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[PdotMichael]

If only Charlie Hebdo would have a Stan character who tells the audience exactly what they are supposed to think.

 

[King Tubby]

No, I'm sure the point of the joke is "Ha, who cares if children die, they'll probably grow up to be child molesters anyway."

 

[Jon Carter]

It's both hilarious and infuriating to see so many people completely misunderstand this cartoon. No, it is not racist or against immigration.

No, I'm sure the point of the joke is "Ha, who cares if children die, they'll probably grow up to be child molesters anyway."

You don't know the first thing about Charlie Hebdo if this is what you're thinking.

EDIT: Sorry, saw post above. I'll leave this here because it applies to about half the posts in this thread that are actually serious.

 

[Infinite]

I don't get it.

 

[Alx]

It is obviously a satire of migrant hate. You have to be obtuse to not see that.

Let's ask Cabu :

On n’est pas des porteurs de messages. On est simplement des clowns, des saltimbanques

"We're not carrying a message. We're just clowns, entertainers."

 

[PdotMichael]

The joke about satire is that you don't even need to agree with it.

Too bad we are living in a world of memes and echo chambers.

 

[King Tubby]

Let's ask Cabu :

"We're not carrying a message. We're just clowns, entertainers."

Oh, well that settles it. While we're quoting from Wikipedia...

Charlie Hebdo (French pronunciation: ​[ʃaʁli ɛbdo]; French for Charlie Weekly) is a French satirical weekly magazine,[2] featuring cartoons,[3] reports, polemics, and jokes. Irreverent and stridently non-conformist in tone, the publication describes itself as above all secular and atheist,[4] far-left-wing,[5][6] and anti-racist[7] publishing articles about the extreme right (especially the French nationalist National Front party),[8] religion (Catholicism, Islam, Judaism), politics and culture. According to its former editor Stéphane Charbonnier ("Charb"), the magazine's editorial viewpoint reflects "all components of the plural left, and even abstainers".[9]

Sure sounds like the kind of people who don't give a fuck about refugee children.

Since everything Charlie Hebdo does must be taken at face value, I guess they must sincerely think immigrants should be used as foot stools.

 

[Alx]

The difference is I'm not quoting from Wikipedia, I'm quoting from the founder of the newspaper (I put the link to wikipedia for people who wouldn't know who Cabu is).
Also there is a difference between articles published in Charlie Hebdo and their cartoons.

 

[neorej]

Honest question to the people who think Charlie Hebdo is racist; do you believe Stephen Colbert is a racist, homophobe, misogynist Republican?

 

[Brakke]

Since everything Charlie Hebdo does must be taken at face value, I guess they must sincerely think immigrants should be used as foot stools.

Why take their statements about their mission at face value but not take their "message" at face value?

 

[ISOM]

In before people who don't understand satire accuse a bunch of pro-immigration liberals of being racist fascists.

Whoops, too late.

Lol that's barely going on. People are just confused and trying to get what the cartoon means. But don't let me stop your hyperbole.

 

[Mistouze]

Not_that_good_Charlie_Hebdo_satirical_drawing_taken_out_of_context_S05E02_HDTV.mkv

 

[King Tubby]

I'd just like to point out that the Cabu quote is basically the same sort of thing Jon Stewart would say about his work on the Daily Show.

Why take their statements about their mission at face value but not take their "message" at face value?

I must confess, I can only tell the difference because of my latent psychic abilities.

 

[pigeon interrupted]

Oh, well that settles it. While we're quoting from Wikipedia...



Sure sounds like the kind of people who don't give a fuck about refugee children.

Since everything Charlie Hebdo does must be taken at face value, I guess they must sincerely think immigrants should be used as foot stools.

It's satire: puts into pictures the abstract stereotypes and phobias people have. Comedy is a great tool to examine horrible things sometimes and it does do some good. As others have said: in context

Also people who are that familiar with local/international politics will give more fucks than you think about refugees

 

[Siegcram]

Paging Technomancer

 

[213372bu]

I get it, but it isn't really effective or good as satire, even though knowing what Charlie Hebdo's position is.

 

[Violet_0]

to be fair, GAF already struggles enough with PBF comics

 

[| Praxis |]

It is obviously a satire of migrant hate. You have to be obtuse to not see that.

Came to post this. People are reactionary though, and that makes them miss the point.

 

[Brakke]

I must confess, I can only tell the difference because of my latent psychic abilities.

Your abilities may be rarer than you think:

to be fair, GAF already struggles enough with PBF comics

 

[Des0lar]

Are people really struggling with this or what? Is French satire really that special?

Media pumps up dead boy in water and the public jumps to support immigration. Now we have people molesting women and the whole thing switches around, completely ignoring that there is still little boys out there dying and drowning by the hour.

It also plays on the "single migrant" stereotype where there was first the "poor dying refugee" only, this has changed to the "backwards misogynist Muslim" only. People often fail to realize that even refugees are just people and some are better people than others.

Finally it shows how public opinion and perception is an incredible fickle and forgetful thing, with little regard to the greater picture.

 

[Carcetti]

If only Charlie Hebdo would have a Stan character who tells the audience exactly what they are supposed to think.

Exactly. The dumbass 'satire' of South Park has made a lot of people unable to pick up any subtlety. Maybe satirists should start doing G.I. Joe style vignettes where the characters summarize the day's lesson in the simplest terms.

 

[Earthpainting]

This cartoon isn't as effective as it should be, because its message isn't clear enough. It's connecting the dots between two narratives European media were/are pushing, but doesn't really do much with it. It can either be a reminder of how Aylan was used as a symbol of accepting and helping the refugees, or it can be interpreted as the logical result of the two stories. I can easily see how some are struggling with the interpretation if you knew them as 'those racist cartoonists'.

Whatever it is, society's perception of the refugees can radically change depending on who is representing them on the front pages. Europe is currently in its "we should send them back where they came from if this is how they're going to act" phase, so the reminder that we shouldn't turn our backs to the refugees would be welcome. We were bound to culturally clash on some levels, but the civilised and humane thing would be to deal with the actual issues head on, and not turn on the refugees as a whole for the actions of some.

 

[Exodust]

Can't say I'm outraged or anything, would have liked it to be at least funny though.

Then again it's Charlie Hebdo, their parodies and jokes are usually pretty bad. Not bad in an offensive way, just bad in a quality way.

Honest question to the people who think Charlie Hebdo is racist; do you believe Stephen Colbert is a racist, homophobe, misogynist Republican?

I think the difference is that Colbert was very good at what he did.

 

[nilbog21]

You're giving Charlie Hebdo too much credit if you believe it's either an attack against migrants or a satire of the migrant hate... It's just humor based on shock value, like it or not. It's been their shtick since the beginning, and it's no better or worse than a dead baby joke (well technically, it IS a dead baby joke).

"What's red and taps on the window ? A baby in a microwave...". It's neither promoting putting babies in microwaves, nor mocking hypothetical people who do it, it's just using a horrible, unexpected twist to trigger a laugh.

LOL you couldn't be more off

My fav part of these Charlie hebdo threads is watching people passionately out themselves as idiots lol

 

[Kathian]

Its mocking the sudden change of public reaction from one extreme to another.

 

[Dryk]

I can easily see how some are struggling with the interpretation if you knew them as 'those racist cartoonists'.

I would actually love to see alternate universe versions of these threads where it was just a random unknown cartoonist. I feel like for every person that comes in with an opinion of "those racists cartoonists" there's at least one that only arrived at the conclusion that the picture is satire by working backwards from it coming from a known satirical publication.

 

[Alx]

LOL you couldn't be more off

My fav part of these Charlie hebdo threads is watching people passionately out themselves as idiots lol

I love having my own culture explained to me by foreigners.
Tell me, what do you think of the interpretation of the word "tripoteur" to "molester" ?

 

[nilbog21]

I love having my own culture explained to me by foreigners.
Tell me, what do you think of the interpretation of the word "tripoteur" to "molester" ?

Not sure what you mean. I'm french btw

 

[Izuna]

I get t joke, didn't laugh though

 

[Alx]

Not sure what you mean. I'm french btw

Que l'utilisation du mot "tripoteur" donne une image plus anodine de l'acte, plus proche de l'esprit soixante-huitard de Charlie Hebdo (de mecs comme Wolinski auraient bien été du genre à peloter n'importe qui avec un verre dans le nez). Ce qui va autant à l'encontre de l'interprétation "c'est du racisme" que "c'est pour se moquer du racisme".
C'est juste une blague de cul avec un enfant mort. Du Charlie, quoi.
Tous ceux qui ont commencé à lire Charlie depuis les attentats essaient de les voir plus profonds qu'ils ne sont. C'est juste des mecs un peu immatures qui se moquent de tout et n'importe quoi. C'est pas plus profond que le journal de Moustic.

 

[Reverend Funk]

Not sure how anyone is getting anything from the comic, it seems to be written in some foreign language?

 

[Ardenyal]

I get t joke, didn't laugh though

Yeah, because its in cartoon form we know that the dead baby is supposed to make us laugh.

 

[excelsiorlef]

I get it, but it isn't really effective or good as satire, even though knowing what Charlie Hebdo's position is.

That's my take.

 

[Exodust]

This is not a post condemning or supporting Charlie Hebdo. I just wanted to say that I find it extremely hilarious that somehow, someway people will defend any sort of thing as long as it's seen as satire. Parodies, lampoons and such seem to be completely shielded from criticism no matter how awfully executed they are. Is it the mix of the "you don get it" and the "you're playing right into their hands" quick judgement calls that does that? probably.

 

[Agent Gibbs]

I'm confused on the aim of this cartoon;
is it trying to point out the public's ever changing perception and feelings towards migrants? how we all felt bad for the poor child and now suddenly think all migrants are molesters?

Is it trying to point out similar, but with a twinge that perhaps we shouldn't have felt bad about the child? as he could have grown up to be anything? even those we despise?

Is it face value all migrants are molesters?

i just don't get it, its a bad carton as its too ambiguous and doesn't have the usual clear message you'd get from a satirical cartoon, well unless it is down right face value racist

 

[Izuna]

Yeah, because its in comic form we know that the dead baby is supposed to make us laugh.

The joke is that how public perception of migrants is hypocritical.

Not that I condone this cartoon.

 

[Baron Doggystyle von Woof]

Don't know why people would get angry about this, aside from being a shitty comic.

 

[airmangataosenai]

These guys were always shitty, but the Hebdo attacks suddenly gave their "art" much more importance than it deserved.

It would be best to just ignore them and move on, as those attackers that day should have done.

Basically this. It's untoward to go overboard attacking their organization after what happened, but I would never defend the content of what they publish.

 

[BaronLundi]

Oh, another one of those...

This piece didn't make me laugh but when I saw it I immediately thought of what a racist's thought process might be like and that it is exposed. Even if the poor boy who died were litteraly destined to be a molester (a causal link that is ridiculed by the cartoon), would it be reason enough to have let him die (which we, Europe, did let happen)?

I really have to shift my perspective to understand how this could be construed as anything but a charge against racist thinking. Then again, I realize that if the exact same piece was published in a far-right newspaper my own reaction would be different. Of course. This is what satire is about (but a racist outlet would not have written 'Tripoteur de fesses' ('Butt-groper'), it'd just say 'molester'...)

Also, please note what it says on the top of the page ('France isn't what people say'):

Without context or seeing the satarical hints, I understand how this piece would be seen as truly horrifying. Things get complicated when a niche 50k print run satirical newspaper heavily into dark and provocative humor gets worldwide exposure.

 

[ClosingADoor]

Maybe we should stop being angry about every little comic or cartoon in the world. Don't like it, don't read it. You can safely ignore a lot of things you don't like.

 

[Real Hero]

Exactly. The dumbass 'satire' of South Park has made a lot of people unable to pick up any subtlety. Maybe satirists should start doing G.I. Joe style vignettes where the characters summarize the day's lesson in the simplest terms.

It's not like this is much different than a throwaway south park joke. It's not exactly subtle either. People are just dumb

 

[Alx]

I'm confused on the aim of this cartoon;

Let me explain it this way.
In old courts, the King always had a jester, a buffoon. His only role was to make fun of everybody, including the King himself, and was the only one free to say whatever he wanted. He didn't have to be clever, or carry a message (actually he'd better not), he's just there to be funny. Still, his role was very important, because he was a distorting mirror in which the King could see the reality from a different point of view, and be reminded of his own flaws, that nobody else would dare mention.
That's the role cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo are playing in French culture. They're not overthinking things, just making jokes with whatever they can find. The more blunt and irreverent, the better. All reflexion and interpretation is just for you to make, when being exposed to that joke.
There was no aim to this cartoon, except for being funny. But it does raise questions about all the topics mentioned above, which is the reason why all people "get" it differently (or not at all).

 

[excelsiorlef]

There's something to be said about the fact that their satrical racism is not all that appreciated by the people their satire is supposed to defend.

The end result of this satire is that they still are publishing racist caricatures, satrical or not.

 

[DICKS AHOY]

Yeah, it's pretty gross, but I kind of read it as satire of people who think things like this. "He'd probably just have have grown up to be a killer/terrorist/etc anyway" is totally something xenophobic assholes would say.

That's sort of how I see most Charlie Hebdo cartoons. They definitely like to prod at religious fundamentalism in general though.

I think the language gap takes a way a lot of context, because you never have this same sort of backlash when something like South Park possibly cracks a similar joke, because we get where the writers are coming from with that and sarcasm can be more easily detected in our own language.

 

[Linkyn]

Although there could be some nuance to the French not conveyed

Not really. The question perhaps is how far back you want to go. Is it about the offenders, themselves? About the politicians that enabled them with their signs of goodwill? Or perhaps about the xenophobes on the rise in Europe? Putting everything together, the migrant crisis is a very complex issue, one which is probably not well conveyed in something as simple as a cartoon. At the very least, using a dead child to get your point across is a bit tasteless, imo, but again, how offensive it is to a person depends on the satire they read from it.

 

[Mr Waluigi]

I don't see what the issue is, besides Charlie Hebdo having no knowledge of what cleverness is. If anything the joke is pretty straight to the point and I'm confused that some people are taking it literally.

Everyone was offended that an immigrant child drowned, but then because of the recent event in Germany, people are changing their mind and don't want to take in immigrants after all. The cartoon says "yes, because if that kid didn't die he certainly would have grown to become a molester, obviously". It's satire and it's not even trying to be complicated. It's portraying the idea that some people have and showing how absurd it is by linking two recent events together.

I find it so depressing that THIS is the publication that sparked so much controversy and has garnered so much support for the (rightful) case of free speech, rather than an actual intelligent publication. If they are trying to be a "right-wing South Park" then they are doing a really shitty job at it as a lot of their cartoons are just tasteless and dumb.

lol

 

[Keasar]

Oh, another one of those...

This piece didn't make me laugh but when I saw it I immediately thought of what a racist's thought process might be like and that it is exposed. Even if the poor boy who died were litteraly destined to be a molester (a causal link that is ridiculed by the cartoon), would it be reason enough to have let him die (which we - Europe - did)?

I really have to shift my perspective to understand how this would be construed as anything but a charge against racist thought. Then again, I realize that if the exact same piece was published in a far-right newspaper my reaction would be different. Of course. This is what satire is about (but a racist outlet would not have written 'Tripoteur de fesses' ('Butt-groper?'), it'd just say 'molester'...)

Also, please note what is written on the top of the page ('France isn't what people say'):

http://i.imgur.com/sI7Kx29.png[IMG]

Without context or seeing the satarical hints, I understand how this piece would be seen as truly horrifying. Things get complicated when a niche 50k print run satirical newspaper heavily into dark and provocative humor gets worldwide exposure.[/QUOTE]

Wish I could read French.

Anyway yes, without context, knowledge of satire and understanding the language, it is very clear that Charlie Hebdo is not intended for a worldwide market. I have serious doubt that they mean to say anything racist and if their humour doesn't entertain, it isn't for you.

 

[Yrael]

Regardless of the cartoon's intent, the little boy's aunt is devastated by it:

"I hope people respect our family's pain. It's a big loss to us. We're not the same anymore after this tragedy. We're trying to forget a little bit and move on with our life. But to hurt us again, it's not fair," said Tima Kurdi from her home in Port Coquitlam, B.C.

Tima Kurdi said she hadn't yet spoken with Abdullah Kurdi, Alan Kurdi's father, in Kurdistan, but she's concerned about how he'll react when he sees it.

"I'm sure it will hurt him a lot. I was in tears when I was reading about it, so I'm worried about Abdullah," she said.

Kurdi said her advice is to simply ignore the cartoon.

"It's disgusting, but everyone has their opinion," she said. "They like to express their feelings, and they've done it before. I hope they won't do it again."

I am in agreement with this take from Max Fisher writing for Vox:

1) On the surface, the cartoon appears to argue that had Kurdi survived his journey to Europe, he would grow up to sexually assault women in Germany. However, it seems highly likely to me that Charlie Hebdo is not championing this anti-refugee sentiment but rather satirizing it. Their "point" here is that European anti-refugee sentiment, when laid bare, ultimately leads to the ridiculous and indeed hateful idea that even Kurdi is a threat to European women.

As I have written previously, this sort of two-step satire — portraying a ridiculous idea not to endorse it but rather to mock the people who hold it — is both a long-held theme of Charlie Hebdo's work and a common trope within French satire broadly. And Charlie Hebdo has deployed this tactic particularly when it comes to refugee issues — on which the magazine is quite liberal.

2) Still, even if the ultimate message of this cartoon is to argue against anti-refugee hysteria and to champion the rights of refugees in Europe, it is nonetheless tasteless. Portraying [Alan] Kurdi as a young man with a pig nose who is sexually assaulting German women, even ironically, is tasteless. Using Kurdi's death and the Cologne sexual assault crisis to hit at your political opponents, even if it's those opponents who have the hateful views, is tasteless. Even if you ultimately agree that the magazine's desired political point is correct, it does not make the means of getting there acceptable.

To again reference my past writing on Charlie Hebdo, this was one of the central problems in the magazine's supposedly progressive satire. Even if the ultimate political aims were about defending the disenfranchised, it still exploited them along the way, and treated them with a callousness that few members of those targeted communities would appreciate.

3) The cartoon does allow for misinterpretation, and would be easy to misread as endorsing rather than satirizing the idea that [Alan] Kurdi would have grown up to sexually assault European women. As was to be expected, this has sparked yet another round of Twitter debates as to whether these misreadings are the fault of Charlie Hebdo or of oversensitive readers who are unable to grasp satire.

I will concede that my sympathies in this particular case lean toward those who put this burden on Charlie Hebdo rather than on readers, given how foreseeable those misinterpretations should have been, as well as the hurt it would inevitably cause the millions of people who've seen family members, like Kurdi, die trying to cross the Mediterranean. Even if that's pain rooted in misunderstanding, it's pain that is nonetheless real and seems to have gone unconsidered here.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

I find it so depressing that THIS is the publication that sparked so much controversy and has garnered so much support for the (rightful) case of free speech, rather than an actual intelligent publication. If they are trying to be a "right-wing South Park" then they are doing a really shitty job at it as a lot of their cartoons are just tasteless and dumb.

South Park is actually right-wing (well, libertarian). Charlie Hebdo is pretty left-wing.

 

[Sapiens]

I'm so outraged.