30 The Great Cartoon Controversy of 1991

When I was drinking with colleagues on Friday night I said that I would be posting the "Cartoon Story" this week.  I had a picture in my mind of the file drawer where I had collected all the newspaper articles about the event.

Sadly, that mental picture no longer had any material support!  I went to my files and realized that some time ago I'd given away all the information I had about the great Broadside cartoon controversy from 1991.

Fortunately, my finally honed research research skills allowed me to ask Professor Google for some help.  And here's what I found.

Student Press Law Center Report (S 1991)

The controversy began with a cartoon published in the January 15, 1991 issue of the Broadside student newspaper. It parodied the "Dewar's Profile" scotch ads popular at the time.  The subject of the cartoon was "John Volunteer."  What roused people's ire, of course, was not the violation of Dewar's copyright but the "profile" section noting that the soldier "admires authority, xenophobic, alcoholic, repressed homosexual."

The next day the first bombs were dropped on Iraq in the beginning of "Operation Desert Storm."

And in Central Oregon a great controversy blew up.   Angry calls and letters rolled into the Broadside, the COCC administration, and local media outlets.   A January 29 edition of The Bulletin reported that Greg Walker, a veteran and leader of a local committee called Citizens in Support of the Troops recommended the editor be dismissed for "malfeasance or nonfeasance" and that the adviser be replaced by "someone competent."

In the same article, Helen Vandervort, head of the COCC foundation at the time, reported that the college had lost over $400,000 in promised donations because of the cartoon.  On the letters page in the same edition of the Bulletin a "cashier" wrote "I plan on doing my own protesting, starting with the businesses that help support that irresponsible piece of trash they call a 'newspaper.'  As for COCC's administration's attitude toward this matter -- I don't believe in censorship either, but perhaps these kids need some 'guidance' in what they publish.  I will think long and hard the next time the college asks my help (as a taxpayer)."   And Paula Brown, the Broadside's business manager, sounded a slightly more optimistic note when she said that advertisers had pulled out in protest but were expected to return.

Monetary threats were not the only kind being made.  The public protests were accompanied by anonymous death threats made against the families of the cartoonist, editor, and adviser.  The cartoonist mentioned these in his letter of apology, which ran in the Broadside and in the Bulletin.  Both left town for a short time out of fear.

The editor also apologized to Schenley Industries, owner of Dewar's (which is now owned by Bacardi Limited).

The new president of the college, Bob Barber, who had arrived in September, did his best to deal with the issue.  He noted that the school could not legally censor the student newspaper.  Nevertheless, he   formed an ad hoc committee of two students and two community members to look at the management of The Broadside:  institution run or independent.  Eventually the clearly illegal attempt by outside forces to have the school institute a "prior-review" policy was halted.

Both the cartoonist and the editor apologized in a special four-page edition of The Broadside and in the Bulletin.  The editor said that the intent of the cartoon was "to illustrate how much of the media has whipped up an anti-Arab frenzy; unfortunately the cartoon backfired and has instead started an anti-Broadside frenzy."  He noted that the cartoon "did not convey its intended message and publishing it was a mistake."  The cartoonist said he didn't believe soldiers were alcoholics or homosexuals.  He had friends who were veterans.  He was trying to comment on the way Arabs were depicted as "warmongering, insane criminals" in the American media.  He used "the cheapest stereotypes of the U. S. soldier to make it clear how cruel prejudice and racism is."  "Nevertheless, had I known the cartoon would miss the mark so badly, it wouldn't have been published."

There were also members of the community who spoke or wrote in support of the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press, if not in support of this particular example of it.  A "law book editor" wrote to the Bulletin that, "even the shallow and ignorant are entitled to the fearless public expression of their opinions."  A "community member and former COCC student," who spoke at the February 5 meeting of the Board, said,  "We need to step back and remember what our loved ones are fighting for."

As I looked back through the "Google News" collection, I was interested to see that the January 29th  edition of the Bulletin also had an editorial calling for protection of the rights of Arab Americans who were being threatened and persecuted by the FBI.   Robert W. Chandler also was concerned about the ugly rising tide of anti-Muslim sentiment.  But he made his point more clearly.

I don't remember much of this original controversy myself except a bit of a public meeting in which Bob Barber listened as many, many people spoke their minds.  I was actually out of town the day the cartoon was published.  My mom died on January 8 and after going home to help my sister with the funeral I flew back into town the day the bombing started in Iraq.   But we must have talked about the controversy in my very first section of SP 241, Media, Communication, and Society.  I was reminded that we did by a man who just last week came for an interview in hopes of getting the job I'm leaving.  He was in that media class in the cold, cold winter of 1991.  And I found my old gradebook so that I could remind him that he got the highest score in the class.