Thinking Out LoudBluey has been recruited by One Nation.
It’s shocked fans of the ABC series where Bluey laughs, learns and plays with Mum, Dad, Bingo, Bandit and Chilli.
The One Nation version of Bluey is not so fun. One episode shows Bluey being run over by a car driven by politicians, and it’s implied that she takes the wheel herself to mow down the same politicians.
Thierry Groensteen, an expert on comics, describes the power a cartoonist has to ‘abbreviate’ a person’s character with ‘several pertinent lines’. Just a few pertinent lines and a cartoonist has the power to give us Bluey with all her verve, energy, and curiosity. But real-life Mums and Dads are feeling uneasy that a beloved childhood icon is being recast in a violent and vengeful world of politics.
One Nation defends its cartoons as satire. But it recently removed the Please Explain video where Jacqui Lambie explains that ‘I can’t laugh because of my prolapsed vagina’.
It’s not that cartoons should never satirise politicians. For Groensteen, satire is a ‘natural vocation’ of the cartoonist who encourages critical reflection on public issues.
But is the Lambie cartoon actually satirical? Or is it bullying? Lambie looks dishevelled and hysterical, a contrast to the cool-as-a-cucumber Pauline Hanson. The reference to Lambie’s prolapse also revives ancient stereotypes that link a woman’s womb to her mental health.
The old ‘sticks and stones’ saying isn’t true. Words hurt us. Cartoons can, too. Especially when they recruit our inner bullies and make it personal. And when they invite children to stop laughing, learning and playing, and to take to the wheel of a joke that has political violence as its punchline.
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