Two Responses
Thanks for all the helpful comments (especially the pointing toward prior iconoclastic controversies). FYI, I ended up not printing the cartoons – largely because, having finally seen them myself, I was concerned that my group of freshmen might too easily dismiss their actual offensiveness. And that the discussion would turn into “Are these really offensive?” as opposed to “How do we account for and deal with this rather strange international incident?”
I do have two disagreements with the comments, though.
1. I really don’t think that all of the students who are interested in seeing the cartoons have actually seen them. After all, most of the grad students I talked to hadn’t seen them yet. Even though they are available on-line, they are not as in your face as, say, pictures of Lindsay Lohan’s car wrecks or Tom Cruise jumping on a couch.
2. I’m not sure the analogy of the cartoons should be with pornography. I wonder, for instance, how some of the comments would change if I were considering showing portions of Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. Also very offensive to at least a segment of Muslims. But largely recognized as an artistic statement rather than pornographic non-art.
I guess I remain conflicted about many elements of this story and what constitutes an appropriate response to it. But thanks again for the thoughtful exchange.
I do have two disagreements with the comments, though.
1. I really don’t think that all of the students who are interested in seeing the cartoons have actually seen them. After all, most of the grad students I talked to hadn’t seen them yet. Even though they are available on-line, they are not as in your face as, say, pictures of Lindsay Lohan’s car wrecks or Tom Cruise jumping on a couch.
2. I’m not sure the analogy of the cartoons should be with pornography. I wonder, for instance, how some of the comments would change if I were considering showing portions of Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. Also very offensive to at least a segment of Muslims. But largely recognized as an artistic statement rather than pornographic non-art.
I guess I remain conflicted about many elements of this story and what constitutes an appropriate response to it. But thanks again for the thoughtful exchange.
posted by OleNelson at 10:13 AM
2 Comments:
I think your course of action hit the nail on the head. In the end, these are contextual considerations, and your intuition that the undergrads would not understand the point of the exercise counsels against displaying them, as you decided.
My point on the pornography analogy was not to open up the debate on "art or not art" and the place of offensiveness within it. The point I was trying to make, perhaps too quickly, was that considerations over whether or not to show potentially explosive/offensive material are not easily settled simply if there are no members of the potentially aggrieved group present. I think it was Erik's comment that motivated this point. For example: it would seem that discussion of the "n" word would fall into the same category as these cartoons. While we may, at the end of the day, conclude that this discussion should take place in connection with the display/reading of materials in class -- e.g. reading Huckleberry Finn; or a consideration of cartoons from the 19th century depicting African-Americans in derogatory terms -- we shouldn't feel that there are no thorny issues of offensiveness simply because there are no Black students in the classroom.
I didn’t mean to suggest that all potential offensiveness disappeared if there were no Muslims present—only that non-Muslims would likely take no offense at the visual representation of Muhammed. And by “the visual representation of Muhammed” I mean any representation, not just those that portray him in a negative light.
It is disingenuous—at best—to equate such a concern with issues that aren’t inextricably bound to a specific religious belief.
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