Charlie
Charlie Hebdo sets satirical sights on Donald Trump https://t.co/3kCw8oRBL8 pic.twitter.com/R8NwRkNtgF
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) November 19, 2016
The captions:
Did we have to give him the nuclear codes?
Obama: again a citizen like everyone else
H/t Katrina
I saw that more as a play on “nuclear button”, given the position of his finger…
If engaging in satire involves absolutely no risk or danger, then it isn’t satire; it’s mere childishness.
The last Arab\Muslim editor left CH in anger just ten days ago when the magazine officially declared its total irrelevance by announcing it’d no longer print any cartoons whatsoever of The Prophet.
And they capitalized “The prophet” in their statement.
No one even cares anymore if they ever bothered to capitalize “Donald Trump”
À propos des cartoons: a very long time ago there was a comic called (here) Dick Tracy, replete with stereotypes and futuristic gadgets (wrist-watch tv phone? Hellooo!) and a recurring character (a villain I think) called Flattop with a peculiar hairdo. So …
Oh sorry, must have lost track along the line. Ariadne, where art thou?
John – nonsense. Danger to the satirist is not part of the definition of satire. Don’t be silly.
Too slow again. But, John, I don’t really see your point. All I can see is some select front pages, as CH is not readily available here, but they seem to be in HAND MADE ALL CAPS. And, also, if you are aspiring to satire — where is the danger here for you, John?
Danger to the satirist is not part of the definition of satire. Don’t be silly.
Satire involves transgressing the powers that be, and such an enterprise involves involves an element of risk. If a satirist doesn’t punch above his\her weight then they’re not engaging in satire.
No, satire does not necessarily involve transgressing the powers that be. Some does, some doesn’t. It’s also not the case that transgressing the powers that be always entails risk. In some places it does, in others it doesn’t.
You’re just making shit up.
I’m willing to grant “transgressing the powers that be.” And given that, I grant “some risk.”
But “some risk” does not mean “obliged to risk the lives of your staff–again.”
Grant it how? As a universal and exclusive definition of satire? Satire always has to be a matter of transgressing the powers that be, and can’t be anything else? But that’s not true, so why grant it?
“Danger” and “risk” are difficult things to measure, especially without qualification. So I’ll use rhetoric instead. When I was growing up in the UK the foremost satirical TV show was Spitting Image. It involved creepy latex puppets of (mostly) politicians lampooning the issues of the day. It’s difficult to imagine how the people who worked on that show – puppeteers, the people who made the puppets, the people who worked and voiced them, the production staff, camera people, researchers, people who worked in the office…. were at or deserving of risk.
Unless the consequences of that risk involved, oh, I don’t know, a production assistant being shunned by a relative or something. Risks are different now, obviously, but that does not make it impossible to produce satire without risk.
Besides: satire can by childish and childishness can be satirical. And childishness can be fun. Probably a shitload more fun than satire, for the most part. Snowball fights. The joy of watching or holding kittens. The sheer delight of seeing something cool or making someone laugh.
If childishness isn’t our ally, I wan’t nothing to do with us.
“When just about every other magazine in the free world fails to uphold the values of free speech and the right to caricature and offend, who could expect a group of cartoonists and writers who have already paid such a high price to keep holding the line of such freedoms single-handed?
“Most of the people who said they cared about the right to say what they wanted when they wanted, were willing to walk the walk — to walk through Paris with a pencil in the air. Or they were willing to talk the talk, proclaiming ‘Je Suis Charlie.’ But almost no one really meant it.”
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9753/tolerance
@ Omar #11,
I know a good friend of El Rhazoui who confirms everything we’ve heard about her. She is a brave woman. A true secularist and a true feminist. ““As a woman in a male-dominated country, you sooner or later face a choice. You can comply, let yourself be cowed, and shut up, or you have to fight.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zineb_El_Rhazoui
Helene @ #12:
One can have ‘respect’ for the freedom of others to believe what they like (eg “there is no god but God…..Mohammad….. prophet.”). But the moment one is forced by that liberality, respect etc to hold one’s tongue on certain issues (eg Islam and the inclination of roughly 20% of its faithful to condone murder and mayhem) then one ceases to be true to oneself, and one’s life to that extent becomes a pretence and a lie.
Muslims living in the west IMHO who are not prepared to concede on that point should be shown the door.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9791/france-islamization