Editorial cartoonists typically take aim at the most important issues we’re facing, whether it’s political division or human tragedy or natural disasters.
They’re trying to make us laugh — and think — at the same time. But in these more splintered times, the cartoonist’s job can be harder because it seems like people are less likely to laugh, especially if the point of view disagrees with their own.
Steve Benson, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, has a front-row seat to those changing dynamics.
We spoke with Benson.
Full conversation
STEVE GOLDSTEIN: Steve, how is your work, your attitude affected by readers being so amped up by the current state of the world?
STEVE BENSON: Well, I think that a lot of this is because of Donald Trump, not wanting to mention names, but, basically threw a hand grenade into the crowd and then no one wanted to to fall on it, and so it's everyone's been hit with the flag, and it's created confusion, consternation, anger.
It's made the Trump people very defensive and and and very outspoken. It's created angst on the left, people are testy and uncomfortable, and they really don't know where the country's going. That's why cartoonists are here.
GOLDSTEIN: Do you like to play off the fact that people are uncomfortable? Has that given you, you've never been shy before, but has that given you a little bit more like, ‘I kind of want to stick it to people a little bit more to really make them think about this’?
BENSON: Well, the role of an editorial cartoonist is not really to give the bottom line on any because all we want to do is kick bottoms and, and if it incentivizes people to jump into the, into the riot, then that's great. And when I talk about riot, it's, it's I'm talking about the freewheeling nature of American free speech.
It's the barroom of democracy. And like my colleague Cal Grondahl said, cartoonists throw the first punch in the bar fight, then stand back and watch everybody else join in. So what we try to do is actually agitate in order to get people to participate.
GOLDSTEIN: How would you characterize what you are looking for? As an editorial cartoonist, and from this standpoint, people still think of cartoons, comic strips, different from what you're doing, but they think humor first. Do you feel like people don't get the fact that it's initially humorous, even if there's a much deeper message there.
BENSON: Well, I had a upset reader contact me the other day, and he said, look, I don't consider you to be a cartoonist or what you produce to be cartoons. Look, he cannot write the definition for what a cartoon is.
The reason why you don't consider a cartoon is because you're not laughing at it or you're not agreeing with it. It's a cartoon that's got under your skin, but it's still a cartoon because a cartoon, whether it's left, right, Democrat, Republican, you know, anarchistic, they all use the basic tool kit, which involves hyperbole. We use metaphors, we use satire and irony.
It's interesting. I think there have been studies done if there haven't been, I'm just making this up, but people who have a sense of humor tend to be more intelligent because the studies show that they understand nuances.
In America, free speech means you roll with it.
You may not agree with it.
GOLDSTEIN: Things were in doubt after President Trump came into office. The question I think was asked of a lot of cartoonists and humorists, hey, isn't this great? Because he's an easy target for what you guys do. Has he been an easy target?
BENSON: Well, he's been a repetitive target in, in that sense because he keeps on popping up like a whack a mole. He's he's easy to, to, to address. He's always there. But you can't do those cartoons as a running theme over and over and over again because it gets stale.
Another reader wrote me yesterday, says, you know, you're, you're doing boring stuff. I said it's not my job to draw your opinions for you. You could learn how to draw, and then you could find a publication that would run them. Quit trying to channel your inner child through me.
GOLDSTEIN: Are people any ruder now? Are they any less open-minded when you talk to them now than they used to be?
BENSON: What's happened is they found a comfortable place to be. And it's so easy now to run in packs and in herds. And so they feel more confident they're entitled to push back. They're more forceful now because they can do it immediately and they don't have to do any research.
They go, I get all these people sending me cut and paste cartoons or photographs and you know you can just click on them and then pass them on and then they group email bomb you. And I, and I write them back and say, come up with your own idea and then let me know, you know, but right now you're just a robot.
GOLDSTEIN: All right, so there have been some non-political related tragedies going on with the hurricanes. People have lost homes, people have lost their lives based on these sorts of things. How have you approached that?
BENSON: Well, you have to walk a very tight rope on that, and there's no net. You want to make a comment that's germane, that's important, that contributes to the debate, but you don't want to come across. As, you know, making fun of or being insensitive to these victims of this horrible natural event.
My first cartoon on Hurricane Harvey was about how the climate change deniers in that part of the country. I was raised in Texas and know a little bit about it. We're in to denying that this had anything, the weather, the erratic nature of the weather patterns has nothing to do with human exacerbated or caused climate change, and I was saying, oh yeah, yeah, it does.
And I show some guy in a pickup truck said, I'm just going to ride this out, and he's under 30 feet of water with a scuba, you know, outfit on, and you know there's one of those long horn steers bobbing upside down with puffed cheeks and bubbles going on. And you know, a twisted, the Texas interstate sign and that kind of thing, but it was considered to be too soon and too raw, so it was pulled.
I spent hours on that cartoon. Oh well. So I ended up doing one that showed the American eagle with two eyes as tropical cyclones or hurricanes. And then he had this storm kind of barreling in from behind labeled, you know, in greenish black letters “climate change.” And that one passed muster.
I can understand why the editors were wary about the first one, but you know, a cartoonist gets so close to their art.
