Should The Guardian Have Apologised For Cartoon ?

[Gromit]

The paper has apologised for a cartoon it published and removed it from its archive, after protests from jewish groups. They say the depiction of Richard Sharp who resigned as BBC Chair is anti semitic.

https://e3.365dm.com/23/04/2048x1152/skynews-richard-sharp-cartoon_6137797.png?20230429153627

[gulliver1]

No! Not to Boris.

[Untitled]

What is anti semitic about it?

after the forde report i am extremely suspicious of many of these "anti-semitism" claims... it seems to me that many of them are invented as political weapons

[Rosetta]

I just found the whole cartoon distasteful

[jno]

all that cartoonist's work is ugly, Rosetta; I don't like him at all.

However.

I didn't know Sharp was Jewish, and I wouldn't have been any the wiser if I'd seen the cartoon. According to the BBC, the cartoon showed him with "exaggerated feaatures". Well, that's what cartoonists do, all the time. I thought maybe he'd given the figure the sort of huge nose that used to appear in Nazi cartoons; but not at all here.

A far as I can see the only thing that might conceivably be seen as anti-Semitic is the notion that Jews make money and run things, though even that is a nod to success, not to prejudice. The cartoon is plainly anti-Boris but I can see nothing offensive at all in the depiction of Sharp. The Guardian should have stood its ground.

[Tilly2]

I thought it was really funny and cannot see any anti-semitism in it at all.

[ToraToraTora]

nope, nothing to apologise for.

[gulliver1]

Cartoon of the year.

[brainiac]

Nothing to apologise for - political cartoons (especially) are all about 'exaggerated features', usually the more exaggerated the better, going right back to Rowlandson and Gilray.
Evidently, one of the complaints was about him carrying a squid, which is 'a common anti-semitic motif', but that's a new one on me.

[Rosetta]

Cartoonists dont have to produce ugly works, just look at Gerald Scarfe's work, his figures were indeed exagerated, but they were clever and funny. This one is neither

[jno]

oh, I hadn't heard of that either, brainiac. Something about having a lot of fingers in a lot of pies perhaps. If so, then the complainants have told the world of another way to insult Jews that they may not have known about.

[ynnafymmi]

Yes.Rowson is probably more for the Momentum anti-semitic mob,than he is for the non anti-semitic Starmer.Corbyn,Abbott and now the Guardian.Eejits all.

[Deskdiary]

Squid and Jews is an old trope, so I simply cannot believe the inclusion of a squid in the box was a coincidence.

I don’t understand why some on the left, like the paper with its foundations in slavery, have such an issue with Jews.

I kind of get that Abbott is anti-Jew, because she’s a racist anyway, but I don’t understand why Jews rile some on the left.

[Tilly2]

...and they think Rishi Sunak is wearing a kippa in that cartoon???

[jno]

oh... just looks like hair to me, Tilly.

[ynnafymmi]

^@15.06.Best answer,Gromit?

[Gromit]

Thank you all for your replies, they have enlightening.
I didn’t see any anti semitism but maybe I was a bit blind to it.
I wondered what the squid/octopus was there for, so to learn it is a known trope is disappointing.
Apparently the cartoonist and Sharp were at the same public school together, so perhaps it was a nickname?
I don’t think the actual drawing of Sharp character was anti semitic, I saw it before the complaints and didn’t see a big nosed jew.
The cartoonist has apologised so a bit of mea culpa

[ynnafymmi]

"the cartoonist has apologised for it"?...so that makes everything allright?Corbyn has apologised for his anti-semitism,Abbott has apologised for her anti-semitism,the Guardian and Rowson have apologised for their anti-semitism.Perhaps if they werent anti-semitic in the first place they wouldnt have anything to apologise for.

[Gromit]

ynnafymmi

The cartoonist has apologised for his ‘inadvertent’ anti semitism. He didn’t mean it apparently.
No it doesn’t make it alright, and I never said that it did.
Again thanks every one for your perceptive replies.

[ynnafymmi]

"He didnt mean it apparently"....as we say up here in Scotland...Aye,right....

[Gromit]

ynnafymmi
Nope, I am not convinced either.
Enjoy the rest of your evening :-)