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Saturday 30 August 2008

And another thing

Thinking of becoming a cartoonist in today’s Britain? Think again

The cartoonist Vicky (Victor Weisz, 1913–66) fled to London not long after the Reichstag fire, with the Gestapo at his heels. Had he not possessed a Hungarian passport he would never have got away, for as the boy wonder of Berlin political cartooning in the 12 Uhr Blatt, he had gone for Hitler as far back as 1928, and was a marked man.

If we delve further into what a contemporary Vicky would need to know, we come across the hard rock of a frightening question: is there an English sense of humour any more? Or rather, is it right, or ‘acceptable’, or even legal to speak of one? Should we not now say British sense of humour? Or is even this latitudinarian enough in a multiracial, multicultural society? Not long ago a chief constable in the principality tried to get sent to prison a speaker on the radio who made a harmless joke about the Welsh. And the Times Literary Supplement, which is updating its house-style book, now says that the phrase ‘dour Scot’ is no longer an acceptable cliché. The modern Vicky would have to begin with a list of terms to avoid as legally risky, depending on the context. This would begin with ‘northern’ and, still more, ‘Nordic’. The term ‘white’ can be dangerous too, except in an abusive sense, of course. And what about ‘English’ itself? Used in a provocative context it is jail-bait. You certainly can’t lawfully accuse people of ‘lacking an English sense of humour’ if they are British citizens. That’s racist, and a hate-crime. The only safe rule for an apprentice cartoonist is: avoid all human archetypes. Much simpler, and safer, is to choose another profession.

More articles from: Paul Johnson | this section

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