a talk about where exactly they fall on the spectrum. Wikipedia describes them as "strongly secularist, antireligious, and left-wing."

2) The attack on Charlie Hebdo happened because they are the kind of people who respond to having a price put on their head for drawing Muhammad by drawing Muhammad naked. Charlie Hebdo has been going out of its way to piss off religious crazies for a long time, and finally some religious crazies got together and murdered them for it. It had nothing to do with racism and everything to do with the sort of extremist fundamentalism that leads people to bomb abortion clinics. And Charlie Hebdo was fucking right; in this particular story, they really are the heroes. When violent fundamentalists demand you abide by the bullshit tenets of their bullshit faith, the correct answer really is "no. Here's Muhammad sucking a pig's dick. I made this just for you. Enjoy." Ridicule and mockery - particularly universal ridicule and mockery - are pretty powerful tools for rendering their bitching impotent and shame really would make it harder for them to recruit (if we weren't so fucking bad at integrating minorities into our communities, anyway).

3) None of this is really relevant. Prak's reasoning generalizes, and it generalizes into fucking absurdity. I have no idea if any of Charlie Hebdo's content is genuinely racist, and it doesn't matter, because Prak will still be wrong once we know the answer, regardless of what the answer is.

[Prak]

Actually, honestly, my position is "these are not depictions of racist beliefs," ie, as if it were a character who is racist, but rather are racist depictions of people.

I get that it's supposed to be satire, but it doesn't feel like "Hey, we're making fun of people who genuinely believe this shit!" so much as "Hey, we're making fun of everyone in the most offensive way possible, but it's everyone so it's all cool! Aren't we so hilarious and edgy!?" which only really works when you attack people for opinions, rather than basing the depiction on a stereotypical physical appearance and you're actually funny. I've seen literally fewer than five South Park episodes, but I've never gotten the impression that they make fun of black public figures by giving them giant lips and a craving for watermelon (I could be wrong on this, I admit).

So if it's satire, and the racist depictions are in play as a satirization of other peoples' racist opinions and beliefs then... it's not particularly funny, and when you're in a country that has a history of being blatantly anti-(group you so often make fun of with caricatures based on stereotypes), maybe you should, you know, find another way to make fun of people. Or at least improve your art so you don't have to fall back on this shit.

I guess my overall point is that it's fucking boorish, and they should be better- either better artists or better satirists.

edit: I accidentally a word.

[Kaelik]

Actually, honestly, my position is "these are not depictions of racist beliefs," ie, as if it were a character who is racist, but rather are racist depictions of people.

I get that it's supposed to be satire, but it doesn't feel like "Hey, we're making fun of people who genuinely believe this shit!" so much as "Hey, we're making fun of everyone in the most offensive way possible, but it's everyone so it's all cool! Aren't we so hilarious and edgy!?" which only really works when you attack people for opinions, rather than basing the depiction on a stereotypical physical appearance and you're actually funny. I've seen literally fewer than five South Park episodes, but I've never gotten the impression that they make fun of black public figures by giving them giant lips and a craving for watermelon (I could be wrong on this, I admit).

So if it's satire, and the racist depictions are in play as a satirization of other peoples' racist opinions and beliefs then... it's not particularly funny, and when you're in a country that has a history of being blatantly anti-(group you so often make fun of with caricatures based on stereotypes), maybe you should, you know, find another way to make fun of people. Or at least improve your art so you don't have to fall back on this shit.

I guess my overall point is that it's fucking boorish, and they should be better- either better artists or better satirists.

edit: I accidentally a word.

I CAN'T READ FRENCH SO IT ISN'T SATIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Prak]

Jackass, you're treating this like it's ancient sanskrit. Sure, I'm not fluent in French, but it's not like it's a dead language, there are translations and explanations of this shit. I get that it's meant to be satirical, but I'm not sold on the "they're satirizing other peoples' racist attitudes! TOTALLY different!" argument, and even so, I don't think it's successful satire. Partially because if that's their intent it's so easily mistaken as a statement of the artist's beliefs rather than satire of someone else's.

I mean, they seriously published a cartoon that broke down to "It's fine that little muslim boy died, he'd only have grown up to be a sexual predator!" I could see that sort of crap coming from Donald Trump's face-mounted shithole, but if an editorial cartoonist wants to comment on the fact that it sounds like something Trump would say, they need to show Trump saying that, or attribute the sentiment to him in some way. Especially in a world where politics from one country will be picked up on by media in another, where the average person doesn't necessary get the climate.

You can call it satire, and I'm not saying it isn't, I'm saying that it's unsuccessful, and offensive and the artists should really either improve, or find something else. I personally don't think it's satirizing someone else's bigoted beliefs and is instead a reflection of ingrained racism of the artists, but I recognize it's an attempt at satire. It's just a shitty one. Much like my first (several) draft(s) when I write game mechanics.

[Kaelik]

Jackass, you're treating this like it's ancient sanskrit. Sure, I'm not fluent in French, but it's not like it's a dead language, there are translations and explanations of this shit. I get that it's meant to be satirical, but I'm not sold on the "they're satirizing other peoples' racist attitudes! TOTALLY different!" argument, and even so, I don't think it's successful satire. Partially because if that's their intent it's so easily mistaken as a statement of the artist's beliefs rather than satire of someone else's.

You aren't sold that it's satire because you steadfastly refuse to learn what the words mean, what they are referring to, and what the context of the conversation it.

It might as well be sanskirt as far as you are concerned, because while you can't possibly know what sanskirt means, you refuse to learn what they mean, which makes you just as ignorant.

Especially in a world where politics from one country will be picked up on by media in another, where the average person doesn't necessary get the climate.

IT CAN'T BE SATIRE BECAUSE I'M NOT FRENCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Prak]

Ok. Looking at www.UnderstandingCharlieHebdo.com, I must admit that I was misreading some of their intent for lack of full context. On the other hand, the thought process behind the Boko Haram cover is so fucking bizarre, I'm not sure that some French readers didn't need it explained to them. Ditto the quenelle cover.

The Racist Blue Union cover... I'm personally of the opinion that any time you're depicting a black person as a monkey, you need to go back to the drawing board. But I get the context, and so it's merely distasteful, and maybe they could have thought for more than two seconds and come up with a better approach to the topic. But that might cut into their crepe habit, and we're talking about people who don't understand "just because you can doesn't mean you should" and that their freedom to draw Mohammad means that millions of Muslims have to deal with seeing something their religion says shouldn't be down when they're just trying to go through their day.

So, fine, I was wrong about their intent. And I didn't realize it because I'm not fluent in French so a cursory glance doesn't give the full joke. ... And some of this shit is just truly bizarre over-developed "jokes."

So, alright, I was wrong. But they still have a tendency to use physical stereotypes as a code for minorities, and they are still a bunch of privileged white guys, and they still should maybe find a better way to say "hey guys, we're talking about Muslims!" than drawing an Arab guy.

And they should maybe not put Mohammad on the cover, even though "hey, he's covering his eyes, we're not depicting the prophet!" I'd kind of an amusing dodge.

[Kaelik]

and they still should maybe find a better way to say "hey guys, we're talking about Muslims!" than drawing an Arab guy.

And all those american political cartoons should find a better way of portraying soliders than people in military uniforms, and better way of showing native americans than people with headresses, and a better way of showing republicans than elephants, and a better way of portraying trump than a guy with overly pronounced lips and a weird haircut.

Or you know, they can keep using drawings to depict things like a cartoon.

we're talking about people who don't understand "just because you can doesn't mean you should" and that their freedom to draw Mohammad means that millions of Muslims have to deal with seeing something their religion says shouldn't be down when they're just trying to go through their day.

...

And they should maybe not put Mohammad on the cover, even though "hey, he's covering his eyes, we're not depicting the prophet!" I'd kind of an amusing dodge.

Wholly shit you are so fucking dumb. You are the dumbest of dumbs. You are so dumb it makes my brain hurt knowing that your dumbness exists.

1) It's not against the muslim religion for non-muslims to draw mohammed. The prohibition against depictions is meant to prevent idol worship. It applies to muslims, not everyone in the universe.

2) Yeah, all those poor Muslims have to see the inside of even cover of Charlie Hebdo magazines all the time, they just can't possibly avoid it all up in their space. Just like porn companies shouldn't put porn on the internet, because it's making all the Mormons in Utah deal with something they think shouldn't exist!

3) Even if the prohibition against depictions did apply to non Muslims, and even if Charlie Hebdo was, instead of small circulation weekly magazine, actually a giant billboard in the middle of Times Square, it would still be not at all something you "shouldn't" do to depict muhammed.

Because when crazy people make up rules and tell you that they apply to you, and that showing them things they don't want to see offends them, you draw mohammed if you want to Get gay married anyway.

For sakes you idiot, you are literally advocating a level of censorship which requires you to self identify as male because the concept of you having a fluid gender would be offensive to the same people who are offended by pictures of mohammed.

[Prak]

I'm advocating polite consideration of the beliefs of one's fellow citizens, your saying that's super unreasonable, and I'm the dumbest of the dumb?

Wow.

All I'm saying is that just because Chebdo himself isn't Muslim, and thus has no personal belief that the prophet should not be depicted, doesn't mean that is not somewhat rude to people who do believe that to put it on the cover of a periodical that will be on newsstands. I'm proposing a level of proprity akin to "a statistically significant number of people don't want to see dicks when they're picking up their coffee, so maybe we should keep dicks off the cover of our magazine."


Edit: fucking Swype.

[Kaelik]

All I'm saying is that just because Prak himself isn't Muslim, and thus has no personal belief that gender fluidity should not be depicted or exist, doesn't mean that is not somewhat rude to prior(people?) who do believe that to put it on the cover of a periodical that will be on newsstands. I'm proposing a level of proprity akin to "a statistically significant number of people don't want to see transgender people exist when they're picking up their coffee, so maybe we should keep transgender people off the cover of our magazine."

Fixed that for you.

You fucking transphobist genderfluid hating monster.

[TiaC]

and they still should maybe find a better way to say "hey guys, we're talking about Muslims!" than drawing an Arab guy.

And all those american political cartoons should find a better way of portraying soliders than people in military uniforms, and better way of showing native americans than people with headresses, and a better way of showing republicans than elephants, and a better way of portraying trump than a guy with overly pronounced lips and a weird haircut.

Or you know, they can keep using drawings to depict things like a cartoon.

While Prak's position is definitely going too far, there is a seed of something that makes sense. The offensive parts must be relevant to the satire. So, if your satire is about opposition to Black Lives Matter, then there could be a place for a watermelon-eating black man with big lips to make the racism obvious. However, if your satire is about opposition to the Iran deal and you depict Obama that way, that's an issue.

(Also, there are definitely some groups that can be easily depicted without relying on offensive symbols and some that can't. This is also an issue, but it's not really in the scope of this conversation.)

[Kaelik]

(Also, there are definitely some groups that can be easily depicted without relying on offensive symbols and some that can't. This is also an issue, but it's not really in the scope of this conversation.)

If you can think of any possible way for a comic to depict "a generic muslim" that is even less offensive than a stereotypical arab headdress, I'd love to know what it is. Because I sure can't.

(There is some contention that they draw muslims which racial stereotypes, but honestly, most anything you can point to they also applied to the pope and jews and those two white people walking a slave in the surrogacy one, so I'm not sure that's true.)

[Prak]

On the one hand, saying "you know, it'd be polite to not piss all over (religion) by putting (blasphemous depiction of religious symbol/figure) on magazine covers they're going to see in the course of going about their day" doesn't involve denying people's identities. So it's a bit false equivalence to replace "Mohammad" with "genderqueer." I would draw the line between "involves a part of the religion in question" and "involves something that the religion just finds squicky."

On the other hand, if we replace "depiction of Mohammad" with "Piss Christ," I would say that Christians can jolly well grow the fuck up. Is there a label for an argumentative fallacy about carrying more about the minority than the majority? Because I admittedly committed it super hard. And as much as I wish people didn't advertise their Christianity on their fucking cars with twee self righteous bullshit... Eh, it's their shit.

My opinion really boils down to "how about we not shit on the law abiding Muslims just because the fundamentalist ones piss us off and and we can because freedom of speech?" I mean, fuck, yeah, freedom of speech, nothing's stopping you. But it's kind of dickish, and there's kind of plenty of dickishness in the world already, especially targeting Muslims in the US and France.

But... Then again, what even if the circulation of Charlie Hebdo? I've been assuming it's pretty large, but...

Edit- looks like Hebdo's circulation is about 280,000, which is roughly what some newspaper in the UK I've never heard of called The I does, or what The Guardian fell too in 2010. And most of that is subscriptions.

So, fuck, whatever. You could put a photo of Mohammad painted on Miley Cyrus' crotch on the cover of CHebdo, and most Muslims in France would probably only know when the media commented on it.

[Kaelik]

Honestly, I don't know, but its a weekly magazine in an age when the internet exists, so I'm going to guess fuck and all.

(I suspected it recently shot up to 9000% normal sales during the Je Suis Charlie thing, and has since drastically declined to some number a lot closer to it's original circulation).

[Korwin]

My opinion really boils down to "how about we not shit on the law abiding Muslims just because the fundamentalist ones piss us off and and we can because freedom of speech?" I mean, fuck, yeah, freedom of speech, nothing's stopping you. But it's kind of dickish, and there's kind of plenty of dickishness in the world already, especially targeting Muslims in the US and France.

From an practical (survival oriented) point of view, I would say it's more important not to piss of the fundamentalist*, because they might actually go out and kill you.

*regardless of the which religion we are talking about.


On the other hand, if everybody gives the fundamentals what the wanted, europe might still be dominated by the vatican.

[maglag]

More like we would be still worshiping animals and abstract gods of nature.

Fucking monotheistic youngsters. How dare they suggest that there's not dozens of gods and that we shouldn't perform human sacrifices in bloody altars?

Ahem, anyway religion can be a pretty dangerous thing. Fundamentalists need somewhere to rally recruits from.

Making people able to laugh and make fun about their own religion should make them a lot less prone to blowing themselves up in the name of said religion. If you're laughing and making fun of it, you're not considering it super serious business worty-dying-and-killing-for.

[TiaC]

(Also, there are definitely some groups that can be easily depicted without relying on offensive symbols and some that can't. This is also an issue, but it's not really in the scope of this conversation.)

If you can think of any possible way for a comic to depict "a generic muslim" that is even less offensive than a stereotypical arab headdress, I'd love to know what it is. Because I sure can't.

(There is some contention that they draw muslims which racial stereotypes, but honestly, most anything you can point to they also applied to the pope and jews and those two white people walking a slave in the surrogacy one, so I'm not sure that's true.)

That's rather my point. It's a problem that the only way to indicate that someone is Native American is to give them feathers in their hair. Like, we can show people from Japan without making them bucktoothed like they did in the 40s, so we should be able to get past this too.

[Kaelik]

(Also, there are definitely some groups that can be easily depicted without relying on offensive symbols and some that can't. This is also an issue, but it's not really in the scope of this conversation.)

If you can think of any possible way for a comic to depict "a generic muslim" that is even less offensive than a stereotypical arab headdress, I'd love to know what it is. Because I sure can't.

(There is some contention that they draw muslims which racial stereotypes, but honestly, most anything you can point to they also applied to the pope and jews and those two white people walking a slave in the surrogacy one, so I'm not sure that's true.)

That's rather my point. It's a problem that the only way to indicate that someone is Native American is to give them feathers in their hair. Like, we can show people from Japan without making them bucktoothed like they did in the 40s, so we should be able to get past this too.

You really can't though.

The headdress is pretty much the least offensive method you could possibly use in a drawing to label a person as a native american. Because the only other option is exaggerated stereotypical physical features.

Headdress is a step up from bucktooth, because it at least isn't a part of the person, but there is no step up from there.

If you think that cartoons shouldn't be allowed to use a headdress/turban, you basically are committed to the claim that cartoons can't talk about native americans ever, and that if you want to mention them at all you have to write an article.

If your position is that "cartoons are inherently racist" then I mean... I guess that's consistent, but I think the problem here might be with you.

[virgil]

That's rather my point. It's a problem that the only way to indicate that someone is Native American is to give them feathers in their hair. Like, we can show people from Japan without making them bucktoothed like they did in the 40s, so we should be able to get past this too.

For the Japanese, you don't need to do the buck teeth and glasses; just the epicanthic folds are usually enough. It's easy to add a subtle amount of physical distinction for someone to recognize an asian. Whereas a native american's physical distinctions have to be kind of dramatic for people to identify. I mean, just to compare...


You would believe it if you were told she was half-Japanese.


Whereas my own wife's tribe would frequently argue she wasn't half-Native

[TiaC]

If you can think of any possible way for a comic to depict "a generic muslim" that is even less offensive than a stereotypical arab headdress, I'd love to know what it is. Because I sure can't.

(There is some contention that they draw muslims which racial stereotypes, but honestly, most anything you can point to they also applied to the pope and jews and those two white people walking a slave in the surrogacy one, so I'm not sure that's true.)

That's rather my point. It's a problem that the only way to indicate that someone is Native American is to give them feathers in their hair. Like, we can show people from Japan without making them bucktoothed like they did in the 40s, so we should be able to get past this too.

You really can't though.

The headdress is pretty much the least offensive method you could possibly use in a drawing to label a person as a native american. Because the only other option is exaggerated stereotypical physical features.

Headdress is a step up from bucktooth, because it at least isn't a part of the person, but there is no step up from there.

If you think that cartoons shouldn't be allowed to use a headdress/turban, you basically are committed to the claim that cartoons can't talk about native americans ever, and that if you want to mention them at all you have to write an article.

If your position is that "cartoons are inherently racist" then I mean... I guess that's consistent, but I think the problem here might be with you.

My position is that one of the ways society is racist is that we can't identify marginalized groups in ways that aren't racist. This isn't cartoons' fault, but they express it. I'm not saying that cartoons are this horrible institution of racism that need to stop talking about these groups, just that the stereotypes they need to use to do so are fucked up.

You'll notice that the first statement you responded to here was a parenthetical aside that specifically said that it didn't fit in this conversation. This should have told you that I wasn't calling out cartoons as being anything. I was talking about visual representation in general.

[Kaelik]

I was talking about visual representation in general.

So yeah, if you think a visual representation of a human being is inherently racist, then the problem is with you.

[Occluded Sun]

I've seen literally fewer than five South Park episodes, but I've never gotten the impression that they make fun of black public figures by giving them giant lips and a craving for watermelon (I could be wrong on this, I admit).

IIRC they make fun of non-black people married to black public figures by giving them giant lips and a craving for watermelon.

(Which I've always found strange. Watermelon is utterly delicious. It's like making fun of English people by having them eat steaks and fish and chips. Well of *course* they're going to eat those things, as are most non-vegetarians!)

[hyzmarca]

Whereas my own wife's tribe would frequently argue she wasn't half-Native

I'd not argue with her over anything. I'd also back away very slowly until I was well outside of sword range while I was completely agreeing with her.