Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest: Happy Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!
May 20th, 2010 8:10 pm by Kelly Garbato
Today I’m participating in Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, albeit not without some reservations.
Originally conceived by cartoonist Molly Norris (who later disassociated herself from the event), Everybody Draw Mohammed Day began as protest against Comedy Central’s self-censorship of the South Park episode 201, which included depictions of and references to the prophet Mohammed. (Reportedly, the episode is not airing in reruns – which would explain why my DVR recorded the wrong episode at the 12:00 hour – nor is it available on Comedy Central’s website.) Nevertheless, the episode resulted in thinly veiled death threats against South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone on the website Revolution Muslim.
As envisioned by Norris, Everybody Draw Mohammed Day is a means of standing up for freedom of expression (and showing solidarity with Parker and Stone) by “watering down the pool of targets.” This is to say, it’s easier to silence one voice, or two or twenty; an international chorus, not so much. Rather than being anti-Muslim, Everybody Draw Mohammed Day is pro-free speech (ditto: pro-free though and pro-secularism, at least to me). And ethical consistency: “if you want to live in a Western society and use the system to protect your rights [attn: Revolution Muslim], you have to be willing to allow others to have theirs as well,” explained Mimi, one of many event organizers. All of which this heathen vegan feminist is totally down with.
Unfortunately (though unsurprisingly), many of the submissions I’ve seen on Facebook and elsewhere are not just anti-Muslim, but also virulently racist, as well as sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, sizeist, speciesist, and the like. Common themes include Mohammed’s head Photoshopped onto the body of a nude/semi-nude woman (women’s sexuality is gross!); Mohammed’s head Photoshopped onto an obese woman’s body (fat women are gross!); Mohammed engaged in various sexual acts with another man (dude, gay!); and Mohammed raping nonhuman animals (appropriating animal suffering, yay!), to name but a few.
Unoriginal and juvenile, yes, but even more so, these images manage to mock and ridicule people instead of ideas, and largely for irrelevant personal characteristics, at that. Just as I abhor this sort of behavior when it comes from those in the animal rights movement, neither do I condone racism, sexism, etc. when employed in defense of the First Amendment. You can poke fun at and criticize religion – even religious fundamentalists – without denigrating entire groups of people, particularly those who already bear the brunt of discrimination and prejudice. I sincerely hope that my eleven submissions (none of them actual drawings; I could hardly draw a stick figure to save my life, and anyhow, the stick figure thing is played out) are a decent enough illustration of this.
Finally, I invite all participants to join the Center for Constitutional Rights, the ACLU and Amnesty International in supporting the civil and human rights of the millions of Muslims, Middle Easterners and people of color who have been marginalized and oppressed by the “War on Terror.” Likewise, if you’re a member of the Facebook group Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!, please also join me in Time to Arrest the Pope.*
The bottom line? Don’t be a hater, mkay?
Now let the blasphemy commence!
First up is this riff on Dumb & Dumber, wherein Mohammed appears as Jim Carrey/Lloyd Christmas and Jesus manifests as Jeff Daniels/Harry Dunne (so chosen solely because of his hippie stoner haircut).
“I’m with Mohammed”:
Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, dressed as Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne from the movie Dumb & Dumber, stand side by side, arms slung around one another’s shoulders. Their t-shirts read “I’m with Jesus” and “I’m with Mohammed,” respectively.
(Original image taken from the film’s soundtrack.)
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The message? Religious pissing matches are a waste of time; in the end, there are no winners, and all participants are equally dumb, yo! So just grab a doobie and let’s all just get along, kay? (For what it’s worth, I absolutely loathe this movie.)




















