BLOG 29: Cartoon Me

CARTOON ME

“We don't want to hammer our adversaries into cartoon characters and deny their humanity.” Bill Clinton - American 42nd US President (1993-2001)

I’m sure Genna won’t mind me mentioning her by name cause she is a damn fine cartoonist. I was fortunate enough to have had a cartoon version of myself drawn by her. Those who have known me for ages will know that this drawing was my screen saver for many years as well as my MSN photo. Everyone said it captured the essence of me perhaps better than any photograph.

In the drawing as you can see, Cartoon-Jax is wearing a trademark baby-doll over a pair of jeans and is holding a glass aloft whilst bestowing a rather full grin. Everyone instant recognises it as me. Funny thing is there is more about the drawing that does not look like me than does. Genna had a hard time matching my skin tone so didn’t bother, the hair is longer than mine and although my hair is brown, the shade Genna chose is off also. And yet in the many years I’ve had the portrait – no one has ever questioned who it may be.

The essence of the drawing is I guess…Party Gal. Cartoon-Jax, whilst not kitted out in a LBD and heels, is clearly enjoying herself in a social situation – she doesn’t appear to be on her way to collect the dry-cleaning! Although there is no detail on the tumbler in her hand, it seems not to suggest tap water or lemonade but alcohol of some unspecified sort. (I hear you shouting Vodka!) The crook in Cartoon-Jax’s knee suggests the dancing has just started and she is itching to get to it. You can almost hear the (not drawn) ice clinking in the glass as Cartoon-Jax beckons you to come join the mayhem that has caused that kilowatt smile. Yup – Cartoon-Jax is a Total Party Gal.

Of course for a cartoon to be recognisable it has to capture traits of the person – or we’d never know who it is! – But a cartoon uses exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others. Essentially a cartoon is a loaded portrait. It doesn’t set out to tell the whole story it’s just supposed to give an easily identifiable visual likeness.

Cartoon-Jax is an adorable creation of Genna’s and I love it! It is an affectionate piece of shorthand between friends. It is no more the essence of me than a red bus is the essence of London. It is a loaded portrait – just a little bit of the whole.

However, it made me wonder how often I reduce the complexities of human nature into a cartoon. I know how easy it is to not look any deeper than the information one would need to make a cartoon when dealing with real people. Sometimes you just look at someone, look at one circumstance… and think you know all there is to know. You make a cartoon version of the person in your head… I mean what are you gonna believe, the evidence of your own eyes…or something deeper? I think the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? exhibited how problematic depending on such distorted information can be:

Jessica Rabbit: You don't know how hard it is being a woman looking the way I do.

Eddie Valiant: You don't know how hard it is being a man looking at a woman looking the way you do.

Jessica Rabbit: I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way.

Recently we all had to sit and watch the melodrama that was Susan Boyle. The whole thing played out like a modern parable about people’s inability to believe in any depth beyond the first impression. Her initial demeanour and homely appearance caused the judges and audience to be "waiting for her to squawk like a duck". It was less her somewhat (questionable) talent than the contrast between the audience's first impression of her when she appeared on stage compared to the ovation she received afterwards that triggered global interest. A frumpy middle aged woman was judged to have nothing to contribute – based on cartoon like information. I leave the last word on Susan Boyle to Journalist Charlie Brooker. Mr Brooker said in the series finale of his BBC Four programme Newswipe: "thanks to a combination of our backwards, appearance-led culture and a nakedly manipulative set-up VT which made her out to be a comedy loser, Susan Boyle's performance soon became the number one talking point for every tiresome prick in the land [...] because apparently it's a fucking miracle that women who aren't conventionally attractive are also capable of exhibiting any kind of skill whatsoever."

Jessica Rabbit or Susan Boyle… we think we know all we need to know about someone based on what… the curve of a hip?.. the length of an eyelash?.. the dress they are wearing?... the height of a heel? Is this what we think informs us of who some actually is… is this why we are in a perpetual state of amazement when it turns out someone had what we call ‘hidden-depths”. Did we REALLY look so deep that it was really hidden from view?...did we?

This multi-media age has made things slightly worse. Because we are talking face to face less and less but electronically conversing more and more – and we think we are staying in touch. I went to a wedding recently where everyone hadn’t seen each other for a year – but everyone seemed to know what each was ‘up to’ in their lives. We’d been checking each others Facebook pages. This one lived in wine bars or night clubs (judgement), that one is in all this ones photos (judgement)… this one hadn’t updated their page for ages (judgement)…this one has been on exotic holidays recently (judgement). It was amusing to see how many of those judgements unravelled when presented with a live human being to fill in the blanks. Blanks we assume could not be there, so sure were we of our conclusions… but there is always more than meets the eye. Always.

For the record… the one who seemed like a party animal actually just had a spate of formal events and family parties, the two who seemed in thick with each other actually just happened to have a mutual friend and were no closer than they ever were, the one who hadn’t updated facebook actually turned out to have been in hospital, the one who was splashing the cash on exotic holidays actually was in fact on fam.trips for work. (Gosh, it was so much easier believing party animal had abandoned her kid, two mates were as thick as thieves, one was a snob about Facebook and the other was sunning himself whilst the rest of us had to work! – WRONG… but so much easier... being correct takes effort.)

If we are like this with the people around us – people who pose us no threat, how much worse would it be with people that do? As Bill Clinton said, it is so easy to just make them fit a cartoon baddy mould. We can strip our enemies of their humanity and make them into a version that will excuse what ever we do to them.

The movie Austin Powers explores this theme in a very humorous way. Without warning we (the audience) suddenly get a back-story to one of Dr Evil’s hench men (Michael McDonald). Suddenly we know he has a pretty wife (Lois Chiles) and friends and apart from the heinous things he has to do in his employment – he is a pretty alright guy. It’s not without some regret that a steamroller passes over him!

But that’s the point I guess… it is not without some regret that we steamroller our enemies… if we bother to get to know a little of their humanity first. Remember those Benetton posters in 2003? The ones with photos of kids who lived in the countries in the Middle East deemed to be our enemy... they had the most powerful slogans I have ever seen… “Mustapha, Aged 8, Basra ‘When I grow up I’d like to be a doctor’ ” Benetton were masters of making you think… and continue to think. In the years since that campaign I have wondered about Mustapha and all the Mustapha’s he represented. He’d be 14 now… did he make it?... does he still wanna be a doctor? It hard to picture a nation of enemies when they have a name, a face, an ambition…. When they are human.

It’s not the believing the cartoon that makes us crappy people though. It’s the forgetting the real people that the cartoon is based on.

We all have a rolodex in our head of quick reference guides to who people are. We use this info to provide others with a thumbnail sketch of who these people are – to make them feel comfortable. But we do need to be aware that these are not portraits… they are just a rough outline…the rest has to be filled in. We need to let people know this when we claim to know something about someone. Besides… getting to know someone is a continual process... investing the time…filling in the blanks…going that little bit deeper… over and over again. Cartoons just capture a bit of the story. You can’t know a cartoon – we should not profess to either.

From time to time though, I do wonder about Cartoon-Jax. The Total Party Gal. I wonder what her life must be like – must be so exhausting lurching from restaurant to bar, to nightclub, to party, from airport, to beach to ski-slope to a spot of shopping and lunch… Cartoon-Jax would definitely meet the ladies for lunch! I don’t think I could possibly keep up with Cartoon-Jax… oh there is a little of her in me… must be for the exaggerated version to ring true to so many people. Though to be Cartoon-Jax for real I’d be living a sort of Paris Hilton existence… (well………. maybe not, Genna did after all base her on me….. and that top and those jeans honey were definitely Primark!)