It’s not the job of a cartoonist to perpetuate negative stereotypes
I’m agog at Martyn Turner’s Irish Times cartoon today on Bertie Ahern’s trips to Nigeria. Bertie’s in a pot, being cooked alive, in the imagination of the paper reader. Well, I’m afraid framing the imagery like this does not absolve the cartoonist, who makes the final decision on the imagery in a gag. If Turner’s implying the Irish are racist, he should be more explicit about it. As it stands, Turner’s reached for the most negative stereotype to associate with Nigeria, stopping short of “natives” with bones through their noses. However, these natives have a semantic association and appear in the mind’s eye of the reader: the savage maneater cooking the white explorer is a well-established trope.
I’m not calling Turner a racist. Turner’s donated his work to development education material for years so I can’t imagine he’s setting out to offend, and it does have a sympathetic punchline. However this cartoon reproduces, and therefore helps perpetuate, negative stereotypes about Nigerians specifically and Africans generally.
I wonder how Nigerian Irish Times readers will take to it.
