Showing posts with label Pat Oliphant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pat Oliphant. Show all posts

Tuesday, 4 December 2012

468: AIDS 4 - Moralising 1

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Friday, 27 April 2012

386: Anita Bryant 2 - Oliphant

Oliphant
Syndicated cartoon, 5 July 1977

In contrast to Buchwald’s piece, this editorial cartoon by Oliphant is nothing but caricature.

A wild gaggle of effeminates, with curly hair (a very 60s carton cliché), earrings and swinging their handbags at a line of solid riot cops.

You’ll also note the subsidiary tagline from Oliphant’s little character at the bottom of the cartoon: “Whatever they are, here they come again”, which only confirms that gays are some alien other and the very idea of gays protesting is ridiculous.

Sunday, 17 February 2008

72: Gays in the Military 1993 - Don't Ask, Don't Tell

That new policy was announced in July 1993 (from when the majority of the following editorial cartoons date). It became law on February 28, 1994 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. Congress continued the longstanding ban against homosexual conduct in the military, and that the presence of homosexuals in the military would undermine morale, discipline, and unit cohesion.
The act prohibits any homosexual or bisexual person from disclosing his or her sexual orientation, or from speaking about any homosexual relationships, including marriages or other familial attributes, while serving in the United States armed forces. The policy also requires that as long as gay or bisexual men and women in the military hide their sexual orientation, commanders are not allowed to investigate their sexuality.
Or, as popularly known, "don't ask, don't tell."






In the last cartoon, we have about the only "homosexual" in all of the editorial cartoons I can find. In all of them, homosexuality is discussed, but the cartoonists choose to show either military opposition or a vacilating, conscience-struck Clinton. The issue is largely a political one, the struggle between the military and Clinton, rather than the actual effect of a gay person in the armed forces. Besides, any actual acknowledgment of homosexuality is only going to up the controversy level. Pat Oliphant, however, does decide to show a gay soldier, and he's a flamer. In fact, Oliphant always has used the the old-fashioned negative gay stereotypes in his cartoons. Which is possibly more of a shame than when a hack like Stanley Franklin also uses them, because Olyphant is otherwise an intelligent, combative, if somewhat conservative, bold cartoonist