Mark Armstrong
Veteran Member
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/comic-riffs/2009/01/read_his_lips_cartoonists_go_b.html
More, including illustrations, at the above link.
As a side note, I would point out that the famous "hope" and "progress" posters commissioned and distributed by Obama's own election campaign depicted him with large blue lips.
http://www.socialistunity.com/?cat=286
More, including illustrations, at the above link.
Read Obama's Lips: Cartoonists Deal in Bizarre Caricature
I've tried to keep my lips sealed for some weeks now, hoping the whole nasty matter would correct itself. Unfortunately, since the Inauguration, it only seems to be getting worse. So now, my own gums must flap to flag a disturbing trend:
An unnerving number of North America's political cartoonists are bizarrely obsessed with President Obama's lips.
You read that right. Barack has the mouth that soared to the top of many cartoonists' fixations. Just what in the name of Jimmy Carter caricatures is going on here?
If you don't believe me, scan dozens of current political cartoons. For every Steve Benson or Mike Luckovich who is zeroing in on a swell, spot-on Obama, there seems to be a cartoonist who invokes "caricature" in the most grotesque sense of the word. Obama's lips have been rendered in such unnatural tints, and at such dimensions, that somewhere, even R. Crumb would blush.
And of course, this physical area of caricature -- unlike, say, Obama's ears -- comes freighted with a legacy of ugly racism and cruel, blackface-era mockery.
For political cartoonists, so much is open to caricature, especially when rendering public figures. As several Pulitzer-winning political cartoonists told Comic Riffs during the campaign, they work with the features they've been dealt -- be it Nixon's perpetual 5-o'clock shadow or LBJ's hangdog look. But here's the rub: Obama, at least artistically speaking, has fairly unremarkable lips. They're pleasant enough -- and I'm sure the first lady adores them -- but they're not exactly a feature one would hang a caricature on.
So why the disquieting examples that feature large lips, prominent lips, neon-blue (!) lips when drawing Obama?
...Are too many cartoonists not subtly skilled enough to draw a deft caricature of our first African American president? I seriously doubt that's it. When you truly study art, you delve deeply into all shapes and sizes and learn to "see" -- and learn to see skin not as one single hue, but often as more than a dozen hues (subtle reds, flecks of green, etc.). Of course, perhaps a few cartoonists aren't looking deeply enough at Obama...
So we open our lips today to shine a light, because: If we're seeing this not two weeks into Obama's presidency, what will the next four (eight?) years bring?
As a side note, I would point out that the famous "hope" and "progress" posters commissioned and distributed by Obama's own election campaign depicted him with large blue lips.
http://www.socialistunity.com/?cat=286