CSotD: Yeah, now pulitzer the other one
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Today, Joe Martin's Willie & Ethel delivers an unintentional spot-on response to Slate's … um … let me look it up … "Farhad Manjoo."
I've been a fan of Willie and Ethel for decades. I never heard of Farhad Manjoo until he wrote a commentary in Slate condemning the Pulitzer Prize committee for awarding a prize in editorial cartooning to "a guy I’d never heard of: Matt Wuerker."
Then he went on to condemn them for making an award at all to political cartoons, "an increasingly timeworn form."
"Even the best ones," he said, "traffic in blunt, one-dimensional jokes, rarely exhibiting nuance, irony, or subtext."
Manjoo goes on to say that he doesn't look at editorial cartoons, nor do his friends, and that he doesn't like them and that infographics and Internet memes matter more and that's what the Pulitzer should honor though he admits that they really couldn't because who knows who started what meme and at what point … oh, just go read it yourself.
I think his main point is that Andy Rooney will never really die as long as there is still someone in this crazy world of ours who can make a living by admitting he doesn't know what he's talking about and then just keeping talking about it anyway.
And, like Andy Rooney, it's not that he's completely wrong on all counts. There are some really great infographics and bits of on-line graffiti that are useful, clever and persuasive. They probably deserve some kind of award.
So give them one. Who's stopping you?
It's like saying they should stop giving out an Oscar for "Best Picture" because now we have television, and, besides, none of my friends go to movie theaters any more, we all just watch streaming video. And, besides, most movies suck.
There's also some serious pot-and-kettle action going on here.
The hot air he's blowing in this little thumb-sucker undermines his trashing of most editorial cartoons because guess what? Everyone who is required to put something out there on a regular basis is going to occasionally emit some stinkers. Case in point, Farhad.
Even the best editorial cartoons are lame? Dude, please.
Anyway, we don't need more awards. We don't even need the ones we have. They're just an excuse to dress up and eat bad food, and then take home some wall candy to impress the clowns in the front office.
Which it really won't, as a perusal of recent slashes in newsrooms around the country will show.
Look: Awards are a form of applause, and applause is bullshit.
I was trying to find the exact quote in "Don't Look Back" where Dylan says that, but my search turned up a more on-point version in "When We Were Beautiful," a book about Bon Jovi. The Google Books preview won't show me enough to source the exact speaker, but, whoever he was, he even mentioned awards:
"I don't need the applause. The applause is bullshit. I don't want a plaque. I just want to do the right thing."
Well, there you go.
I've won awards, some small regional things, a couple statewide, even two "international" awards, which I put in quotes because the number of countries represented is less important than the number of entries received, and awards committees tend to be vague on that.
The awards I won were rarely for my best work. Or, at least, not for the stuff that was most fun and of which I was most proud. It's nice to get a pat on the back, but … *shrug*
On the other hand, the Pulitzer committee is sending Matt a check for 10K and, as Willie would say, that's an award you can eat!
Meanwhile, if Farhad Manjoo thinks there should be an award for dropping the pepper-spraying cop onto every conceivable old painting every painted, well, he should make his case to some people with money to give away. Or an oversupply of Lucite.
He could even petition the Pulitzer Committee to start a new category.
And, while you're at it, Farhad, suggest that they should stop giving Pulitzers to columnists and bestow the prize instead on Facebook patrons and the contributors to the comments sections of web sites.
Pot. Kettle. Goose. Gander. You know.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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