Charlottesville Words

I’ve been disturbed by the recent kerfuffle over some “offensive” cartoons in the Cavalier Daily, the student newspaper of the University of Virginia. Perhaps you read about the controversy in the Daily Progress:

The Cavalier Daily, the student-run newspaper of the University of Virginia, expressed regret Saturday for publishing two comic strips that offended Christians.

“It is never the intent of the Cavalier Daily to offend, and we regret having done so,” said a statement posted on the newspaper’s Web site.

On Thursday, the comic strip “TCB” by UVa students Eric Kilanski and Kellen Eilerts depicted Jesus Christ performing stand-up comedy while being crucified.

The next day, the strip showed God and the Virgin Mary having a discussion after having sex.

Neither Kilanski nor Eilerts have responded to a request for comment. A separate statement on the newspaper’s Web site said they “decline to comment on their work at this time.”

Both Thursday and Friday’s “TCB” strips were removed from the newspaper’s Web site Saturday and replaced with the newspaper’s statement.

The two cartoons drew a furious response from campus Christians and the National Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, which blasted the Cavalier Daily with a statement titled “The Hypocrites Are Back at UVa.” Several Christians complained that the strips were doubly offensive because Easter is right around the corner.

A statement has been appended to the comics page:

Cavalier Daily statement regarding recent comics

The Cavalier Daily sincerely regrets any offense readers may have taken to two recent comics in the strip TCB published March 13 and 14. The content of the Comics page reflects neither the views of the Managing Board nor of The Cavalier Daily as an institution. When the comics were considered for publication, they were deemed to have met The Cavalier Daily’s censorship criteria, which can be found at this address. It is never the intention of The Cavalier Daily to offend, and we regret having done so.

UPDATE (3/15/08): In light of recent and previous concerns, The Cavalier Daily will be reviewing its comics policy.

Comic artists’ statement regarding recent comics

The comic artists responsible for the March 13 and 14 TCB comic strips decline to comment on their work at this time.

It is now the comic that dare not speak its name.

Here’s what disturbs me. I was not aware that newspapers had “censorship criteria.” Maybe I’m naive, but I thought just the opposite — that journalists fought against censorship with all their might, even risking jail time. So I looked up these censorship criteria, which are dated April 24, 2006:

In light of recent comics and columns that have stirred controversy, we would like to articulate our standards for the censorship of columnists or graphics artists.

Above all, we emphasize that comics, editorial cartoons and columns represent only the opinions of their authors. We urge readers who object to first contact those authors about their own viewpoints.

Our job as editors is not to judge all opinions on whether we agree. We censor very infrequently because we are committed to the First Amendment and the freedom of expression of our staff. When we are judging whether to censor a member of our staff, we use three major criteria.

First, does the author truthfully depict a verifiable historical or contemporary situation? If not, and the context of the work is creative, we ask two more questions. Does the author make a serious, intentional point, the censoring of which would constitute viewpoint discrimination? Also, does the author criticize or make light of a group of people for any reason other than their own opinions or actions?

While it is more than appropriate to criticize or satirize opinions, including religious ones, this policy seeks to limit material that criticizes people for traits or situations they cannot change. Recent decisions we have made rest on our judgment that the material in question has passed the previous test.

We make all these decisions to the best of our knowledge. Anyone is welcome to disagree. We make the best judgments we can and encourage those who disagree to contact the author or us, write a letter to the editor or contact the ombudsman. Our comic artists’ criteria for what’s funny will always be a mystery, but our criteria for censoring them are no longer.

It seems obvious that the cartoons as described sail past these criteria. It’s creative work, with a point (perhaps not much of one, but a point), and the people who are being criticized are criticized on the basis of their own opinions. It’s OKAY to poke fun at people or institutions on the basis of their freely held beliefs. It’s okay to interrogate those beliefs. That’s freedom of speech. That’s a free society. Nevertheless, the Cavalier Daily has decided to censor the cartoon and review their policies.

But what do I know? I’m just a consumer in a society in which the depiction of a sacred symbol is permissible if it’s a two-hour torturefest with a $600 million worldwide gross, but not if it’s a one-panel piece of ephemera. Maybe my values are skewed. So I asked an actual cartoonist, Jen Sorensen of Slowpoke Comics, to comment:

As with the last controversy — you can read my comments on the C-VILLE web site — I think people are overreacting. The cartoon is an unremarkable example of the “shock value” type of humor that seems increasingly prevalent today (think “South Park”). Its merits as an effective form of comedy can be debated; personally I find humor that says something about the world a lot more interesting.

When it comes to humor that is potentially offensive, the bar should be set a bit higher for dominant groups. In the case of this cartoon, one must note the dangerous political context in which it appears. The Religious Right in this country is cultivating a mythology that they are persecuted when they have never been more powerful. One price of being the dominant group is that you get to be the butt of jokes. It’s a small price to pay when you consider the alternatives.

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Filed under: art, charlottesville, media, publishing, virginia Tagged: | cartoons, Cavalier Daily, censorship, comics, Daily Progress, Jen Sorensen, Slowpoke Comics, University of Virginia, UVA