The recent firestorm over South Park not drawing Muhammad caused some cartoonists to create a campaign called “Everybody Draw Muhammad day.” The creators of the campaign were shocked when they were deluged with offensive and hateful portrayals of Muhammad (what did they expect?) and dropped their gag. What do you think of all this?
Creators of ‘Everybody Draw Muhammad Day’ drop gag after everybody gets angry
“Everybody Draw Muhammad Day?”
As South Park’s Sheila Broflovski would say: “What, What, WHAT?”
The outcry from Comedy Central’s decision to censor an episode of South Park with depictions of Muhammad last week led a cartoonist and a Facebook user to fight back. That is until they realized it might be controversial, apparently.
In declaring May 20th to be “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day,” Seattle artist Molly Norriscreated a poster-like cartoon showing many objects — from a cup of coffee to a box of pasta to a tomato — all claiming to be the likeness of Muhammad.
Such depictions are radioactive as many Muslims believe that Islamic teachings forbid showing images of Muhammad.
“I am Mohammed and I taste good,” says the pasta box in the cartoon. On top of the cartoon images (but no longer on her website) was an announcement explaining the rationale behind the event.
“In light of the recent veiled (ha!) threats aimed at the creators of the….
…television show South Park (for depicting Mohammed in a bear suit) by bloggers on Revolution Muslim’s website, we hereby deemed May 20, 2010 as the first annual “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day,” the original artwork reads.
On Friday, Norris told a radio talk show host in Seattle that she came up with the idea because “as a cartoonist, I just felt so much passion about what had happened…” noting that “it’s a cartoonist’s job to be non-PC.”
That passion, it appears, has lessened. And fast.
Her stark website today reads: “”I am NOT involved in “Everybody Draw Mohammd [sic] Day!”
“I made a cartoon that went viral and I am not going with it. Many other folks have used my cartoon to start sites, etc. Please go to them as I am a private person who draws stuff,” she writes.
It went viral, however, because she was the one who passed it around. Sending it to people like Dan Savage, a popular Seattle-based blogger and nationally syndicated sex advice columnist.
Once it became a national story she reeled back, asking Savage — in an email he provided to The Ticket — if he would “be kind enough to switch out my poster” with another one — a much tamer version which has no images attributed to Muhammad.
“I am sort of freaked out about my name/image being all over the place,” her e-mail reads.
He didn’t change it, nor did he post the tamer version. Besides, after Savage posted it, many other sites picked it up including The Atlantic and Reason.
When asked about her change of heart, Norris told The Ticket that she didn’t intend for the cartoon “to go viral.”
Then why did she send the cartoon to the media in the first place? ”Because I’m an idiot,” Norris replied.
“This particular cartoon of a ‘poster’ seems to have struck a gigantic nerve, something I was totally unprepared for,” she said.
She doesn’t appear to be alone. The creator of a Facebook page dedicated to the day has bowed out as well. Jon Wellington told the Washington Post (before abandoning ship) that he created the page because he “loved [Norris's] creative approach to the whole thing — whimsical and nonjudgmental.”
While he was still associated with his own event he said: “To me, this is all about freedom of expression and tolerance of other viewpoints, so I hope you’ll help make this a sandbox that anyone can play in, if they want. I don’t think it’d be right under the circumstances for me (or anyone) to censor inflammatory posts *ahem*, but let’s be welcoming and inclusive, mmkay?”
Apparently the posts weren’t “welcoming” enough, as on Sunday morning he announced his departure from the cause. “I am aghast that so many people are posting deeply offensive pictures of the Prophet,” he writes. “Y’all go ahead if that’s your bag, but count me out.”
Did he think people were going to post flattering images?
That’s what Facebook user Douglas Armstrong wondered too. “You created an event inviting people to submit pictures of Mohammed,” Armstrong wrote. “And apparently you’re so new to the Internet that you didn’t foresee what would happen?”
Although Wellington had abandoned his cause, he apparently was sticking around to answer questions. To Armstrong’s question, Wellington responded: “I guess I had more faith in human nature than was warranted.”
Another user, Paul St. George, had little patience for Wellington. “If you’re not going to attend your own event then take it down dumbass and quit boring us.”
Related items:
Muslim group warns ‘South Park’ creators after Muhammad scene
Jon Stewart says Comedy Central censors South Park for ‘safety reasons’
Muslim threats to ‘South Park’: Did Comedy Central cave in to knucklehead extremists?
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Photo: South Park’s Sheila Broflovski. Credit: South Park screengrab
April 26th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
We need a way to counter these hate-mongering cartoonists peacefully, let them reserve a spot in hell for all their depictions of the our Prophet. He ignored and forgave many of those who insulted him, including the king of the hypocrites, Abdullah ibn Ubay, which undermined Abdullah and made him lose all his steam. The Prophet ignored calls to kill Abdullah even from Abdullah’s son and in doing soo he didn’t alienate many of the men in Abdullah’s tribe. We muslims must realize that responding with violence and hatred, will only lead to more hatred and violence from anti-muslims.
April 26th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
Interesting that Revolution Muslim is run by ex-Israeli settlers posing as Muslims. Looks like they were aiming to create a story.
April 26th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
But the people who were against it in the first place, weren’t they a tiny group of nobodies? Awesome job, Emperor! I was hoping to see this here.
April 26th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
I like to criticize both the Anti-Muslims and Revolution Muslim here.
First these Anti-Muslim idiots should know that the group only has 10 people and not a Billion Muslims wants to come after the South Park creators. The media made this a big useless deal over this crap and this ended up making a lot of people angry at the Muslims over this. And if you read these vile people’s comments in articles and videos over this, they not only use hate speach such as “kill Muslims and death to Islam” and even used racist slangs on Middle Eastern Muslims such as “Sandn***ers” and everything so don’t act like you Anti-Muslims are the peaceful ones here.
At the sametime, the guys at Revolution Muslim did a great job in making Islam look bad. While I don’t like the crude jokes that the South Park guys love to do, using threat and violence against them is not the right thing to do of dealing with this issue. No one should be harmed here. If they felt unhappy about the prophet (p.b.u.p.) being made fun of then they should of used a more peaceful criticism instead of vile threats. And because all this these fools did, people once again are attacking us. So great job in making us Muslims look bad.
April 26th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
“Interesting that Revolution Muslim is run by ex-Israeli settlers posing as Muslims. Looks like they were aiming to create a story.”
DO you have anything to back that up?
April 26th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
As I said on another website, we Muslims must exercise our rights as Muslim-Americans. Our Prophet Muhammad peace and blessing be upon him orders us to adhere to the land’s law that we live in. America is a free country and the only choice we Muslims have is to protest it within the boundaries of the law. Meaning that we can’t go and topple all the garbage cans and burn buildings left and right. We say As-Salamu Alaykum (peace be upon you) everytime we see another Muslim but do we really mean peace be upon you if all we do is scare and threaten people? No. We shouldn’t. Our Prophet didn’t do it and he was RESPECTED for it. His character was something different which in turn put pressure upon people who would draw pictures of him. We have become spoiled by CAIR’s work in the Muslim community.
April 26th, 2010 at 11:40 pm
This is my favorite piece of all time:
”Because I’m an idiot,” Norris replied.
Norris uploads a poster of the various “representations” of Muhammad on the internet, and never foresaw the consequences?
Lady, freedom of speech is like a no-holds-barred arena. Anything goes. If you’re not prepared before you enter into it, you deserve to get slaughtered because you just undermined everything that you supposedly stood for by back-peddling your decision to post your artwork.
April 27th, 2010 at 8:15 am
So “Revolution Muslim” is run by former Jewish settlers? Yet they can put out inflammatory statements yet thousands of innocent Muslims are the target of harassment by state security agencies. Sounds like a set up to me.
I’m fed up with the juvenile delinquents version of “free speech” which so many westerners cling to when it comes to Muslims. They display no maturity, civility or common sense. They seek conflict, then act surprised and persecuted when their venomous attacks finally manage to provoke Muslims.
The fact of the matter is that the US, and much of the Western world has no qualms about using censorship when it comes to criticizing their own military atrocities or Israel and its criminal activities. Remember what happened to Bill Maher when he was being mildly critical of US air force pilots on his old TV show?
April 27th, 2010 at 8:39 am
What the heck is the whole point other than making people angry?
April 27th, 2010 at 9:33 am
@Robaby, To counter the hate mongers is to laugh at them or too simply just ignore them, and then hopefully they will cave away. But as the saying goes ‘violence breeds violence’ will only persist.
The Earth is filled with people who want to own the monopoly on a particularly subject matter. The reality is to co-exist with others who have different opinions and belief system. Finding the least harmful method to disspell differences is the way to go.
April 27th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
” let them reserve a spot in hell for all their depictions of the our Prophet. ”
LOL according to your religion, anyone who does not believe that Mo was a prophet but rather a clever warlord, will go to hell. So it doesn´t matter if they draw some pictures of him.
April 27th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Batumi Says:
April 27th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
” let them reserve a spot in hell for all their depictions of the our Prophet. ”
LOL according to your religion, anyone who does not believe that Mo was a prophet but rather a clever warlord, will go to hell. So it doesn´t matter if they draw some pictures of him.
No Batumi, this is not according to our religion. Any to say Muhammad was a warlord is in truth a lie and shows how little you know of this man.
April 27th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Peace, the “only choice” you have is to protest within the law? So, if it weren’t for our laws, would you kill people who draw Muhammad?
April 27th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
“DO you have anything to back that up?”
“RevolutionMuslim” is run by Joseph Cohen who studied rabbinical law and lived on an illegal settlement in the West Bank who suddenly converted to Islam. After every tragic event, RevolutionMuslim posts an inflammatory message meant to piss off non-Muslims (see the website for comments after Fort Hood and the Polish plane crash).
Forgive me for being suspicious.
More info here:
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/the-radical-muslim-group-the-threatened-south-park-creators-was-run-by-joseph-cohen-a-former-israeli-radical-who-used-to-live-in-a-settlement-in-the-west-bank/
April 27th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
ACTUALLY BATUMI, some scholars(Ghazali) say that those who don’t believe in Islam because of the biased environment they grew up in due to such things as cultural and religious propanganda against Islam that has from their childhood defamed Islam(i.e. during the middle ages when people believed such crazy ideas about Islam and you would be killed for following Islam) that God will give them a unbiased test of their beliefs on the Day of Judgement because He wants to be fair, even if they believe horrible things about the Prophet. In this life, you’re only held accountable for that which you know and for seeking out that which you don’t know yet are able to seek. Today we live in pluralistic societies and search out the truth especially through the net and after doing some research you will find that Prophet Muhammad(pbuh) was a real prophet not a “clever warlord.” See:
http://www.call-to-monotheism.com/prophet_muhammad__peace_be_upon_him_
http://www.call-to-monotheism.com/refuting_arguments_against_prophet_muhammad___peace_be_upon_him__
April 27th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
I think most Muslims are not happy to see the Prophet mocked, but by the same measure, the vast majority of Muslims do not do anything about it. This faux-media sensation is all rooted in coverage of Revolution Muslim which is nothing more than four idiots pretending to be Muslim. Let’s not forget the founder is Joey Cohen … {edited}… who get their rocks off pretending to be Muslim revolutionaries. They spend most of their time harassing Muslims in New York City who want nothing to do with them, but that gets no coverage.
April 27th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
correction to above post, I meant:
“…biased environment they grew up IN DUE TO THINGS SUCH as cultural and religious propanganda against Islam…”
DANIOS, you should have an option that allows us to edit our comments after we post them like they do in Amazon or some other comment boards
April 27th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
*Gasp.* Cartoons! The inhumanity of it all! What’s to be done?! Oh wait now I remember; emperor and the people whining about this can grow up and ignore images they don’t like.
April 27th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
@ HGG
Lookup Joseph Cohen an Ex israeli jew. He run the website and is now known as yusuf khattab.
Besides why bother with cartoons, its doesnt bother me anyways its just a god damn picture.
April 27th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
If someone makes a cartoon that offends you, then one way to respond is to make a cartoon that offends them.
April 27th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
Cagliostro, they ignored these cartoons, what they are not ignoring is the firestrom of hate and threats against muslims these cartoon’s censorship has caused, which is what the above article is about.
April 28th, 2010 at 8:33 am
Cagliostro said :
“the people whining about this can grow up and ignore images they don’t like.”
So say the racist provocateurs, and deluded atheists. Bullies pick a fight and then act surprised and persecuted once you get results.
I’m sure if Jews were even more passive about the degradation their community had to go in Germany(yellow stars, widespread slander, lies, wholesale demonization) through they would have been just fine.
Everything has limits, if you don’t have enough sense and humanity to differentiate between free speech(which you don’t have any way, try making fun of US military war criminals, who the creators of South Park glorify and see how well that works out) and hate speech, you’re an idiot and part of the problem.
Western hypocrisy and racism never ceases to amaze me.
April 28th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
This is the internet. Censorships roams here more than grass roams the desert. I will be looking forward to this.
May 1st, 2010 at 4:06 pm
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=122422947769479&ref=ts
This group has been launched by Muslims to counter the “Draw Muhammad Day” event. You won’t hear about these Muslims on CNN or Fox, who counter hate with peaceful protest and intellectual arguments, but you will definitely hear about the violence caused by the minority of Muslims. The above facebook group is a great example of how the majority of Muslims have reacted to the whole controversy. Spread the word.
May 19th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
killing and violence of any sort is unacceptable!! but why ignite situations which are offensive towards others belief.. im certain there are more muslims who oppose violence than those who support it.. we should respect the feelings of the former kind of muslims.. drawing muhammed is pointless, the only thing that can be accomplished by drawing the caricatures is animosity.. dont we have that enough already??
May 20th, 2010 at 5:19 am
Thank god there is someone who has respect for feelings. Thank u applebee. I wonder what kind of fun they r having annoying us. They thinks muslims r crazzy fanatics.What r they then? We protest as our feelings our hurt.In response they make drawings intentionally to disturb us.They could have drawn something else. To me it seems to be a portayal of hatred for muslims.
May 20th, 2010 at 6:19 am
i hate draw muhammad day,,,,,,,,,a nasty event ,no compromise at allll……….i protest aganst this n also aganst these galah artistz…..
May 22nd, 2010 at 3:44 pm
I think this was kind of a silly idea considering the objective.
“To Promote Freedom Of Speech”. Ya right. It was a simple excuse to express their understandable, but foolish hatred. They were ready to ridicule the Muslim extremists (hardly 6% in all) at the expense of the 94% others who weren’t even involved.
Lol, everyone likes freedom of speech and everyone is entitled to their own opinion, however, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be any consequences. The problem here is sometimes people take freedom of speech too literally.
This event will surely divide the gap between the two communities and make extremists think that they need to put greater effort into suppressing the so called freedom of speech.
March 16th, 2012 at 1:00 pm
First of all, I want to tell that I’m a Muslim. Then, I’ll tell you that you have the right of freedom of speech but you can’t insult anyone. If you want to criticize Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), then you can do this as it’s your right of asking and objecting. But, if you’ll insult him by making cartoons of him and by abusing him, then, according to international law of blasphemy, you’ll be punished. Nobody’s allowed to insult even an individual then who did allow to insult the spiritual leader of 1.5 billion people. Friends, do you not know insulting their prophet makes Muslims angry? Do you not know it makes terrorists encouraged to kill non-Muslims? Why’re you being thhe cause of insurgency. Prophet Muhammad was a great man. He was a reformer and was also a preacher of human rights. You can study this book:
http://www.quranenglish.com/books/human%20rights%20in%20islam.pdf