Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Cartoon of naked Sharon devouring infant wins top U.K. prize.
...In his acceptance speech, Brown thanked the Israeli Embassy for its angry reaction to the cartoon, which he said had contributed greatly to its publicity.
Roger L. Simon has a letter he'd like the British Political Cartoon Society to read. [Edit: Good discussion, as usual, in the comments there.]
Honestly, I'm of two minds on this one. The cartoon is offensive, sad and just plain wrong. It's too bad that anyone gets anything positive out of the cartoon in question, or that it represents any reality...but is it "racist?" I'm going to have to say no. Sharon is recognizably Sharon in this one, unlike in other cartoons where he's drawn with an unfortunate facial feature.
Now, I think it's sad and disgusting that a British paper would feel (correctly) that this is a cartoon its readership would appreciate, and that a Cartoonist Society would reward, and maybe there's racism behind that, but is the cartoon itself racist? No.
