Is It Necessary to Have Thought Provoking Images Within the Society?
The argument of this essay is going to question the role of satirical images as a way to implement freedom of speech within the society. It will focus on a recent event that occurred, the Charlie Hebdo shootings. We all know that satirical magazine has been there for the society to consume for years now. But what happened recently has shocked the public regarding the contents of that magazine. Has it crossed the line? Are there any specific criteria to follow for making satirical images? But they say one of the basic human rights is having a freedom of speech, which means we can utter what we think without anyone interfering. On the other hand seeing what it had done recently to the society – is it necessary to have that kind of provoking images for the public to see? The term satire itself has existed since the Roman Empire centuries ago. The mostly known saying from Quintilian – a Roman rhetorician said that satire is a ‘literary genre of wholly Roman origin’ (Van Rooy, 1966). To this day, it has been classified into wider areas such as graphics and performing arts. It does not necessarily contain humour, in fact some satire is not supposed to be funny at all. But more as a way to pursuit critical thinking, making people think about a particular topic or issue (Queen, 2016). Charlie Hebdo, a magazine from France is one of the most noticeable weekly news that has implemented satire since the 70’s. It is considered to have a secular and atheist view; its contents consist of politics, cultures, and mostly religions. Of course in the past they have received thousands of threats from the public sphere, even banned by the French president once but succeed to resurrect again (Read, 2015). So what makes the public reacts differently this time until it leads to the tragic shootings in their headquarters? Probably the first time it really triggers the offended side is in 2011, when Charlie Hebdo published an issue featuring the Prophet Muhammad as a guest star, and rebranded it into Sharia Hebdo. A sentence was printed in front of the cover saying, “100 lashes if you don’t die laughing.” They did manage to get the public attention when it was released. A week after, the magazine’s website was hacked and the office’s were firebombed. But it did not stop them from making more satirical cartoons. As if the threat never happened, Charlie Hebdo had a different way of reacting to the unfortunate event. The magazine next issue showed Charlie the cartoonist making out with a Muslim, captioned “love is stronger than hate.” It was a striking image of two guys making out, and a really thought provoking one. It was not only about the image itself, but the content of the message that they are trying to communicate. Quiet a contrary of what religion mainly beliefs, about love within the same sex, moreover physical contact. Perhaps it was the strongest trigger in the image that put some of the individuals in the society making negative comments and affects their moral values. Following a statement regarding the magazine reaction to the attack, Charb the magazine editor called it was the actions of ‘radical stupid people who don’t know what Islam is’ and ‘idiots who betray their own religion’ (Read, 2015).