Free? Speech

I was reading the comments from hundreds of different people about the Charlie Hebdo attack, and there were the usual angry, hate-filled rants that I tend to ignore, but along with those, were honestly mystified Muslims who kept asking similar questions, which I will boil down into one: "Why draw pictures of Mohammed if it offends Muslims? Why not..just...you know, NOT draw him."

Let's put the whole "FREE SPEECH, FREE SPEECH" placards away for a minute here. We all like the idea of "free speech", but very few of us practice the reality of it. In fact, in our everyday life, we censor our speech all the time. I think we would all agree that most of us would not tell our friend if he/she got a horrible outfit, or what exactly we think of our boss, or how boring we can sometimes find the person we are having a conversation with, although we have a right to do all of these things. All of us, to some degree or another, voluntarily censor our speech to prevent hurting the feelings of others.

Even comedians know that there are limits to some things. I haven't heard any Nazi gas chamber jokes, Twin Tower quips, or stillborn baby one-liners. Now, you may argue that it is a comedian's right to joke about these topics, and I would agree with you 100%, I would also believe 100% that this person would be booed off the stage. So, why is some humour acceptable and some humour not? And who decides? How do we, as a society, collective (for the most part) agree that some things just "aren't funny" and shouldn't be touched, and others are fair game? Why is Mohammed in the fair-game category?

Before you jump down my throat, this isn't me advocating for censorship or anything of the sort. I do not believe that speech should be legislated (even though it already is - hate speech). I'm not advocating for cartoonists to stop portraying Mohammed, nor do I condone the attack in any way, but what I DO think is that we, as individuals/cartoonists/etc, really need to step back and accept that we are making a choice here. We are choosing which topics are too sensitive to mock, and which are not. And thus, we are choosing to disrespect Muslims. Should a Muslim individual react by killing? Of course not. In my opinion, taking another life is the worst thing you can do. But at the same time, I would like to ask people to stop calling Muslim people "too sensitive"; saying that they need to "get over it" and "toughen up". These very same people, will be shocked and appalled when others violate their sense of "acceptable" humour.

Let me put it another way. In the movie Titanic, there's a scene where a man falls off the ship, hits the propeller, and presumably dies. When he hits the propeller, there's a loud "dong" sound, like a bell being rung. I find this hilarious and laugh every time. Why? Because of the thought that some sound guy, in some studio somewhere, saw that scene and decided to put in a "dong" sound on purpose. The idea of a sound tech, choosing the right type of "dong" to add in at that moment gives me giggles. It's hard to explain it even to myself why I find it so funny. No amount of me explaining why I find the "dong" sound funny stops my friends from thinking I'm creepy as hell. They looked at me with horror, and I completely understand why. In that moment, their sensitivities and mine have diverged. What to me, was something inherently funny, was to them, totally inappropriate mocking of a person's dramatic and horrible death.

So, humour is something relative. Something that varies culturally and individually, something that varies in time, place, and in context. If you're a cartoonist, or a comedian, you know this. It's a fine line. My propeller "dong" giggle just provokes a head shake, but finding the video of that guy falling from one of the twin towers funny will likely get you beat up in NYC. Telling your boss that her dress is ugly and she laughs like a horse, might get you fired. There's a time and place for humour, and yes, for free speech. You have all the right in the world to say what you like, draw what you like. Nevertheless, I think we should all examine ourselves and why we find certain things acceptable and others not. How do we as a culture, come to some collective consciousness about what is "too sensitive" and what isn't? What should we do when our cultural/individual sensitivities don't mesh with another’s? And what does it say about us, when we ignore something we know will upset a large group of people, but then turn around and respect the sensitivities of other groups?