South Africa - The ANC President Jacob Zuma and allied Party Leaders were outraged to find a cartoon depicting them gang raping Justitia in a national newspaper, the Sunday Times. The image created by cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro, or ‘Zapiro’, has caused a furor.

It is debatable as to the merit of the cartoon in focussing attention on the Ruling Party’s ongoing Law Court involvement. While many people feel that this was a worthy reason to take the drawing to print, others feel it clearly crosses the mark of acceptable publishing protocol.

Some Basic Guidelines

For those considering a Rule-of-Thumb for making cartoons that may prove undiplomatic, the following may serve to provide simple guidelines that in this particular instance would have avoided the upset for the subjects, ‘Zapiro’ and his publishers:

• Cartoon Cardinal Rule #1 - Cartoons are FUNNY drawings. They are images created to induce (shared) laughter, smiles or mirth in their viewers or readers.
  Note in this case no-one is really laughing at the cartoon - if anyone does find themselves doing so they should immediately feel a sense of sickness in their stomach and seek professional advice or submit themselves to their nearest sex offenders institution.
• Cartoon Public Release Test - Imagine you have an 8 year old child who discovers the cartoon in the morning newspaper and asks what the subject matter is about. If it is possible to answer this question without embarrassment then go ahead, publish.

Tags: cartoon, Jacob Zuma, jonathan shapiro, judiciary, justice, rape, sunday times, zapiro, zuma

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 at 5:14 pm and is filed under Comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.