Disgusting Muppet illustration - Make your thoughts known

[The Gobeek]

That cartoon is awful! I just can't even imagine that people would be so upset. It is a muppet and it is sesame street! Those women need to get a life.

 

[Ernie101]

they need to there freaks they should rot i think it is appauling that osme freakos would draw something that long and its a kids show.If i worked for sesame workshop or henson productions i would be somad at them what they have dont is not only a disgrace to our country but a discrace to me and muppet fans all over!

 

[frogboy4]

one cartoonists opinion

Okay, not only was the cartoon mindlessly inflammatory it wasn't funny. This was some dude (with third grade drawing skills) attempting to be clever and totally missing the issue.

If the cartoonist really wanted to make an informed satire strip they could have depicted Muppets with different diseases like cancer and MS or maybe even include a same-sex couple (all of this would still be in bad taste but it would at least make sense). This crude sketch only exposed an obvious bigotry.

 

[uncleduke]

My Response

here is the letter I sent to them
"Do I like your cartoon? No, I do not. Your obvious illusion that HIV is limited to sexual deviants is so amazingly outdated, it defies description.
It is a shame, since you are a relatively talented artist, that you choose to pander to the basest of fears and prejudices.
I think the fact that Henson has chosen to include an HIV positive muppet in the South African edition of Sesame Street is wise. Since the disease is rampant there (and I am pretty sure that transvestitism and Bondage are relatively rare), it is important for kids to be educated about the disease.

PS The detail on Sado is very nice, the zipper on the mask is an excellent touch, where did you get yours? I could never wear one like that, I am afraid it would get caught in my beard, I assume you do not have that
problem with yours.[/b]

OK, actually I chickened out on the PS... But I did send the rest.

 

[frogboy4]

Good job! Except for calling him talented. But you might reach him with a bit of flattery.

 

[JamieDenny]

We all Know what I think

Hmm the thing that has surprised me about all of this is that we haven't had a peep out of the usual suspect Fred Phelps. I just checked out his website to see if anything was said. Nothing.
By the way those of you that are wondering why I check out his sight it boils down to two things. 1. I like to know what the senile fool and his rabid follwers are up to. 2. Everytime I read it it makes me angry, then I laugh both at him for writing the stuff he writes and me for getting het up about it in the first place.
But I digress back to the 'Women Who Are Slightly To The Right Of Attila The Hun Foundation' or whomever they are, what people don't get is that behind the semantics of each name lurks a very diffrent organisation to what you expect. I'd hate to see the hard working women of America spending their dollars because they do feel a genuine concern about what happens in the USA, so what I'm suggesting is an awarness campaign much like Sesame Streets with Aids only this one will be a CWE awarness campaign providing information about what these people are all about.
Jamie

 

[frogboy4]

'Women Who Are Slightly To The Right Of Attila The Hun Foundation'

-****!

 

[Struble]

Oh my goodness. That's really a terrible drawing. And the colouring is even worse.

Look at the inconsistant lightsources on the characters. Pervie's head is lit from the right, yet is his body is lit from the left. (Same with Sado) Then look at Mr. Lady... Not only does he/she have a completely different lightsource, but it appears to be lit from the front, and back-lit at the same time.

Not only is that offensive, it's really horribly done. Looks to be done by a kid who |didn't| grow up on Sesame Street. Their parents must of raised them watching the 700 Club, instead.

Sh.

 

[dwmckim]

FYI - "Concerned Women of America" is hardly a "women's group" in that even though its members are of the female gender, their whole raison d'etre is to try to show that not all women support the idea of feminism/equal rights. Like most "morality groups" (ie "Focus on The Family", "Family Research Council" or "Parents Resource Center"), their name was chosen to make them seem like something they're not, hiding their ultimate agenda.

Obviously i don't think much of the cartoon itself but in its context - a politcal cartoon on a political site used to illustrate the organization's position - i don't believe it should be censored. (I also don't believe that being a political cartoon that it would fall into the category of "copyright infringement" for reasons already well stated by others. However, a case could better be made for slander or libel.)

I know it's very easy to get mad at the cartoonist. But in all honesty, the illustrator is really just a puppet (no pun intended) to the board of the organization as the views it's chosen to espouse. If you want to get angry at anyone, get angry at those who want to distort the basic facts of "South African Sesame Street introducing an HIV+ character to teach about how it's okay and safe to be friends with an HIV positive person" and deliberately twisting the facts to scare the general public into supporting one of its longtime goals: the dismantling of public television. What's really sad is (at best) the heads of these organizations who raise the fuss read the original sources and rereport the news to its followers stating the opposite. I realize that i'm giving them the benefit of the doubt of being able to read the original facts and later distorting them to serve their cause as opposed to not even being able to comprehend what was pretty clearly stated to begin with themselves - but if that worst-case scenario is indeed the case, it speaks volumes that Sesame Street would be on their hitlist - something that teaches children to read better than they themselves are able to.

CWA and like groups have chosen the South African character as a scapegoat to denounce matters of no direct relevance here in the States to further their goals. Unable to gain support with logical facts, they prey on people's fears relying on situations like this to get people up in arms by trying to shout their lies louder than the facts so what begins as a statement by Sesame that "there are no plans to bring the character to USA Sesame and even in South Africa Sesame, it will be done age-appropriately and not talk about sex" becomes "ATTENTION AMERICAN PARENTS - WE'VE WARNED THIS WOULD HAPPEN AND NOW IT IS - SESAME STREET HAS BEEN HIJACKED BY SEXUAL PERVERTS AND IS GETTING A MUPPET WITH AIDS WHO WILL BE TRYING TO TEACH YOUR YOUNG CHILDREN SEX EDUCATION!" The cartoon itself is merely an accessory to the overall mission. As purely a propaganda tool, it's quite well done because in addition to getting people upset as Sesame Street, it also tries to get the viewer to believe/accept CWA's views that an HIV positive person - even a child that was born with it - equals overall sexual deviancy. The cartoon does just what it's supposed to do. Therefore, rather than shoot the messenger, if you're angry with the cartoon, you should be upset with the atmosphere from and the goals of those who are trying to turn a responsible overdue attempt to tackle a severe problem in South Africa into fundraising fodder for their own local political agenda.

 

[uncleduke]

Originally posted by frogboy4
Good job! Except for calling him talented. But you might reach him with a bit of flattery.

That is why I qualified it "Relatively Talented"
How talented is up to your own definition. He/She is very talented at being a myopic bigot!