Racial stereotyping: Cartoons of SA leaders, Obama, the Chinese

There is one striking thing about Chinese cartoons of Chinese people here in China. The characters don’t have the slant-eyed slits Western cartoonists often love, sometimes looking like twin Concordes taking off in opposite directions. The eyes are, well, normal.

It would be interesting to find out if that is in scornful reaction to the Western cartoons’ burlesque of the oriental face (the other one being Bugs Bunny buck teeth) or that Chinese don’t see their eyes as slanted. And boy, they often are. The women sometimes have an entrancing mystique to those glittering, slender windowsills to the soul.

Before I continue, let me be clear that I have no issue with poking fun at other people or at myself. Only rarely is a piece of mine (“Mom’s Taxi in China” for example) written without at least a hint of a grin or an elbow nudging the ribs of not so almighty humankind. Mike Trapido is brilliant at take-offs of South African mannerisms and accents, as in his recent, hilarious and enviable blog “SAA: cocaine or zol sir?” I am Sawth Effricen born and bred and it would be ridiculous of me to be offended by blogs like that. We’ve got to be big enough to laugh at ourselves and realise, to risk triteness, our smallness as the great cosmos plays out its dance, its song.

Yet offended by parodies and stereotypes we often are and cartoonists in the US are having a hard time of it trying to figure out how to lampoon Obama. The one on the dead chimpanzee went down like a lead balloon. I was dismayed by the cartoon, perhaps not a deliberate stereotype of a black man as a monkey, which has a terrible racist history, but certainly extremely irresponsible. I recently watched the documentary of Obama’s visits to Kenya, Chad and South Africa and was very moved by his sheer presence, his passion for people’s welfare, his deep intelligence and incisiveness. Obama had such an assuredness and wholesomeness in his bearing. There walks a man whose greatness is in the making worthy of far better cartoons than that.

Some American cartoonists are at a loss at how to portray Obama. Cartoons are usually there to make us laugh, to poke fun at the weakness or daftness in the celebrity’s behaviour. Cartoons make a sharp and often irreverent point that gets to the heart of the matter in a way prose cannot do. A picture can be worth thousands of words. Portraying Bush as a bonehead, eyes too far apart? Piece of cake. No one is offended. But how does one portray Obama, given racism’s dark history, without demeaning him? And given his watershed importance as the first black leader and the grave mission in front of him?

The way his lips are represented is done with care by Americans. They feel they can’t make Obama’s lips too big; that can be construed as a racial stereotype. So the focus has been on creating bat-like ears and the long chin which reminds me of portrayals of tough cowboys.

One cartoon that was really successful, and very sweet and inoffensive, is this one. Michelle looks like a blushing, mischievous missy on a prom night who has both poise and sass. Obama is a well-heeled Southern gentleman with Stetson hat. Unfortunately the cartoon risks saying too little. Perhaps there is a double entendre on the “stimulus” package as it looks like Barack and Michelle are about to have a tête-à-tête on the Oval Office. Its message is weak, but the picture is endearing and heartwarming.

An interesting contradiction in what I am saying, of course, is the depiction of different races in South African cartoons. The immediate example which springs to mind is Zapiro’s depictions of Zuma, Motlanthe and Buthelezi. Zapiro exercises no restraint on the stereotypical lips, just as he shows no restraint when showing the Concorde noses and hedge-thick eyebrows and bony chins of white people. But South Africans are more likely to be offended by what event Zapiro is portraying rather than typecast facial caricature.

The Americans are pussy-footing on how to portray their new president because a black president is a new one for them, and so much is pinned on him, but South Africa has had black leadership since before 1994, so it’s old hat. Is that a sufficient explanation? Is that all there is to it? I don’t think so. In that sense I believe the Rainbow Nation can laugh at itself, be it a white Dutchman, ET falling off a horse or JZ landing on his arse at his last birthday celebration. Zuma also laughed.

Leon Schuster movies, as dumbass as they can be, are very popular in SA. All the racial stereotypes are sent up, and also in various SA adverts, such as the Nokia ads. I think these just put us in our very human place. We absolutely need to learn to laugh at ourselves. And many South Africans, for all our differences and finger-pointing (especially on the racism issue) really do seem to have an ability to laugh at one another and not take themselves too seriously. Well done guys! He pats himself on the shoulder.

Tom Cruise, on the other hand, nearly had a tantrum when a prank was played on him in London and a water pistol was disguised as a microphone.

I accept being at fault if I just point to one American celebrity who could not laugh at himself. However, the US Obama jokes I have seen thus far are also not that funny, terrible in the case of the chimpanzee one or just weak, wuss. Zapiro, bless his satirical name, on the other hand has the most wonderful in-your-face irreverence with Obama and is funny. I think this is his first cartoon of Obama where Obama is busy campaigning and the cartoon shows him headed for the “White House” and Obama is holding up a sign saying “NOT”. In other words it won’t be the White House once a black man takes over. Good grief, that was naughty and I had to chuckle. Yet Zapiro has found the balance between burlesque and not degrading Obama. In Zapiro’s versions of Obama the US president has politically incorrect (to the Americans) larger-than-life lips, yet he somehow always looks so noble. Old Zaps really is a genius.

In a previous blog I looked at how blacks are used increasingly to portray deity and leadership. One commentator, Dave Harris, rightly said this was positive stereotyping. But he said this as if there is something automatically wrong with stereotyping. Why is it automatically wrong? What does “wrong” mean? Do we read: immoral? Belittling people? By wrong are we saying stereotyping is automatically racist? I don’t see why that has to be the case at all.

In my dealings with Chinese people I have to be aware of a very different culture. Communication can be a major issue. They do not speak straightforwardly; this is not pejorative, it is how they go about doing things. Now there we have a stereotype. So what? If I don’t learn to understand, deeply, their natural way of doing things I am going to be permanently frustrated and relations are going to be non-productive. And I have been. The Chinese, in turn need to get a hang on my culture, which is very forthright in communication, which I prefer. I don’t like to have to guess what a person is thinking. Just tell me.

Westerners, be they South Africans, British or Americans get to the bloody point in meetings and deciding on policy, not the Chinese. It even comes up as a cultural topic in my Chinese lessons in the text book written by Chinese. Their prevarication is a stereotype. So what?

My subject in “God is now black and our evolving consciousness” was an exploration of the fact that VOGs (Voices of God or biblical narratives in movies and CDs) have increasingly been done by black people. That is a fact. It does not, as Harris perhaps contends I am suggesting, give superiority to black people, thus endorsing racism. Nor does it create division among races (or should I say, sadly, further division). It simply means that increasingly they are being perceived differently and this is a sign of the human race’s increasing collective acceptance of others. This is therefore a sign of the beginning of a benevolent leap forward in our consciousness, which we need if humans are to survive. And I am not at all sure what is wrong, or so terribly stereotypical, with averring that among blacks are the most magnificent singing voices in the world.

Having a black US president is a watershed moment in the evolution of human consciousness, the consequences of which we cannot now see and are still learning to portray.