I’m keep thinking about the cartoon of the 3-years-old Syrian who died. And how my reaction was different. I automatically saw a parody of the racist attitude during the immigrant crisis in Europe that was occurring at that time. A political claim directed to the Europe to do better. Which I would not have seen if I have stopped to the words used (don’t get me wrong: taken literally, I find it inadmissible). Satire or racist? I said satire*, others said racist. Had the magazine gone too far? We saw in class how difficult it was to answer that question. If it was a written editorial, it would have been easier to judge. We analyze an image with our personal and cultural bias which makes it subjective. We have to find the objective “real true” message. I don’t know what the true intention of Riss’ artwork from Charlie Hebdo was. I know Riss wrote editorial on the immigrant crisis, but I did not find it. But we have to recognize that even though it was deliberately provocative, it created a greater public interest around immigrant crisis and open a discourse on the issue in 2015. And personally, I think is good as long the initial intention was a satire and view as reasonable person standard.
*I read few articles on that particular drawing and publication of Charlie Hebdo at the same period, I feel relieved that I was not the only one who saw a critic/mockery of the Europe’s response.