Red rags to a bull
Okay, so now everybody's blogging about the cartoons. I view the republication of them in a different light to their original publication. I don't buy the high moral ground argument of freedom of expression. Am I being cynical when I think there's more to it than that? Newspapers are in the business of selling newspapers. Losing ground to the internet on a daily basis, they are getting themselves lots of publicity (and maybe even sales!!!) and really stealing the thunder from the web in running with this. The story has moved on. What we need now are cartoons that lampoon the story as it is now, not what is effectively old news. The one that appeared in Le Monde, for example, is what I mean by a cartoonist running with the story (the link is to a neat little slide show of the original offending cartoons and others on the same theme). Stevel Bell's cartoon in the Guardian on Friday went over my head, I'm afraid.
I guess the closest thing in recent western society - apart from the Jerry Springer Opera - is Andres Serrano's Piss Christ. At the time there was a joke going around in the US: what's the difference between art and pornography? The latter gets a government grant! Outraged Christians mobilised to protest this "blasphemy" but none of the protesting came close to the scenes we've witnessed in the last few days.
Here's US satirist Bill Maher taking a knock at a religio when he stood in for Larry King on his CNN show on August 11, 2005. Discussing his own religious views, he stated that he was an agnostic with an open mind as to God's existence. Then he took a call:
CALLER: "Hi. Well, my question is, the Lord spoke to me approximately three years ago, and if the Lord spoke to you [Maher], I was wondering if you'd become a believer."
MAHER: "No, I'd check into Bellevue, which is what you should do..."
He then addressed any scientologists that might have been watching to make his stance clear:
"You [a Scientologist], like all religious people, have a neurological disorder. And the only reason why people think it's sane is because so many other people believe the same thing. It's sanity by consensus."
I talk to God too, but I'm pretty much with Maher on this one. Anyway, all hope isn't lost. The Muslim extremists may yet see the light. After all, the Danish newspaper that published the cartoons used to be a Nazi-party supporting, dictatorship-advocating, right-wing publication!!!
I guess the closest thing in recent western society - apart from the Jerry Springer Opera - is Andres Serrano's Piss Christ. At the time there was a joke going around in the US: what's the difference between art and pornography? The latter gets a government grant! Outraged Christians mobilised to protest this "blasphemy" but none of the protesting came close to the scenes we've witnessed in the last few days.
Here's US satirist Bill Maher taking a knock at a religio when he stood in for Larry King on his CNN show on August 11, 2005. Discussing his own religious views, he stated that he was an agnostic with an open mind as to God's existence. Then he took a call:
CALLER: "Hi. Well, my question is, the Lord spoke to me approximately three years ago, and if the Lord spoke to you [Maher], I was wondering if you'd become a believer."
MAHER: "No, I'd check into Bellevue, which is what you should do..."
He then addressed any scientologists that might have been watching to make his stance clear:
"You [a Scientologist], like all religious people, have a neurological disorder. And the only reason why people think it's sane is because so many other people believe the same thing. It's sanity by consensus."
I talk to God too, but I'm pretty much with Maher on this one. Anyway, all hope isn't lost. The Muslim extremists may yet see the light. After all, the Danish newspaper that published the cartoons used to be a Nazi-party supporting, dictatorship-advocating, right-wing publication!!!
posted by purefunction at 1:18 AM
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