In response to the Iranian paper which is holding a “holocaust cartoon contest,” Amitai Sandy, a Jewish, Israeli cartoonist, has announced his own anti-Semitic cartoon contest, which only Jewish cartoonists may enter.
The contest has been announced today on the www.boomka.org website, and the initiators accept submissions of cartoons, caricatures and short comic strips from people all over the world. The deadline is Sunday March 5, and the best works will be displayed in an Exhibition in Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Sandy is now in the process of arranging sponsorships of large organizations, and promises lucrative prizes for the winners, including of course the famous Matzo-bread baked with the blood of Christian children.
Reuters story here. Curtsy: Freakonomics Blog and Hit and Run.
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Good luck Barry! May your work find favor with the evil minions of the International Zionist Conspiracy.
Well geeze, let us see what you’re going to submit! I promise not to burn down your home.
I understand the humour an’ all, but what I mostly think about in these mucked-up times is your “With God On Their Side” cartoon (republished in Attitude 2).
Aight, here it is.
Arrgh. Sorry. Call me humor-impaired, but this contest gives me the willies. I’m still reeling from the Jewish anti-war guy on another board who thought posting Holocaust jokes a couple of weeks ago would be fun. :/
I’m amazed a little that the Iranians don’t understand they’re making fools of themselves in front of the entire world. So, they’ll run their Holocause cartoons and no one will burn anything down and it will point out the differences in the cultures.
As for new anti-semitic cartoons, why not save time and just run the old Nazi cartoons?
Alsis: Call me humor-impaired, but this contest gives me the willies
Me, too. I understand Ampersand‘s humor when he pretends (I assume) to consider entering the contest. As for Amitai Sandy’s idea, I think its only worth is to make people who might support that Iranian paper reflect about their own silliness, but if he really intends to realize it, then it is as good as, say, making a blackface “minstrel show for the new Millenium” called Mantan.
Magis: As for new anti-semitic cartoons, why not save time and just run the old Nazi cartoons?
This is already the case: the cartoon reproduced in Amp’s post has been done a thousand times before 1933.
Jimmy, I’m not pretending; I fully intend to enter the contest, assuming that I don’t end up procrastinating past the deadline. (And I’ll certainly post the cartoon I draw on “Alas,” Josh, once I’ve drawn it).
You know, the idea reminded me of Bamboozled, too. But while Mantan was a travesty, Bamboozled is one of my favorite films. I’m hoping that this project will turn out to be more like the latter than the former.
I can only hope you are right, Amp (and I’m sure your entry will be a riot), but I am frankly skeptical: it’s not like antisemitism belongs to the past (here I hasten to say that I definitely don’t identify antizionism with antisemitism). Moreover, while absurd and usually on the meschugge side, there are a few antisemitic Jews (again, I am not talking about antizionist Jews, though those are not mutually exclusive).
In Bamboozled (a favorite of mine, too), what makes Peerless Dothan (Damon Wayans’ character)’ idea backlash is, basically, that he conceived his show as if American society were already colorblind, as if race and the socio-historical weight of slavery were no more an issue (Spike Lee’s approach is much sublter and better expressed, but I cannot elaborate right now).
The strength of Bamboozled, a satire, is to make us think about the consequences of losing control in the application of such clever, revolutionary concepts, that look great on the paper but forget to consider the audience and the surroundings. When I first read about Sandy’s project over at Eric Muller’s (IsThatLegal?), I thought it was powerful because it made one stop and think: “what if…?” The mere hypothesis stimulates a reflective process that might be lost if it becomes an actual contest.
(and I’m sure your entry will be a riot)
Oy, no pun intended, “honeste gad”.
Dear International Jewish Banking Conspiracy:
Please refer to the copies of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Las Vegas Sun I sent you regarding my August 20, 2005 marriage to a Jewish woman.
Where’s my damn money?
[roll on snare drum]
Amp, feel free to use Aaron’s letter in your cartoon submission– Just remember that I get the same exemption that I think Peter Kuper’s wife gets: I don’t want to be mentioned by name.
This is SO wrong!
(Mostly because I can’t wait to see Amp’s entry)
Well, you’re certainly in good company: see p. 53 of the Feb 27 New Yorker for Art Spiegelman’s entries. But I confess to sharing alsis’s case of the willies. How do you make an anti-Semitic cartoon funny? The only way I can see is to make it a parody of real anti-Semitic attitudes. But those are already so outrageous, in many cases, that it’s hard to imagine how to outdo them without being taken literally. Of course, it helps to be able to sign them with the name of the author of Maus, but still….
a tangent about cartoon interpretation: when I first saw this Perry Bible Fellowship strip, I was struck by what I thought was obvious antisemitistic stereotypes (Yiddisch accent and “spoiled Jewish Princess”), whic annoyed me, since I generally appreciate that cartoon. Only after some rereading did I get the Klimt/Jugendstil/Mucha reference. The strip is still pretty offensive for other reasons, though.