Posted on 10/17/2006 11:40:19 AM PDT by weegee
I have been in a couple of conversations today about my colleague Nick Anderson's most recent animated editorial cartoon. OK, I initiated the conversations. Sue me.
You're going to watch Nick's animation, as you should. I bow to no one in my admiration for Mr. Anderson's talent, and I love the way he brings editorial cartooning into something resembling the present. How many other editorial cartoonists would know the Black Eyed Peas from Andy Williams?
But.
You knew there'd be a but.
In this case, the but is a butt.
I am not going to discuss the politics of the cartoon, which are, as far as I'm concerned, between Nick and his bosses and their respective Makers. I was not entirely able to make a political assessment, anyway, because I was mesmerized and chagrined to see the physical depiction of Hillary Clinton in the video. In fact, the first word that sprang into my head was unchivalrous.
Her hips are depicted as huge. Enormous. Wide as the Nile.
This stunned me. Lord, I thought, just another reason I have to go off and live on an island with two pairs of shorts and the dog and the cat and a Canadian, and forget everything. It's 2006 and it's still OK to belittle and besmirch a woman under consideration for high office based on her figure?
I brought this up to a colleague of mine, who will remain nameless but not initial-free. We'll call him ED. ED told me I was being sexist -- that men are often caricatured in political cartoons. I said yeah, and maybe her face is fair game. But her hips? What society do you live in? I asked.
I didn't have a fully formed and reasoned point of view, and maybe I still don't, but I have a strong reaction. This is a society that judges a woman strongly, almost exclusively, on her sexuality. To whom is that news?
No one can possibly have lived through more of this than Hillary Clinton, who has been humiliated sexually in every possible form and fashion in the popular culture, from being called a lesbian, to being called a cold fish, to being blamed for her husband's issues. You over here in Texas? You've probably done all of the above, you personally. That she is still on her feet politically -- no matter what else you think of her -- is a tribute to an almost superhuman tenacity, for good or ill.
If -- and there's no actual "if" any more than there is with evolution -- this is a society that judges a woman sexually every single day, what is the point of making Hillary Clinton fat and ugly in a political cartoon? Is it fair? Not really, until men are assessed in exactly the same way. No one will ever judge Dick Cheney sexually, no matter how many misadventures he sends this country on. Nobody cares about that.
Isn't the junk-in-the-trunk a way of making a larger point about Hillary Clinton -- that she is somehow, by the size of her hips (which were completely fine in person, the one time I saw her), less worthwhile?
Bob Herbert has a column in The New York Times today -- you have to buy that wicked Times Select to read it -- about the dirty little half-secret of the Colorado and Pennsylvania school shooting incidents: The little girls were singled out for molestation and killing.
You're going to tell me it's a long way from some sick school shootings to a political cartoon, and I completely agree with you. But it's a weird society we live in. And it's different for girls.
As another person I discussed this issue said to me: "I'm always amused by guys who discover that misogyny is ignored on a daily basis... Walk around in our high heels for a while. "
I have a couple of spare pairs in my office, guys.
Bet MeMo's never voiced off against the racist depictions of Condi Rice.
Hillary DOES have big thighs. That song in and of itself is "misogynist"; that's part of the culture war that the left always tries to pretend is strictly a "right wing" conspiracy designed to fire up the base.
She does look like she could take a spanking.
Owl_Eagle
If what I just wrote made you sad or angry,
it was probably just a joke.
I liked it! ;)
And love it too--by the right woman.
I read that Hillary didn't always have this condition. It developed after she gave birth to her only child. It is a female medical malady of which I can't recall the name.
well as Shakira sings:
"Her hips don't lie"
Only Ol' Crusty knows for sure...
That was a thing of beauty.
I'm laughing, but in another way, it is not funny.
What a whiner. It's not that Hillary's hips are too big in the cartoon, it's that her legs are too thin.
Personally I think people's appearance should be off-limits, it's just too hurtful and shallow and there are many other ways to take on someone like Hillary. Her past, present and future deeds and words are enough fodder for any campaign against her!
Hey, Kyrie.How about including her husband himself as the main sexual humiliator of her.Instead of "blamed for her husbands issues".Clinton lover.
As another poster stated - she has no objection of turning Condi Rice into a parrot. Or a Gone With The Wind cartoon. How about those who draw President Bush as a big eared monkey? The whole point of a political cartoon is to take a physical characteristic and amplify it. In other words, Hitlery does have big hips. Someone should be brave and find a picture of Hitlery wearing a dress - if there is one out there - and send it to the writer. People in the know, know she has legs like tree trunks.
I couldn't care less what she looks like. It's what's in her head that bothers me.
That would be "for ill". No need to temporize.
No one will ever judge Dick Cheney sexually...
This person has obviously never heard of the Cheney Chicks. They have judged Dick Cheney sexually, and approve mightily!
Editorial cartoons draw on caricature (unless maybe you go to the drawings of Windsor McCay).
Physical appearance will play a part in that.
Same with the repeated use of the crusty pant suit.
But there are bigger charges. And even that trunk of "scandals" glossed over a number of charges. Like 900 illegally obtained FBI files and union goon squads that eye-gouge protestors...
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