Trans Internet-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften 15. Nr. Juli 2004
 

1.2. Signs, Texts, Cultures. Conviviality from a Semiotic Point of View /
Zeichen, Texte, Kulturen. Konvivialität aus semiotischer Perspektive"

HerausgeberIn | Editor | Éditeur: Jeff Bernard (Wien)

Buch: Das Verbindende der Kulturen | Book: The Unifying Aspects of Cultures | Livre: Les points communs des cultures


Grundlagen/Fundamentals Teil 1/Part 1:
Theorie/Theory
Teil 2/Part 2:
Sprache(n)/Language(s)
Teil 3/Part 3:
Literatur(en)/Literature(s)
Teil 4/Part 4:
Nonverbale Zeichen/Non-verbal Signs
Moderation / Chair: Renée Gadsden

Signs of Laughter and Contradiction

Renée Gadsden (Vienna)

 

Summary: This paper is based on an exhibition I created for the European Forum Alpbach 2003 entitled "Vom Stürmer gelernt? Politische Karikaturen gegen Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts" (Learned from the Stürmer? Political Caricature at the End of the 20th Century). Der Stürmer, a newspaper published in Germany from 1923 to 1945, was devoted to inciting hatred and persecution of Jewish people through articles, photographs and perhaps most effectively through caricatures. In the exhibition, alongside reproductions of caricatures from similar newspapers, original Stürmer caricatures were displayed, as well as examples from various Arab, Soviet and Western media dating from the end of the 1960s to the beginning of this century. Here, I will compare their clichés from an intercultural point of view.

 

Political caricature can be mild, relating to political events in a humorous way, or can be used as a "weapon". Because of its destructive capacity, a caricature can channel the reader's aggression onto a chosen image or concept. Caricature, a major vehicle of culture, reveals a double nature: humor is a main aspect of caricature, and humor is a strong tie between peoples. However, caricature also has a negative tendency, containing, conveying and conceivably reinforcing stereotypes, clichés, and simplifications. The tension between these two facets is one of the reasons caricature can transcend single cultures more easily than many other means.

This paper begins with an examination of caricatures from Der Stürmer, a newspaper published in Germany from 1923 to 1945 which was devoted to inciting hatred and persecution of Jewish people through articles, photographs and perhaps most effectively through caricatures. Parallels on the level of visual and textual codes between Stürmer caricatures and caricatures from various Arab, Soviet and Western media dating from the end of the 1960s to the beginning of this century reveal a pattern of complex sign systems that shed light on processes in society and culture.

From 1923 to 1945 Julius Streicher, Nazi Gauleiter and rabid anti-Semite, edited and published a newspaper called Der Stürmer, devoted to inciting hatred and persecution of Jewish people. Through articles, photographs and perhaps most effectively through caricatures, Streicher conducted a propaganda campaign week for week designed to pervert public opinion. Der Stürmer articles were written in a crude, easily comprehensible style, aimed at reaching a mass audience. In the first few years of the paper's existence, only few caricatures were published. They became a major highlight of the paper after December 19, 1925, when the first anti-Semitic caricatures by Fips (Philipp Rupprecht) appeared on the front page. Fips' cartoons were caricatures which presented various themes of anti-Semitism. He made the subjects of his cartoons despicable by ridiculing them. The main features of the Jewish people he drew were ugly faces with large hooked or bent noses, bulging eyes, unshaven; figures with hairy arms and crooked legs, often short and fat. Fips also portrayed them as vermin, snakes and spiders. Additionally, Jewish people were depicted as criminals or shown participating in violent and disgusting acts. His caricatures appeared in the weekly paper, which had a circulation of almost a half a million copies at its highest point, until the final issue on February 1, 1945. Der Stürmer caricatures set a tragic standard for effectiveness in degrading and defaming a people.

The legacy of Der Stürmer did not die with Streicher, who was sentenced to death at the Nuremberg Trial and executed in 1946. The main elements of the caricatures of Jewish people that were seen by millions of readers during his lifetime have been taken up since by Arab, Soviet and Western media. In the exhibition which I organized and curated, "Vom Stürmer gelernt? Politische Karikaturen am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts" (Learned from the Stürmer? Political Caricature at the End of the 20th Century), alongside reproductions and caricatures from similar newspapers, original Stürmer caricatures were displayed, as well as examples from various media dating from the end of the 1960s to the beginning of this century. The exhibition was shown at the European Forum Alpbach in Tirol, Austria in August 2003 and in the context of the international transdisciplinary symposium "Signs of Power, Power of Signs" held at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna in September 2003.

The exhibition showed that the use of visual stereotypes is not dependent on the circumstances, events or even the people depicted. Independent of the story told in the caricatures, in different cultures during different points in time, the "enemy figure" of "the Jew" is portrayed according to a canon of visual stereotypes. Questions, which are still being investigated, arise: is this inherent in the medium, the subject matter or both? Or is a lack of imagination the cause for regression to the methods of the Stürmer?

Fig. 1 (enlarge)

An examination of a page of Fips caricatures from Der Stürmer (number 29, July 1938) shows several of the tactics and mechanisms that were used to incite anti-Semitic feelings in the readers (Fig. 1). In three of the caricatures, Jewish people are shown controlling politics and affairs in the United States, France and the United Kingdom. There is also, in the caricature depicting a Jewish man as the Statue of Liberty, reference to a conspiracy between Jewish people and "Moscow", meaning, as symbolized by a shadow figure in a worker's uniform and the hammer and sickle held by the statue and floating on the horizon, "Bolshevism". In the other caricatures, Jews are ridiculed as being interested in culture and in freedom of the press, as well as being responsible for terror acts in Czechoslovakia. In another issue of Der Stürmer (special number 11, October 1938), the founding of Czechoslovakia itself is depicted in a caricature with text caption as being a product of Jewish people working together with the Freemason's lodge "Großorient". The Freemason's fraternity appears in the caricature as a fat and unattractive Jewish man being carried in a sedan chair on the shoulders of figures in soldier's uniforms and a figure in "Uncle Sam" clothes, but with a hammer and sickle on his top hat. These figures all have death's head skulls instead of faces. The caption explains that the caricaturist, a Czech painter named Kelink, is showing the lodge as a "terrible Jew, who governs through money and murder".

Der Stürmer, which was published in Nuremberg and distributed throughout the German Reich, was not the only publication that availed itself of anti-Semitic caricatures. A typical example of a similar kind is a caricature from the Deutsches Volksblatt (number 197, December 12, 1938) entitled "Das Amerika der Zukunft" (America of the Future). In the center of the drawing a man with distorted Jewish features is shown as the Statue of Liberty, holding a menorah in one hand and a Talmud in the other, instead of the torch and book. To the right, a Jewish figure hawks at a "Show of Rarities" the so-called "Last American", who is portrayed as Uncle Sam, locked into a glass case and looking dejected. On the left of the caricature hordes of Jewish figures are disembarking from a ship on their way to overrun the financial district of New York.

Fig. 2

The most popular theme of the caricatures of the Stürmer era concerned the Jewish world conspiracy to control governments and political and socio-cultural affairs in as many lands as possible. Another frequent subject for anti-Semitic caricatures was the so-called ritual murder. Jewish people have been repeatedly accused over the years of using human blood for religious ceremonies. The caricature from Der Stürmer (special number 11, October 1938; Fig. 2) refers to the case of Leopold Hilsner, who was accused of killing a young Christian girl in Bohemia at Easter 1899. Originally condemned to death, Hilsner's sentence was converted to life in prison due to pressure from inside the country and from abroad caused by the feeling that there was no real evidence of his guilt. A professor of philosophy at the University of Prague named Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, later the first President of Czechoslovakia, was also convinced of his innocence and campaigned against racial prejudice, especially against the superstition of Jewish ritual murders. Hilsner spent 19 years in prison before being released in the general amnesty of 1918. He moved to Vienna after his release, married, and lived 10 more years. Hilsner is buried in the Vienna Central Cemetery.

Examining caricatures of Jewish people and the state of Israel (which did not come into existence until after the end of Der Stürmer) in Soviet, Arab and West European media reveals that Jewish people as an ethnic group and Israel as a political entity are often portrayed in caricatures as one and the same. Arab states and groups have been in military conflict or at war with Israel since its creation. The Soviet Union, however, as well as the countries of Western Europe were never at war with Israel. Yet the caricatures from the USSR and the European Union sometimes show a belligerence and a vehemence usually associated with caricatures published in times of war. The main features of these political caricatures are the emphasis on the ethnic Jewish figure; the comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany; presenting unrecognizable portraits of Israeli leaders; and depicting Israel as an animalized human figure.

A look at Arab caricatures from the mid-1960s and later, around the time of the Six Day War (1967) demonstrates these features. In a caricature fom April 19, 1964 in Al-Massa (Egypt), a large figure of a man, apparently Arab, tests the sharpness of his butcher's knife on the tip of his finger as a puny figure half his size shakes and sweats and looks up to him helplessly. This figure, with bulging eyes, a hooked nose and wearing a hat with the Star of David on it, represents Israel. Most noticeably, while the Arab figure is clearly a human man, the figure of Israel has the hair on its head drawn in two curling horns that go back behind its ears, reminiscent of a devil or an animal. In a caricature fom Al-Manar (Iraq) from June 8, 1967 a small figure of a man, sweating, with uncombed hair, a large hooked nose and a scraggly beard, with fingers that either look like paws or as if they had claws, is depicted being strangled by large, well-formed hands pulling the two interlocking triangles of the Star of David tightly around its neck.

For a brief time in the 1930s, a newspaper called Der Stürmer was produced in Vienna, in imitation of the forerunner with the same name. It was not officially associated with the original German Stürmer from Nuremberg, but contained similar anti-Semitic articles and caricatures. In a Syrian caricature from Al-Thura of November 17, 1964, a powerful darker skinned muscle man crushes a pale and weak figure who has the characteristic facial features used in anti-Semitic caricatures. The Jewish figure, which also represents the state of Israel, is shown losing its dagger and a hat with a Star of David it. Comparing this to a caricature from the Vienna Stürmer (number 3, January 1, 1934), one sees a blond giant of a man trampling down newspapers that have faces, hands and legs while fat, bulging-eyed figures with dark eyes and hair protest insignificantly in the background of the drawing. The text of the caption reads "Hinaus mit der Judenpresse/Ins arische Haus die arische Zeitung!" (Out with the Jewish press/In the Aryan household the Aryan newspaper!; Fig. 3). Although separated by 30 years and coming from two different cultural circles on two different continents, in the Syrian caricature as well as the Viennese one, Jewish people are depicted as small and ugly in comparison with a large attractive and idealized figure. The same techniques are used in the two drawings to present an anti-Jewish message.

Fig. 3 (enlarge)

In Soviet media, Israel was a continual target of scorn. Examples of Israel reviled as a beast-like figure were particulary recurrent. A large scorpion firing a gun and planting signs with the Star of David on it is given a tremendous Jewish nose and unshaven chin in a caricature from the prominent Russian magazine Krokodil (number 18, June 1967). In Kazakhstanskaya Pravda from September 29, 1968, Israel is represented as a worm with stereotyped Jewish features on the bayonet of aggression. The figure simultaneously forms a dollar sign. Sovietskaya Moldavia (August 27, 1971) shows "the Zionist spider at his favorite work", weaving a web which consists of "gossip, lies, provocation, anti-Sovietism, Jewish question, anti-Communism." This caricature is a further example of the visual dehumanization of Jewish people by depicting a stereotyped Jewish figure as an animalized human. Covering both sides of the political spectrum are two caricatures from Selskaya Zighn (February 8, 1969) and Pravda Vostoka (February 11, 1968). In the first, Israel is portrayed as a begging bulldog, its teeth spelling the word "aggression", its chain held by its American master Uncle Sam. In the second, in a reversal of roles, Israel is portrayed as the leader, a python sitting atop an American petrol drum that contains a smoking gun.

A particular aspect of Soviet caricatures was the depiction of Israeli leaders as ethnic stereotype figures who could better be identified by identification through a text passage, not visually. Gudok (September 26, 1972) shows former Prime Minister of Israel Golda Meir dressed as a fortune teller, pointing with the beringed index finger of her left hand to her right palm, demanding money. Uncle Sam, the representation for the Unites States, stands across from her, holding a big sack of dollars. Vetchernaya Moskva (October 16, 1973) has former Defense Minister of Israel Moshe Dayan drawn as a chubby cheeked fat man with an eye patch made out of a bomb. The persons must be identified in these caricatures by name, because they appear only as ethnic stereotype figures. Their caricatures do not resemble them, in order to additionally hinder the public in the Soviet bloc countries from establishing an acquaintance with a real portrait of the person.

Fig. 4

Comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany can often be seen in anti-Semitic caricatures as well. A caricature from Sovietskaya Moldavia (January 22, 1972) draws a parallel between the stereotyped figure of a Jewish man representing Israel, and Hitler, with the caption in his own image" (Fig. 4). In a caricature from Al-Gumhuria (Egypt) of December 12, 2001, Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon is shown goosestepping with Adolf Hitler, both of their right hands outstretched and dripping with blood in the Hitler salute. They are marching over a field of skeletons, while buildings burn in the background. In El Pais (Spain), May 23, 2001, Clio, the muse of history, places Hitler's moustache on Prime Minister Sharon of Israel. In a technique familiar from Soviet caricatures, the drawing of Sharon is not recognizable as him from the features. Visually, anyone could be represented. Only by reading the text is it clear who is the subject of the caricature (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5

The topic of Jewish ritual murder which was so often thematized in Stürmer caricatures is reflected in contemporary Arab caricatures as well. Al-Dustour (Jordan) of March 22, 1994 shows a "Zionist" mother receiving the blood of a Palestinian child, wrapped up in a bottle packaged as a present, as a Mother's Day gift from her son, who has a Star of David on his sleeve and a machine gun over his shoulder. Both figures are given ugly ethnic Jewish features: large, warty noses, broken teeth, thick eyebrows. Prime Minister Sharon of Israel is shown with a fork, legs of a half-finished morsel dangling from his teeth, eating a bowl of Palestinian children in the Palestinian Al-Quds of May 17, 2001. Sharon dominates the drawing, or rather, his face and teeth and hand holding the fork, while the bowl contains very small, naked and frail babylike children, with closed eyes, slack features and no hair.

Throughout various cultures and over a long period of time, caricature is a concept that has a broad general consensus. Although it doesn't seem to have an exact definition, a caricature is easily recognizable. The creation of the word, derived from the Italian verb caricare ("to load or charge"), is attributed to the Carracci family, artists Ludovico Carracci (1555-1619) and his cousins, the brothers Agostino (1557-1602) and Annibale Carracci (1560-1609). The Carracci, in Bologna, had founded an art academy in the 1580s, and were intensely occupied with all issues concerning drawing, especially from life and from the human figure. They, and their students at the academy, confronted, through their intense occupation with drawing, questions such as: why does a picture of someone look more simliar to them when the features are distorted and unnecessary features are left off, as when it is drawn exactly? And how far can the drawer abstract the drawing, without losing the meaning? It is alleged that Annibale Carracci once said "A good caricature, like every work of art, is more true to life than reality itself."

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the amount of picture information in printed media steadily increased. In the 20th and continuing into the 21st, in many cases, visual texts have come to dominate the written text input in print media. With the rise of photography, the culture of caricature has lost significance. Photo technique is constantly improving; "anybody" can make a decent photograph, but not so a caricature. To draw a caricature requires a high degree of artistic handcraft and critical discernment. Objectivity is attributed to photography, regardless of whether this is or can be true. A caricature however is always only a subjective view. Therefore it has an enormous potential for emotionalizing a subject or situation, and provoking an emotional response in the viewer. Additionally, since caricatures are rarer than photographs in print media, the emotional response they elicit is all the more consummate. A caricature by Fritz Behrendt, published in Het Parool (The Netherlands), shows former Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky painting Simon Wiesenthal as a "Jewish Nazi" (Fig. 6). Anti-Semitism or political criticism? Wiesenthal had condemned Kreisky's decision to cooperate with former Waffen-SS member Friedrich Peter, who at that time (1975) was head of the Austrian Freedom Party.

Fig. 6

Laughter, disgust, shock, surprise - these reactions and emotions are perhaps the ones most evoked by looking at a caricature, especially a political one. But what is it that a caricaturist actually visualizes for the viewer? S/he draws (most often) people in special situations that have a specific background. But the caricaturist doesn't want to really show the person or people involved. It's the more complex things that s/he wants to present, the things that are behind the actions of the people, or inside the people drawn, as motivation for their actions. Ideologies, passions, ambitions, hopes are being revealed by the caricaturist's skill. These passions and ideologies that are being shown are usually contradictory. In short, that is the actual theme of the caricaturist: contradiction. The contradictions made visible in the caricature trigger the emotional reponse in the viewer.

© Renée Gadsden (Vienna)


LITERATURE

Grall, Friedrich (1988). Jugendbewegte Bilder als Vorlage für den "Stürmer". University of Applied Arts Vienna: unpublished master's thesis

Heinisch, Severin (1988). Die Karikatur: über das Irrationale im Zeitalter der Vernunft. Vienna-Cologne-Graz: Böhlau

Jüdisches Museum der Stadt Wien (1995). Die Macht der Bilder: Antisemitische Vorurteile und Mythen. Vienna: Picus

Nir, Yeshayahu (1976). The Israeli-Arab Conflict in Soviet Caricatures 1967-1973. Tel Aviv: Tcherikover Publishers Ltd.

Riszovannij, Mihály (2003). "Karikatur und Multikodalität". S - European Journal for Semiotic Studies 15(2-4): 321-335

Serenari, Massimo (2003). "Wie der Karikaturist die widersprüchlichen Bedeutungen von Körperverhalten und Gestik in Szene setzt". S - European Journal for Semiotic Studies 15(2-4): 349-362


Grundlagen/Fundamentals Teil 1/Part 1:
Theorie/Theory
Teil 2/Part 2:
Sprache(n)/Language(s)
Teil 3/Part 3:
Literatur(en)/Literature(s)
Teil 4/Part 4:
Nonverbale Zeichen/Non-verbal Signs
Moderation / Chair: Renée Gadsden


1.2. Signs, Texts, Cultures. Conviviality from a Semiotic Point of View /
Zeichen, Texte, Kulturen. Konvivialität aus semiotischer Perspektive"

Sektionsgruppen | Section Groups | Groupes de sections


TRANS       Inhalt | Table of Contents | Contenu  15 Nr.


For quotation purposes:
AUTORXXXXXX In: TRANS. Internet-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften. No. 15/2003. WWW: http://www.inst.at/trans/15Nr/01_2/gadsden15.htm

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