Well, this cartoon’s about a month late!
As I feared, a ton of crazy stuff has happened since then to knock the issue out of the collective consciousness, though that doesn’t change the fact that a proven perjurer, violent drunk, and probable rapist now sits on the Supreme Court as its newest member.
Eh. It’s not like he’s the first!
I had actually completed a different version of this cartoon several weeks ago, but some friends I shared it with online signaled concerns that the approach it took could be too extreme, or even triggering for survivors of sexual assault. As I’ve noted before, I generally consider rape and domestic violence imagery off-limits as metaphors. It’s the kind of thing creatively lazy (almost exclusively male) cartoonists rely on for shock value, often with a complete disregard for the gravity of those issues, and disrespect for the feelings and experiences of victims.
The rare case in which such imagery may be appropriate is when it’s not merely being used as a metaphor, and the topic instead involves literal abuse of that nature. Even then, great care must be taken to the treatment of the imagery, with deference to the judgment of victims, and if the exact same point can be made with a different image, then you should probably draw that, instead.
That’s where constructive criticism is key, ideally during the initial development stage of a cartoon. That’s why people making art about serious topics need a support system of friends and professional acquaintances to give them editorial guidance from a wide variety of perspectives, particularly when the topic in question involves communities the artist is not personally a part of.
With all that in mind as a trigger-warning, those so inclined may view the other version of the cartoon by clicking here.
In both cases, the main idea is basically a combination of these two older cartoons, thus demonstrating a continuing trend of Republican power brokers forgiving repulsive crimes against women while rewarding outright lies, as long as the lying criminal in question promises to unwaveringly serve the GOP’s unethical and increasingly inhuman goals.
Democrats often aren’t any better (some of them even supported or directly aided The Boof Warrior’s ascendence to the Supreme Court, after all), and in any case have not been a remotely effective opposition against the rise of right-wing hate crimes and fascism for quite awhile, but I’ve beat up on them for that plenty in the past, and now isn’t a good time for both-sideism, considering the events of the last few days.
The same friends who helped develop this cartoon assured me that Kavanaugh would still be a major issue going into next week’s midterm election, mobilizing women and feminist allies to vote Republicans out of office while electing fierce Progressives who could force spineless “moderate” Democrats to help them fight back against any who remain.
Let’s hope they were right about that. Get out and vote, people, then keep making noise, and keep taking direct action afterwards!
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