Francine Prose on Facebook on Monday:
Why is it so difficult for people to make fine distinctions? The writers opposing the PEN award support free speech, free expression, and stand fully behind Charlie Hebdo’s right to publish whatever they want without being censored, and of course without the use of violence to enforce their silence. But the giving of an award suggests that one admires and respects the value of the work being honored, responses quite difficult to summon for the work of Charlie Hebdo. Provocation is simply not the same as heroism. I do hope that the audience at the PEN gala will be shown some of the cruder and more racist cartoons that CH publishes, so they will know what they are applauding and honoring. I’m disheartened by the usually sensible intelligent Salman Rushie’s readiness to call us “fellow travelers” who are encouraging Islamist jihadism, and also to label us, on Twitter, as “six pussies.” I can only assume he meant our feline dignity and was not implying that we are behaving like people who have vaginas. It would be sad to think that a writers organization cannot discuss free speech without resorting to political accusations and sexual insult.
Well, speaking of fine distinctions, what about the fine distinction between actual racism and satirical meta-racism? What about using racist tropes as a way of mocking racism?
That seems to be a fine distinction that Prose is ignoring or unaware of.
You can argue that that’s a bad idea; you can argue that that kind of satire doesn’t travel well, because customs differ from place to place; you can argue that it’s risky; you can argue a lot of things. But it’s just silly to pretend there actually is no distinction between racism and satirical meta-racism.
Exactly. And that’s why just presenting “racist” cartoons, as she proposes, without context (which is very specific to the French socio-political context) and without understanding the language is just inflammatory and tendentious.
Right. We already know a lot of people misunderstand them, so waving them around is just a way to spread that misunderstanding. Ugh it’s so disingenuous.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/nick-cohen/2015/04/charlie-hebdo-the-literary-indulgence-of-murder/
These people are so infuriatingly condescending. Yes, Prose, the only reason that people disagree with you is because they have never ever seen the thing that they disagree with you about. If they just saw it, they would suddenly say, “Oh wait, THAT’S what we’re talking about? I thought this was about Charlie BROWN cartoons. Oh, what a fool I’ve been!”
If there’s a thing that I don’t understand yet, with regard to the CH issue, that’s it.
Why the hell would be this satire mode so specific to us French people?
1- That’s because we’re unique
2- That’s not specifically French, other cultures have it, simply the English world clearly does not and does not interact that much with such other cultures
I’m really wondering, because if there’s anything French I’ve always mocked deeply (as a French myself), it is the tendency to view themselves as uniquely unique (or for that matter as a grandiloquent self-conscious uniqueness).
That won’t make me proudly chauvinistic though, but I still find this curious. (I’d rather lean toward explanation #2).
@Okidemia: I’m no expert (the most detailed analysis I’ve done of the topic was an undergrad paper on political pornography in the French Revolution) but you can look to the difference in perception that Ophelia is detailing to see that there is something that’s not translating.
From my perspective, the delivery of this kind of humor is very different for Americans than it is for the French. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but the word that’s popping up for me is “contempt.” American satire tends to be angry and sarcastic in tone, clearly directed at the object of the anger. When that’s unclear, people don’t see the satire, and I think that’s what’s happening with CH.
French satire like CH’s instead starts with the root presumption that the recipient of the message will immediately see how absurd the imagery is and understand that it is clearly not to be taken seriously. Of course the idea that kidnapped girls will demand social security (sorry, don’t know if the French term is different) is ludicrous, so the joke is obviously on anyone who’d believe something so absurd.
I think that part of the problem is that some of the things published in CH, intended to be seen as clearly ridiculous and wrong, could be published in all seriousness by a right-wing cartoonist in the US. That’s why American humorists have to so often clarify that they were joking (not including those who cover up reprehensible statements by saying everyone else is too sensitive). It’s too difficult to tell the difference between who’s serious and who’s satirical.
@Okidemia #5: I can only speak for myself, but as someone who has pointed out the necessity of considering the specific cultural context of satire, I can say that when I do so, it’s not the mode of satire I’m considering to be particularly specific to a given culture. It’s the content. The “RASSEMBLEMENT BLEU RACISTE” cartoon is a perfect example. If I don’t know that France has a fascist party with a similar slogan to the text and that uses the logo depicted, I’ll interpret the image as reinforcing a common racist representation of a dark-skinned person as a monkey. And of course the image IS a racist representation, but without knowing the context, I won’t understand that the racist image is being used to mock and repudiate the racism of a fascist party, and I might instead think it’s simply replicating and reinforcing racism.
Or, more simply, without knowing the context, I’m likely to miss the fact that something is satirical in the first place and instead think it’s serious.
The mode and tone is one thing and there is some cultural specificity to it. But there is also a big part that is simply the content to the satire. And that is quite often based on the discourse of some national political or religious figures or organizations or other current events. And that part is very French-specific.
Being French Canadian I can understand the language and some of the references but I need to find out explanations for many of them. And we do get much more information from France than the rest of Canada would and definitely more than the US (I have no idea about the UK). So unless you immerse yourself in French current events, I can understand why people from the US and English Canada would have no idea and be more susceptible to taking everything in CH to the first degree.
What I can’t understand is how educated people would not see that especially when it’s explained to them. And before they go public with their “outrage”, I would expect them to make an effort to educate themselves on the subject if it hasn’t been explained to them. It’s not as if this is not widely available from multiple sources in this case.
Exactly. “What I can’t understand is how educated people would not see that especially when it’s explained to them.” THAT.
John Horstman #8
Well, yeah, sure. But when the plentiest of (French) people explain it plainly in the aftermath, it is still hard to hypothesize that post-hoc rationalisation impedes evolving toward a more factual opinion in so many people in the English world.
Jean #9
Well, that’s most disturbing.
ZugTheMegasaurus #6
So there’s this couple Obama cartoon in the New Yorker in 2008. How come so few people actually got the point that CH cartoons are exactly the same?
Of course CH cartoon styles are ugly. These styles share their origin in grafiti. They are gross by tradition. But apart from this detail, the parallel holds.