A cartoon likening the author of the stimulus bill, perhaps President Barack Obama, with a rabid chimpanzee graced the pages of the New York Post on Wednesday. The drawing, from famed cartoonist Sean Delonas, is rife with violent imagery and racial undertones. In it, two befuddled-looking police officers holding guns look over the dead and bleeding chimpanzee that attacked a woman in Stamford, Connecticut.
“They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill,” reads the caption.
An email to Delonas and a call to the New York Post went unreturned. The cartoon appears both on the New York Post website and page 12 of the Wednesday paper. At its most benign, the cartoon suggests that the stimulus bill was so bad, monkeys may as well have written it. Others believe it compares the president to a rabid chimp. Either way, the incorporation of violence and (on a darker level) race into politics is bound to be controversial. Perhaps that’s what Delonas wanted.
Huh….what were they thinking?
I get what they were “thinking” (if you can call it that.) Poking fun at congress not Obama, ya know the guys who wrote all that pork spending. They just didn’t think enough about it as to how much the screw ball born again victims who LOVE taking stuff like this outta context.
This cartoon was in bad taste and the animal attack was tragic. I guess this is the kind of thing we can expect to happen when people spank their monkey.
Special Ed – No one spanked the monkey… the monkey spanked them.
Well, I fear you have to be a bit racist to understand a racist cartoon.
If the “sophisticated reference” was to excessive spending a la “pork” why would the shooting victim not be a pig?
No, its an ape. The little bit racist in me says it can only mean a negro and not flattering as the victim is not a dove symbolizing bipartisanship?
No–its racism. or could it be just the chance outcome of a mash-up of the two most recent headlines and the author suffers from not being a racist at all?
I’ll vote for racist and the author thinking his “art” covers all sins.
This shows that this PC thing has gone too far. Those that read this a racist image are exposing the racism in their own heads. It’s like a Rorscach test.
Live with it?
A bit too obscure for me. Are you sure it wasn’t an advertisement for deodorant or perfume or a car?
#7–John==and aren’t all artists charged with knowledge of that Rorschach response? Either that or EVERYTHING an artist renders means absolutely nothing and all the readers just make things up?
Is that your position John?
#6. bobbo- Yeah, I have to agree. Sorry guys, you’d have to be a little slow to not see the underlying intent.
How many times did we see Bush portrayed as a chimp? That picture isn’t Obama drawn as a monkey, it’s just a monkey. Totally unoffensive.
I agree with #7 – if you’re hyper-sensitized to racism, you see it everywhere.
#12–brm==hahahahahahahahah
Yes, kiddies BushtheRetard when portrayed as an ape had to have his face caricatured or the monkey labeled as Bush because BushtheRetard is a white boy.
No need to label the monkey as Obama because the meaning is well understood.
Does it ABSOLUTELY mean that? No.
Do you understand “political commentary” as more likely by design, random chance, or as devoid of meaning to be supplied by the readers?
Don’t be stupid.
#12. The primary difference being that Bush IS a chimp.
But seriously, you cannot believe what you just wrote. The artist is getting the attention he seeks. And I am certain he did this on purpose.
Bobbo try to understand that the artist takes on crazy news story about a crazy monkey and implies that the stimulus package is so badly designed that it must have been designed by a crazy monkey. While I don’t agree that the package is that bad I appreciate a good joke.
Now in the past there were racists who openly equated african americans with jungle creatures. I’m sure such racists still exist but they aren’t as open about their feeling since they know most people would disapprove. However I’m sure they would see this cartoon as a symbol of their own racist beliefs.
So my point is that this is a simple joke. If you see it as racist then it reflects an association that’s in your head, not something intended by the artist.
I must have missed something from the drawing. I didn’t equate it to racism, just a bad joke emanating from the recent chimp attack on the owners friend.
How screwed up do you have to be to think it was a reference to Obomba.
>Now in the past there were racists who openly equated african americans with jungle creatures. I’m sure such racists still exist but they aren’t as open about their feeling since they know most people would disapprove.
No, people do this all the time, but they express the attitude towards black Republicans, and the PC crowd enjoys it.
#15–John==I admire your naivete. How old are you?
My first post agreed with your position.
But you should not commit the error I avoided and make the same error you complain of.
IE==who really knows what was in the artists mind, and more importantly, is that even relevant?
Does art mean what the artist meant, or does it mean what the readers perceive? Is the artist charged only with his own meaning, or with what some likely percentage of the readers will perceive? What about his editors?
Why was the same caption not used with a picture of two colliding nuclear submarines? Why was the same caption not used with a picture of that volcano that is erupting?
Why did the artist make a connection with the shooting of a monkey with Obama’s stimulus plan?
You can wander the world a la Alex in Wonderland with nothing meaning anything, or you can try to make some connections==especially regarding a POLITICAL FRICKING CARTOON!!!
For extra credit, we could do a search of the cartoonist other cartoons and let our prejudices loose on them too.
As to your naivete–there are worse things in the world, but no reason to draw attention to it.
#16–diesel==”I must have missed something from the drawing” /// yea, I think that was 8th grade.
Obama is exactly as much chimp and GW is and should be treated with exactly as much respect as GW is treated. That’s what Obama wants – an equal country.
Dear Attorney General Holder,
You say Americans are a nation of cowards, and say Americans won’t talk about race. Well here’s why.
#18 bobbo
Your thought process or whatever you call it is dizzying. However, you did get one message across and that is you sure use a lot of words to say nothing.
#22–contempt==you don’t see how I layered it in there? Like cartoons for kids that adults can watch too?
I must be slipping.
OK, always wanting to run with the pack:
I don’t get the cartoon at all because chimpanzees don’t write stimulus bills. Is that the kind of engagement you are looking for?
OK. lets pretend then. In fact, the cartoon doesn’t mean anything. But what “could” it mean?
While I find the racist aspect a stretch, but understandable, the joke would have been just as funny with a dead Bozo the clown. Funnier maybe.
Rundown on New York newspapers:
1. NY Post: blue-collar, conservative racist paper
2. NY Wall Street Journal: white-collar, conservative racist paper
3. NY Times: liberal, egalitarian, worldly paper
4. NY Daily News: liberal, egalitarian, local paper
This cartoonist was being niggardly.
And look at the top part of the picture. I tell you that’s Obama’s ear and mouth.
The stimulus package was so good they rushed it through without bothering to let the people who voted for it read it. Then it was so urgent the President could wait a few days to sign it.
Isn’t that how we got the privous hunk of crap spending bill?
Um, Isn’t that how we ended up in Iraq?
Is GM back asking for more money?
Is Fanny May and Freddie Mac going to get another 400 billion?
Do these people learn from their mistakes?
Are your kids and grandkids going to be able to afford an empty tin can to drink out of?
#23 bobbo
Just because you think of Obama when you see a chimp pretty much says it all… not that there’s anything wrong with that. “chuckle”
GOD I love FREE SPEECH!!!!! Always good for a quick laugh. People get offended need to get a sense of humour and stop taking themselves so seriously. Or better not, it’s funnier that way!
Saaay, I just noticed you guys have really fixed up the place, I see. Fresh flowers, darker paint, new resolve, Obama altar, collectible Biden bobblehead.
But something else is different… what is it?
Eideard, It’s a new hairpiece, isn’t it?
That’s got to be a new hairpiece.
Uncle Dave, new makeup? You’ve had a lift.
JCD, You’ve had a tuck. You’ve had something. Something has been inserted in your skin that makes you look like…
Of course… of course. No one is referring to President Bush as “Chimp-in-Chief” anymore.. Not even plain chimp. No monkey, no ape. no simian. Whatsupwithat? Oh, I know. It’s gotta be Obama’s new, respectful way of doing things in America. I read about that:
“And verily the Great Man didst cast a virtuous shadow upon His Chosen People, the Inauguralites. Lookesting unto heaven, He spoketh: “On this day … we gather because … we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.” Ooops. Wrong speech.
Cue wiggly-screen effect and harp music.
DU May 13th, 2008
http://tinyurl.com/aulemn
Let’s read my favorite parts again… shall we?
RBG: Mister Mustard, You know, it could be time to change the chimp references for Bush.
Smartalix: To call Bush a chimp is an insult to the man’s INTELLIGENCE.
J: Calling the president a chimp is not racist.
RBG: In view of the fact that a Black(ish) man may about to be a president of the United States, it is completely uncool to refer to a current president on the opposing team as a monkey. Because it so naturally produces an obvious and unneeded stereotypical & racist backlash by cretins. …
No one should be calling them monkeys, or niggardly, or anything else remotely racist or ambiguously suggestive in the context of a Black presidential opponent. Do you understand why? Do I still need to be more clear? Because I’ll keep going if I have to as part of a perceived duty to humanity.
Mister Mustard: RBG, start making sense.
J: Dude. You are way off your rocker
Let’s see, that covers… I told you so… check. Those who live by the sword should not cast stones …check. Leaving only HYPOCRISY (hi-pok-ruh-see) noun, probably derived from the word “hypoxia,” as in not enough oxygen getting to the liberal brain.
RBG
(Or is it those who live in glass houses will die by the sword?)