Today’s face of the day is cartoonist Garrick Tremain. His employers fell for the classic trap. They should never have apologised. Apologies are used against people as the mob say that it is proof that a thought crime has been committed and they then demand that their target loses his or her job.
Tremain has drawn quite a few cartoons of my husband that were not at all complimentary but we both defend his right to mock, joke and make biting social commentary about issues of the day as that is his job. Social commentary is never going to please everyone. People are always going to dislike or be upset by a particular point of view, black humour or even a lighthearted joke.
It is completely wrong for his job to be at risk because of the howls of the mob.
This latest fuss is not the first time that a Pinko mob have worked themselves into a frenzy. November 2012 Garrick Tremain got death threats via Twitter for this cartoon…
“I’ve had people ringing up and asking me for an apology and telling me I have no right to do cartoons or mention Samoa at the moment – so that rules out doing an apology because I could hardly do that without mentioning Samoa.”
He said he had heard from a number of Samoans and was very sorry to have upset them. “I’ve personally apologised to those who’ve spoken to me for the fact that I’ve upset them. It was not my intention. But if you think I should personally apologise to the entirety of the Samoan nation then I don’t agree with you.”
“In this politically correct atmosphere that we’re being suffocated by you have to be aware that there is a growing number of people who wake up in the morning and their first intention is to find something to be offended about, so that’s something that we didn’t have to deal with in the past to the extent that we do now.”
“I see nothing wrong with the cartoon. It’s not causing any more deaths, it’s not laughing about deaths, it’s laughing about a stupid misunderstanding by a travel agent speaking to somebody.
“It’s not making light of the tragedy, in my opinion.”
Radio NZ
