May 20th: Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!

[kareface]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/com...ed_day_ga.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/com...fs/norris2.jpg

Stop the campaign, she wants to get off. The Seattle artist whose anti-censorship cartoon has helped spawn "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" says she wants no part of the May 20 event, which is gaining momentum online

"I made a cartoon that went viral but [this campaign] isn't really my thing," cartoonist Molly Norris tells Comic Riffs, characterizing her cartoon as merely a personal response to Comedy Central's censorship of a "South Park" episode last week. "Other folks have taken it over" -- an appropriation she says she is distancing herself from.

Postings on the Islamic website RevolutionMuslim.com led to Comedy Central's editing last week of a "South Park" speech about fear and intimidation, the show's creators have said. That network censorship has spawned another cartoon event: Everybody Draw Muhammad Day -- a campaign that might not be so easily quieted.

A posterlike cartoon titled "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!" has been posted on the blogs of such commentators as Dan Savage to Andrew Sullivan. Savage tells Comic Riffs he published the cartoon on his blog late last week after it was e-mailed to him.
The growing campaign now includes a Facebook page titled Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. On Saturday night, the page had fewer than 1,500 "confirmed guests"; as of Monday morning (ET), the page was nearing 6,000 signed-up guests.

The creator of the page, Jon Wellington, tells Comic Riffs: "I created a Facebook event because that's an easy way to remind myself of upcoming events, and I thought it might serve that purpose for others too."
Adds Wellington: "I am not a cartoonist, and I loved [Norris's] creative approach to the whole thing -- whimsical and nonjudgmental."

The wall on Wellington's page has become an ongoing forum-of-sorts about the controversy. Some posts on the wall are from vocal supporters of Muhammad; other posts are purely anti-religion; and other posts say the campaign, at its heart, is all about the First Amendment and the defense of free speech.
As for the event itself, Wellington calls it "a bit of a phenomenon" -- one, of course, that he himself has helped grow in popularity. (In response, there is also a "Ban Everybody Draw Muhammad Day" Facebook page that has more than 800 members.)
The text of Norris's cartoon says, in part, that an Everybody Draw Muhammad day would "water down the pool of targets" for Islamic terrorists.

In a radio interview Friday with KIRO's Dave Ross, Norris cited that text about "the pool of targets" and also said it's a cartoonist's job to be "non-PC."

In that interview, Norris said of the Facebook campaign: "Dare me, I'll pursue it." A day later, however, she told Comic Riffs she had a change of heart, saying the campaign had grown far larger than she intended and that her cartoon was being appropriated in ways that were beyond her control.

Norris tells Comic Riffs she is accustomed to a quieter life as an artist. Her Seattle-based work includes the regular "Everyone's a Critic" cartoon for City Arts magazine.

Now, says Norris -- who has called laughter a form of prayer -- the online campaign is too large for her comfort. On her page MollyNorris.com, the cartoonist has posted a follow-up cartoon of 10 word balloons: one reads, "I have hit some kind of gigantic nerve!"; another says, "I am so freaked out that I am not even drinking my regular 4 pots of coffee per day!"; and a third reads, "I am a coward. I have backed off of being associated with any group of her cause."

Norris also cites the rise of a nonexistent group. The text of her original cartoon jokes that the day is "sponsored by Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor or CACAH (pronounced ca-ca)." Now, the site CACAH.org is encouraging submissions of protest art.
Indeed, some artists aren't waiting till May 20 to generate their own Muhammad images, which range from the straight-forward to the angry to the overtly scatalogical. Any depiction of Muhammad is considered blasphemous by some Muslims.

Elsewhere, Gawker quotes Younus Abdullah Mohammed of Revolution Muslim as saying that he felt media coverage of the controversy has been unfair: "It was typical of the mainstream media. It was senseless -- they never cover any of the other crimes against Islam we write about."

The Revolution Muslim representative also tells Gawker that most Americans are "dumbed down, stupid and pathetic. They're worried more about missing their favourite TV show than they are about the world."

Regarding "South Park," specifically, the TV show -- by Matt Stone and Trey Parker -- depicted Muhammad nearly a decade ago, sparking relatively little uproar. In the wake of the Danish "Muhammad cartoon" controversy that has simmered for five years, however, the show's depictions of Muhammad this month (the religious leader appears in a bear suit) have received far more attention -- particularly since Comedy Central last week reportedly edited a 35-second speech about intimidation and fear.

Norris's original cartoon is "dedicated" to Stone and Parker.

As for the larger campaign, Norris says simply: "I just want to go back to my quiet life."

I know I'll be doing a poster of my own, but I'll need to get more fuchsia.

[Mayareira]

I like the coffee one!

[Kuya]

I really hope the target of this is media orgs that don't want to depict Mohammed because they're afraid of even the mildest controversy rather than Muslims themselves.

[kareface]

Someone needs to do a Buddy Mohammed.

[Plow]

I really hope the target of this is media orgs that don't want to depict Mohammed because they're afraid of even the mildest controversy rather than Muslims themselves.

Why? What keeps religions functional in society is the understanding that they'll live their lives, and others will live their own. If there's one thing that's been proven about religion, it's that trying to forcefully prevent expression and discussion on it is bad, from either side.

To some extent it's directed at modern media, sure. It's directed at everyone. Point being, if only a few people will do it, they can continue to attack those few people directly (and literally...). If everyone would say no, we're not being forced out of our freedom of expression, there would simply be too many to focus on or do anything about.

[ZarakiKujata]

Firas disapproves.

[Elvis]

Dear God,

Please dry up all ME oil, give 'all' Jews all of 'the Land of Israel' (throw the Palestinians into the sea), kill every non-Mubarek/Karzai/Abdullah/et. al supporter, continue to prop up the freedom loving/America friendly frontwards (backwards) family-dictatorship in Saudi Arabia, ensure American full-spectrum dominance in the ME and oh yea, 'freedom' (McDonalds, Friends, Walmart, DynCorp, Haliburton), so that we can stop hearing about Muslims.

Lets move on to something new. New paradigm please. This shit is now officially boring.

[Kuya]

Why? What keeps religions functional in society is the understanding that they'll live their lives, and others will live their own. If there's one thing that's been proven about religion, it's that trying to forcefully prevent expression and discussion on it is bad, from either side.

To some extent it's directed at modern media, sure. It's directed at everyone. Point being, if only a few people will do it, they can continue to attack those few people directly (and literally...). If everyone would say no, we're not being forced out of our freedom of expression, there would simply be too many to focus on or do anything about.

Why? Because it is interesting that this only seems to have become an issue after 9/11 when before nobody could have given more of a shit whether muslims were insulted or not, or perhaps nobody ever felt the need to. Now every time some guy with a towel on his head gets angry, he gets put on the leading news about how angry he is that the West did something naughty. This all seems terribly self created.

[Edgie]

I just hope fucking extremist dont take this shit to heart and decide to kill the lady that drew the first cartoon, cause thats why she is pulling away from this campaign, she scared.

[Rhinox]

Sign me up.


Going to draw a particularly nasty drawing of Muhammad.

[ZarakiKujata]

I just hope fucking extremist dont take this shit to heart and decide to kill the lady that drew the first cartoon, cause thats why she is pulling away from this campaign, she scared.

She lives in Seattle. She'll be fine. It's why Ayaan Hirsi Ali moved to the United States after Theo Van Gogh was killed.

[Plow]

Why? Because it is interesting that this only seems to have become an issue after 9/11 when before nobody could have given more of a shit whether muslims were insulted or not, or perhaps nobody ever felt the need to. Now every time some guy with a towel on his head gets angry, he gets put on the leading news about how angry he is that the West did something naughty. This all seems terribly self created.

Oh, you're right.

Not only did nobody ever pay any attention to religious terrorism before 9/11, but the fact that people started caring more after they killed a few thousand people in one attack by flying fucking airplanes into buildings is only because the media made it that way.

Otherwise it was just another day.

[Kuya]

Ignoring exaggerations, what do you guys think is more likely: that after 9/11 Muslims suddenly gained magical super mohamed missles that can strike infidels who mock Islam wherever they may be, or that after 9/11 people in the West, particularly in the US, have become far more paranoid about Islam? There were plenty of terrorists who happen to be muslims before 9/11, but it was after this event that they suddenly became super villains. I fear that stuff like this is just another itineration in antagonizing Muslims rather than a realization that fears over Islamic terrorists are highly inflated, which is, ironically, the point of a previous South Park episode.

edit: did muslims suddenly become more angry after 9/11 or did americans become more paranoid after 9/11 (ignoring the invasion of iraq and afghanistan here lol)

[Dimmauk]

I'm scared to draw one, the Muslim boogieman might get me!

[Seanr]

Mine is going to be the greatest

[Kuya]

Let us not even forget the irony that now we seem to worry about making Muslims angry in media by showing Mohamed, but it doesn't seem to cross the mind that perhaps supporting Israel, invading Iraq and Afghansitan might be things that make Muslims so much angrier than the former. Or maybe it does cross the mind, but there is no perspective.

In other words, what i'm saying is that this problem over Muslims getting super angry over pictures of Mohamed is self-created. Nobody cared about this before until now. It's not that Muslims were somehow less vocal or less insulted before 9/11 (i am referencing the fact that Mohamed was shown in a South Park episode but it wasn't as big a deal as it is now- were Muslims less powerful back then?), it's that peole now pay disproportionate attention to what Muslims say, and more often than not it's something negative.

[Plow]

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the death threats at all. Because, you know, this has been a primary topic of discussion all the time recently. No recent spike in attention whatsoever.

[Kuya]

The obscure website involved in the episode of South Park made no explicit death threat, but a veiled threat. Furthermore, death threats are the most ubiquitous in existence in media. Health care passed? Death treats. Obama elected? Death threats. Don't Ask Don't Tell? Death threats. Some guy makes a video of Jesus dancing to some song that makes him come off as effeminate? Death threats.

Death threats, death threats, death threats.

I think i am pretty well justified to say that more attention is payed to a death threat if a Muslim makes it, post 9/11.

[kareface]

I don't think it's the threats that have been worrying people as much as the actual killings (I think near 100 related to drawings of MoDawg). Obama was elected, but no one shot him and cut off his head in broad daylight.

[Kuya]

People have been arrested over plots to assassinate Obama. The difference between those people who were killed (do you have a source?) and Obama is that Obama has the Secret Service.