LAST WEEK, members of the Hindu Student Council and Indian Student Association rose in uproar over a April 14 "TCB" comic run by Eric Kilanski and Kellen Eilerts depicting the interpretation that Hinduism was a pagan religion with violent, slave-driving, animalistic gods feared by their backward peoples. The comic called the very peaceful elephant-like Lord Ganesh a "dick," had him armed with an AK-47 slave-driving two Hindu followers, generalized that all Hindus were vegetarians and added that "animals run everything" in Hinduism, reflecting an overall backward, pagan sense. Although it passed The Cavalier Daily's editor-in-chief's application of the censorship criteria, a closer examination suggests that the cartoon should have been censored in retrospect and an apology should have been issued for editorial oversight.
The censorship criteria released as yesterday's lead editorial, at least in my view, merits that the TCB comic should have been censored -- not because of my opposition against the viewpoint, but because of the manner that the viewpoint was advanced and depicted. Judging the comic from the basis of a "creative work," the first part of the first criteria asks if the authors make a "serious, intentional point, the censoring of which would constitute viewpoint discrimination." When I asked Kilanski and Eilerts what their point was with this particular comic, they said they had none, and were only seeking to "make people laugh." Thus, the TCB artists were neither making a serious not intentional point.
Cavalier Daily editor-in-chief Mike Slaven contends that he interpreted TCB's point to be "satirizing religion, which is a serious enough point," a view he confirmed with the artists. However, while Slaven is right to contend that satirizing religion is the point of TCB as a comic in general, censorship criteria are applied to each comic in particular, and not the overarching idea of a comic in general. In this particular comic, Kilanski and Eilerts clearly told me that they were not trying to make a point at all pointing to some discrepency in their accounts. I fail to see how not making a point satisfies the criterion which is built on the fact that a particular creative work "makes a serious, intentional point."
Censorship criteria, while they may consider history, take into account each comic as an individual work rather than for its historical treatment of themes like religion. To do otherwise would be disastrous -- comic artists whose comic may focus on religious satire will be able to say whatever they want about it and then justify it as an "overarching" satirical view. Such is a serious editorial oversight that merits an apology
As a corollary, the comic proliferated so much ignorance and defaced so much of the true nature of Hinduism to lack any sort of satirical force which, according to Kilanski and Eilerts, was not its point anyway. Members of the Hindu Student Council were concerned about the impact of the comic on the understanding of Hinduism, a comparatively misunderstood religion in the United States with its major representation probably being Apu of "The Simpsons." While people have a good grasp of the actual nature of Christianity and satire may thus be less damaging to the portrayal of the religion, more obscure religions like Hinduism suffer in that such limited representations in the media present it in such a bad light and undermines efforts to promote the true nature of the religion by HSC.
This is true -- most Hindus are not vegetarians and far from being polytheistic or pagan, they worship animal-shaped idols as manifestations of one god Brahman, and not as slave-drivers. However, it would be preposterous to suggest that each religion be accorded a different level of sensitivity based on its level of media representation. Recognizing this, HSC met with Slaven last Friday in a constructive discussion on ironing out opportunites for the HSC to counter such ignorant perceptions of Hinduism with positive portrayals in the media.
In addition to discussing ways that a Hindu perspective could be included to counter ignorant perceptions in the newspaper, Slaven adds that The Cavalier Daily is going to try to tighten its editorial supervision of the Comics page -- by getting the page done earlier to leave more time for critique, increasing the role of other editors in overseeing the page and having graphic artists answer more questions about their viewpoints in their own work. These, to Slaven's credit, are constructive ways to improve the quality of the Comics page. However, that does not change the fact that Slaven committed serious editorial oversight in applying the censorship criteria to this edition of the TCB comic (and not the comic in general), which by my interpretation, merits an apology.
Prashanth Parameswaran's columns normally run on Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at pparameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
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