UVA Student Paper Pulls Cartoons From Site; Cartoonist Woolard Apologizes

The University of Virginia's Cavalier Daily finally pulled two installments of cartoonist Grant Woolard's Quirksmith after receiving a barrage of requests to take action because of their perceived anti-Christian message. The cartoonist has also apologized.

This story has been a mile wide and an inch deep, but it's still worth noting -- and not because the controversy was a legitimate, important one. It wasn't. It's clear that Woolard's clumsy comics offer little more than button-pushing and therefore easy to conclude that the controversy was manufactured rather than genuine. But you shouldn't dismiss it because of that. That's what's interesting about it. It was clear from the beginning that whatever outrage there was was buoyed if not outright enabled by politically active media sources. Such sources are happy to single out an easily labeled non-mainstream point of view likely to give offense, no matter how inarticulate, because it's evidence of how the media works against them. In fact, another cartoon had a Jesus joke the same day as one of Woolard's, a far funnier and weirder one; it just wasn't as good a candidate for mock outrage.

What's surprising here is how ineffectual and scattered the responses were from the cartoonist and those in charge of the Daily; they were unable to punch holes and dismiss what some might see as silly objections, elements of which have been argued for decades now. (It's also further worth noting that the removal of cartoons in past years when other groups complained was used against the paper.) This is specifically distressing as a student newspaper should be more insulated from such complaints than a daily newspaper -- it's not likely the bulk of people e-mailing complaints were readers or patrons of the Daily's advertisers. As was pointed out at the beginning of the Danish cartoons controversy, it's only those expressions that cross lines that need support, and the Daily should have determined if those comics had value worth standing up for were someone to complain before they made the decision to publish them.
 
posted 10:06 pm PST | Permalink
 

---

 
Daily Blog Archives
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
 
Full Archives