Why does Clovis make gays look effeminate? (Observer Letter) .....

Fellow blogger and activist in his own right Brian Paul Welsh responds to the recent caricaturizations by resident cartoonist for the Observer Clovis as evidenced in the toons below. Personally I understand somewhat why he does it the way he does as it is a reflection of the national psyche on effeminacy or sissy attitudes from men that determines they are in effect gay.

Our response in this case is not to kill the messenger but all of us including the limp wristed advocates (who should have counteracted the perceptions stoked by the print media especially all these years) but to counteract the perceptions with positive images and responses like some of those press releases that were so unneeded from the conveyor belt. Not knocking Brian's response however and he is not associated with the J.

Have a read of Brian's letter and see what you make of it:

Dear Editor,

Certain people in your editorial department may find Clovis's caricatures to be humorous, salient, poignant or whatever positive adjective is usually applied to good journalism, and especially good satire, but for quite a while now it would appear that he has fallen off the wagon and hit his head.

For instance, his insistence on typifying gay men as bleach-faced, cross-dressing, hideously unattractive, deformed and lobotomised may illicit belly laughter from those in the newsroom, but civil society is beginning to grow sick of this insensitivity.

These mis-characterisations are not novel to Clovis as he has gleefully reduced many notable Jamaicans to vulgar market vendors, witch doctors, and bald-headed crypt-keepers, so much so that one is usually left with the impression that he has left the realm of satire and gone into what seems like vitriolic personal attacks. This, of course, betrays the most basic of tenets governing journalism and one would hope that the editor would take the executive decision as a responsible journalist and refuse to publish such drivel or push Clovis to be more creative. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that such a conversation has ever taken place.

Especially in the case of his most recent typification of gay men as weak, effete headcases, he has done the community a great disservice. He must be made to elevate his creativity and become more aware of his personal responsibility to illuminate the minds of the wider community or give up journalism and go and illustrate comic books or write graffiti.

Brian-Paul N Welsh

brianpaul.welsh@gmail.com
ENDS

Also see:

Cartoons and the use of gay typed characters part 2

Apology Accepted JCF but some questions on several fronts still linger ...

here are two responses to the whole thing:

Jamaican: "it exposes the hypocrisy within the community when the SSP spoke he was actually talking about the gays that look like that but persons are up in arms because they want the Observer to portray the gay community as a bunch of nice middle class men as if that is any more representative than what the Observer has drawn so me love it cause it stokes debate about class identify within the community furthermore it is those gays that look like that which are at the front page of the fight and the nice middle class gays are in hiding, so why should the nice middle class gays get editorialised and not the cross dressing lout mouthed uncoted fags"

Guyanese: "I want to write a response to say thank you to Clovis for celebrating respect for femininity in a christian culture which beheaded two women"

Interesting.

Peace and tolerance

H