Weapons Grade Bell End

The Quiet man comments on the controversy surrounding a cartoon by the Guardian’s consistently awful Steve Bell. The QM’s stance on free speech is one I agree with in its entirety, so I’m not going to rehash that one here. Rather, I want to ask –  and answer –  the question; should the Guardian be publishing Bell’s work?

Political cartoons are supposed to make a point in a sharp and amusing manner. Matt, for example, does this by taking a political issue and placing it into the banality of everyday life and ordinary people. His cartoons are simple and amusing –  because of the absurdity of that juxtaposition.

Bell, on the other hand tends to directly lampoon politicians. There’s nothing wrong with that and politicians accept that this is part of political life. However, the effectiveness of the the political cartoon still requires a basic set of ingredients –  a sharply drawn, amusing comment on the issue du jour. It’s here that Bell falls down. Firstly, his artwork is about as competent as that from a first year art student –  or worse. Secondly, he just isn’t funny. This is in part because of his preference for the club hammer over the scalpel. Also, his persistent desire to indulge in cliché. Even to the point of using his own clichés. When George W Bush was in the White House, Bell depicted him as a chimpanzee –  in every single cartoon. David Cameron is depicted with a condom on his head –  every bloody time. Most of us grew out of that style of humour when we left our teens, but I suppose among the champagne swilling Islington set it’s funny in a fnar, fnar, fnar sort of way –  after all, the eeeevil Tory has a condom on his head and the Yankee Republican is a stupid chimpanzee. Hilarious. Excuse me while I get a bandage for my ribs.  Yes, yes, yes, we get the point. We got the point the first time around –  can’t you draw anything different? Scrub that, can you draw? Answer; not really. And as an aside –  should it need reiteration here –  I’m no cheerleader for either of these two politicians. I despise both pretty much equally.

I recall the first time I saw Jasper Carrot’s Hong Kong taxi routine. My sides ached and there were tears streaming down my face. The last time I saw it, I sat stony faced throughout. This is because, as any fule no, a joke’s impact decreases with the telling. Once is funny, twice less so, three times and people are telling you to shut up. Now, assuming that Bell’s caricatures were funny in the first place –  they weren’t, but that’s by the by –  by now, that joke has worn thin. They just aren’t funny any more and the point (if there ever was one) has been made, so time to move on.

However, the cartoon we are discussing is not merely lampooning politicians, it is having a dig as what goes on in Wootton Bassett when the bodies of the fallen are repatriated. Ordinary people stop what they are doing and stand in respectful silence as the cortege passes by. They and the town make no point about the politics behind the conflict –  and neither does the recent decision to place the “Royal” before the town’s name. It is the regular phenomenon of silent respect as the hearses make their way along the main street in Wootton Bassett that is the reason for the accolade and that is what Bell is lampooning here, even if he and his supporters claim differently –  and it is for this reason that people have taken offence. Politicians set themselves up and accept that their public personas are fair game. Ordinary people don’t. Indeed, what Bell has trampled on with his unsubtle and unfunny cartoon is basic human decency, which shows him up to be the utter, utter, misanthropic shitstain that he is –  to try and draw a comparison with Fallujah is low enough to give a limbo dancing earthworm backache. In this, he competes with the execrable Johann Hari for the title “24 carat scumbag”.

But –  and this is the key question –  should the Guardian publish his stuff? The answer is both yes and no. As a responsible publication, you would expect them to reject work from a rank incompetent such as Bell in favour of someone with talent who can make their point in an amusing and well drawn manner. This has nothing to do with suppressing freedom of speech but of quality and how it reflects on the publication.

On the other hand, what Bell has done is expose his nasty politics for all to see. Indeed, he does more to undermine those politics than I ever could with reasoned argument. So, given that, I’m more than happy to see the Guardian publish it and for people to be upset. Good; the more upset people are, the better. Look and take note. This is the socialist mindset. This is the misanthropic wickedness that they represent. So, more power to their elbow over at the Groan. More like this, please.

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Update Tom Wilson over at CiF Watch also comments.

And in the background of all of this is a ridiculous billboard depicting Cameron with a Condom pulled over his head, now seemingly a signature mark of Bell’s childish doodlings.

Childish doodlings pretty much sums it up.