Jon Swift: Winger bloggers in uproar over winger toon with HRC in blackface

BurtWorm

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Fri Apr-27-07 04:45 PM
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Jon Swift: Winger bloggers in uproar over winger toon with HRC in blackface

Edited on Fri Apr-27-07 04:46 PM by BurtWorm

This image is what he's referring to:

http://bp1.blogger.com/_1N3cxhPVIxc/RjC3bgop2jI/AAAAAAAAAEk/Y6xcoC9gmao/s200/HRC+BLACKFACE+JPG.jpg
http://jonswift.blogspot.com/2007/04/day-by-days-chris-muir-gives-hillary.html

Day By Day's Chris Muir Gives Hillary a Blackface Makeover

I think every blogger has had an irresistible urge to use blackface on our blogs at one time or another. Most of us resist the temptation, but occasionally some bloggers succumb, and end up red-faced. Despite this handy chart detailing when you should and should not use blackface on your blog, Conservatives have been especially reluctant to use blackface, fearing that it might reinforce nasty, untrue stereotypes people have about conservative attitudes toward race. But Chris Muir, the cartoonist who draws Day By Day, thought it was a terribly unfair double standard that only liberals get to use blackface so he decided to do something about it.

Today, his cartoon not only rubbed Hillary Clinton's face in burnt cork, it also showed her saying, in delightfully stereotypical minstrel dialogue, "Lawdy, I's seen da promised land!" Because Muir's cartoon is regularly featured on a number of conservative blogs, the conservative blogosphere is now festooned with blackface by proxy. Unfortunately, this has made a few conservative worrywarts a little nervous. "Considering how we conservatives trashed Jane ("you ignorant slut") Hamsher for photoshopping Lieberman in black face, shouldn't we police our own and give Mr. Muir a few well chosen jabs for his insensitivity?" asks Rick Moran of Right Wing Nut House, who is very sensitive about seeming racist but not so worried about seeming sexist. Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters also wonders, "should Chris Muir get a pass?" I think the answer invariably will be yes. If anyone can handle blackface with the sophistication and thoughtfulness necessary to pull it off, it's Chris Muir.

Day by Day is sometimes called a conservative Doonesbury but it is actually a lot more than that. Like Doonesbury Muir often buries his punchlines, but he has gone Doonesbury one better by making it rarely funny at all. By avoiding jokes altogether Muir never distracts us from the Very Important Points he's making. These points are reinforced by the images, which usually feature scantily clad characters standing around talking. Muir has come under some criticism by conservative bloggers for being "too sexy," but by having his characters address serious issues in their underwear, what they say has far more impact than the pronouncements of Doonesbury's fully clothed characters.

Muir has not only stripped down his characters, he has also reduced the actual drawing he needs to do to the barest minimum, which gives him a lot more time to think about the intellectual points he is trying to make. As he admits in an interview, "I have templates of bodies, heads, expressions, etc. If you look at the cartoons closely, you may notice that, at this time, each character has about 5-6 head positions only." Coincidentally, these 5 to 6 head positions correspond to the 5 or 6 political positions Muir takes, which he relentlessly drums into his readers' heads....