Pop quiz, hot shot: Cite something from the Jyllands-Posten newspaper. If you can, chances are you’re either Danish (in which case I’ll have cheese) or you cited that time they ran a cartoon depicting what Muhammed (PB&J) looked like. I don’t remember all the details, but I think Jesus pulled the football away at the last second.
Two years later, and the rascals are at it again. And I mean literally; they’re doing the exact same thing. The paper, along with other Danish papers, are reprinting the cartoons in response to the arrest of three men who plotted to kill the cartoonist. This, they claim, shows their “firm commitment to free speech.”
Which it does, in the same way I’m showing my commitment to free speech when I reply to my fiancee’s requests to stop swerving the car in time to Jamiroquai’s “Virtual Insanity” by saying “you mean like THIS?” and pulling mightily to the right.
Come off it, Jyllands-Posten! I’m not a fan of terrorism or censorship, but there are probably plenty of perfectly nice Muslims out there who are genuinely offended by the cartoons. Do you have to go out of your way to show them that yes, indeed, you are allowed to desecrate their religion? And this from a guy who finds the below picture hilarious:
My point is, if you want to seem relevant, there are better ways to go about it than trotting out your greatest hits. Do something fresh and original to offend Muslims, like a deal where you get a free subscription if you renounce Allah. At least that way you seem more like Howard Stern trying to piss everyone off and less like Jim O’Connor from The Glass Menagerie reliving a fourth quarter forward pass.
Hell, if Jyllands-Posten is allowed to dust off their oldies, why shouldn’t other no-longer-relevant folks do the same? I look forward to Janet Jackson revealing her other boob, Jamie Lynn getting double pregnant, and Gladstone re-posting that thing where he shows pictures of murdered children and just laughs and laughs.
In fact, fuck it. HEY, ANYONE HEAR ABOUT THIS NEW ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT MOVIE? COMMENT PLZ!
When not blogging for Cracked, Michael makes controversial videos depicting Muhammed as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren’t Muskets!
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Denmark, Muhammed, News, Newspapers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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July 26th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
“Muhammed (PB&J)”….BAHAHAHA!!!
That’s the funniest thing I’ve read all week…thanks Swaim.
P.S. Yes, yes…I know what my name is..
July 21st, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Holy Shit.
It’s a friggen’ war here. At least we aren’t sooting guns.
Yay, Arrested Development movie!
April 27th, 2008 at 9:36 am
To the prof,you are a despicable bigot and a son of a bitch. I am just exercising my freedom of expression here.So there!
March 21st, 2008 at 3:11 pm
The so called profet was nothing more than a pedophiled who said killing those who dont submit to your believes andthat raping their women and children was OK. Remember AISHA, the 53 year old bastard consumated his marriage when she was only 9!.
Your blood is their ticket to paradise… LITERALLY. Dont believe me check apostatesofislamdotcom
March 9th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Lorinda…
Many blogs have stopped using trackbacks because dealing with spam became too burdensome. One notable blogging tool that does not support…
March 8th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Rachelle Leah…
Thanks for the nice read, keep up the interesting posts…..
March 7th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Scams On Ebay…
Extremely interesting post, a slightly bit different opinion than others, but still OK….
February 20th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
*Facepalm*
Oh for fuck’s sake, what good will the reprinting do?! For the benefit of a total of two people on earth who haven’t seen them yet? Or just in an attempt to troll close-minded extremists into doing something stupid again and then coming out as the righteous ones?
Do they have the right to re/publish them? Of course. Should they? Matter of opinion, but I see absolutely no reason for them to do it but petty trolling.
And this is coming from a devote Muslim, living in Saudi Arabia, by the way. Believe it or not, extremist morons doing Islam a disservice by besmirching its name with intolerance really ARE a minority. But whoever has the loudest voice in a group gets heard first, regardless of whether or not everyone else doesn’t agree with them. I’ve only seen the Mohammad caricatures as mildly tasteless at the very most. Nothing more, nothing less.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:52 am
The republishing of the cartoons is not just “to show they that can”. It’s to show that extremist’s or terrorist’s threats of violence should not be heeded. They are making a valid and very important point by republishing.
February 18th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
If Moslems expect westerners to adhere to their standards in their countries (eg, women can’t drive, must be veiled, etc.), why don’t they agree to adhere to our standards in our countries? (eg, literary and artistic satire/freedom of speech). And why do women from those countries who aren’t allowed to drive in those countries expect the right to drive here and also expect their faces to be covered by a veil on their driver’s licenses?
By the way, not all Moslems religions (and there are more than one, just as Christianity is composed of many denominations) think it’s a crime to have an image of Mohammed. This fact seems to have been lost in the controversy.
February 18th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
The comics originally printed in the newspaper were’nt actually that insulting at all…just gentle satire. Then some clerics got angry at them, and included some other pictures that they got from somewhere else and lumped them together with the cartoons. It was these other drawings that were found offensive and caused all the furore. Just because some guy manipulated the Islamic world.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:54 am
As a Dane who also happens to be a bit of a douche bag, I have to inform you that douchebaggery doesn’t come as an innate gift for Danish peope; I’ve had to work hard at it.
As for the Danish papers’ reprinting the offending drawings, it is not about doing it because they can. It’s about showing support - however bluntly - for a person who did his job, which was to draw cartoons in a country that offers that and other liberties, and who then had to go into hiding to stay alive. Freedom of speech means that no one can expect special treatment by the press, no matter how sensitive, murderous or bereft of a sense of humor they are. And, no, I’m not saying that all muslims fit into that category, which is why it’s important that moderate Muslims speak out against the violence whether they like the cartoons or not. Incidentally, no one has been lampooned more often or more cruelly in Danish newspapers than right-wing, anti-immigration-party leader, Pia Kjærsgaard. I don’t weep for her, and I don’t weep for anyone who burns down schools because of ink on paper.
February 18th, 2008 at 4:00 am
and her very expensive hat
February 18th, 2008 at 3:59 am
“And Swaim. Sure I could go on and on again about how i didn’t make a joke about dead baby grace, but did make a joke about the sketch artist, but me trying to prove I’m not a dead baby joke-making ghoul, is like you trying to pretend you didn’t design the protocol for the Tuskegee experiment.”
But Gladstone, c’mon we all know there is no way that Swaim could have designed the protocol for the Tuskegee experiment without the contributions of Hannah Montana.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:56 am
Leave Jyllands-Posten be. They’re just doing what every mediocre artist whose had a small taste of the limelight does. Rehashes the one thing that got them any attention in the first place. It’s an undeserved greatest hits album. I believe Cracked did an article about such things once.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:54 am
The YMCA picture is one of the funniest pictures I’ve ever seen. Yet it makes me feel nothing, but shame for I did not think of it first.
And this may count towards the 300 and Swaim’s anal adventures, but I won’t be happy until I see the 300 on the AD article.
February 16th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Oh, so that’s how the comment system works. That clearly shows Danes are idiots too.
February 16th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Danes are douchebags (source: WWII).
By the way, Jyllandsposten has a glorious history of making fun of every goddamn thing. And I do mean everything. Use your imagination.
By the way, Danish cookies are awful and have nothing to do with Denmark. Like spaghetti is Chinese.
February 16th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Danes are douchebags (source: WWII).
By the way, Jyllandsposten has a glorious history of making fun of every goddamn thing for no apparent reason (even 9/11).
February 16th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
If printing the cartoons were news, then you’d have a point Vlad. Why let terrorists or anyone set the agenda of a free press? BUT if the printing of the cartoons was not news, and just something a bunch of Danish fuckwads felt like doing just because they could then it’s irresponsible journalism and just general douchebaggery.
February 16th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Moral equivalence is a fallacy, not an argument. If someone’s reaction to some cartoons is to threaten to kill people (cartoons which, by the way, were printed in response to actual Muslim assassinations of actual European people!), then perhaps we are operating on two levels. You kill one of mine, I print a cartoon, you threaten to kill more of my people! I’m not sure whose fault the violence is; but it simply must be the guy printing cartoons, because cartoons cause violence (that one Simpsons episode taught me this). Either that or some medieval fucktards are overreacting to yet another instance of someone not agreeing with them.
February 16th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
It’s called “freedom of the press.” I suppose you could name it anything else you wanted, like “reprinting something just to show you can,” but that has more than a tinge of sucking up to murderous superstitious assholes.
February 16th, 2008 at 12:50 am
The truth hurts.= glendoor42
February 16th, 2008 at 12:47 am
I had to pop a pain pill today so what I wrote made sense at the time but looking back it’s kind of gibberish. Nevermind.
February 15th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
you lost me there.
February 15th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
And be thankful your name doesn’t start with “R”.
February 15th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Where you been or did your Valentines Day turn out really that great there Gladstone?
February 15th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
I hear ya, Brentin. Ian could have killed this thread, but good.
I miss him something awful.
February 15th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
1. Who does?
2.Yea!!!!, AR was the greatest show ever after Coach, love that Bill Fagerbakke.
3. Ron Jeremy, perhaps?
4. Can’t wait!
February 15th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
glendoor.
1. STOP calling me on my hypocrisy. I don’t like it.
2. Yes, they count.
3. No, but I’ve gotten a few emails with subtle clues. I know it’s someone with brown hair whose name starts with “R.”
4. Yes, you can and I will.
February 15th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Oh yeah too, Swaim do these comments about AR on this blog count toward your 300 comments and you get anal, do you know who you will be getting it from yet and now that you know that you can post pictures in the comments can we see?
February 15th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Oh, and AR still sucks
February 15th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
“It’s that kind of dumb, attention-grabbing reactionary bullshit that keeps violence good and perpetuated. That’s all.”
Kind of like all the in article links to old Cracked articles. Like all the ones to Gladstone’s dead baby joke article, still my favorite.
February 15th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
“It’s that kind of dumb, attention-grabbing reactionary bullshit that keeps violence good and perpetuated. That’s all.”
I totally agree. Doesn’t it just seem…..juvenille? (btw, weiner poopie, weiner poopie, weiner poopie) It totally justifies the violence!!!
February 15th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
hey, what’s with all the Muslim talk, shouldn’t we really be concentrating on whether or not Arrested Development was a good show? Come on people, you’ve got to have some priorities in life!!! AR wasn’t good. There. I’ve added to the conversation.
February 15th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Vlad,
Again I say, the way to stop Muslims from murdering people is most certainly not by lumping all the normal ones in with the fanatics. All you do is give the crazy ones more fuel for their propaganda. Making it us vs. them is a kind of generalization that guarantees further hatred and violence. Saying things like “Maybe if Muslims stop murdering people” is incendiary, inaccurate and offensively derogatory. Me bagging on Jyllands-Posten in defense of Muslims is only “selling out to religious fanatics” if you see ALL Muslims as religious fanatics, which is certainly not the case. Although AL Qaeda does fund this blog, but that’s neither here nor there.
I think Paddy made my point better than I did. The thing that got me going was the idiocy of reprinting something just to show that you can. It’s that kind of dumb, attention-grabbing reactionary bullshit that keeps violence good and perpetuated. That’s all.
February 15th, 2008 at 10:30 am
By the way,
I’m sure that came off sounding much more angry and less sarcastic then intended. All I can say for myself is… weiner poopie.
February 15th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Glen,
You’re an assclown. Let it die. That is all.
February 15th, 2008 at 10:27 am
This is why it sucks to have Ian gone…no one is here to kill the threads
February 15th, 2008 at 10:14 am
@Paddy,
o come on, i’m pretty sure that if jesus cartoons were outlawed they’d print a page of these.
No doubt there have been plenty of these anytime the church screwed up something. the reason you haven’t seen any of them is the completly different reaction they got.
as for the taboo on mohammed pictures: it’s certainly not as widespread as some muslim extremists claim. plenty of pictures throughout history (drawn by muslims).
February 15th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Maybe if Muslims stop murdering people, then we can stop “desecrating” their religion by actually having a reasonable discussion about how they are murdering people. Boo fucking hoo. Cracked - selling out to religious fanatics since 2008!
February 15th, 2008 at 4:45 am
One of the finest sitcoms of all time - My Mother the Car - had a particularly prominent laugh track, which made me feel much more confident about when I should and should not laugh at Jerry Van Dyke’s hilarious antics. While I don’t recall Jerry ever getting his hand bitten off by a seal, I do remember a very special episode where Muhammed spoke though the chassis of a Studebaker, and poor Ann Sothern got into quite the dogmatic argument with him. Imagine, a 1928 Porter and a Studebaker arguing about who was really the true representative of the Word of God, while poor Jerry Van Dyke rode around on his Segway outside the banana stand. Thank god George Reeves made a special appearance, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have been able to follow the storyline.
February 15th, 2008 at 3:55 am
I think an Arrested Development movie is a bad idea and here’s why……..
I hated “Arrested Development”. There was no laugh track to tell me when to laugh, like really goods show like “Home Improvement” and “According to Jim”. I’m not surprised it was canceled. Problems were not resolved at that end, the stories just kept going and going. Maybe I could have followed the stories better if someone on the show could fly or had super strength.
February 15th, 2008 at 2:01 am
Munk has a point, to an extent. when the cartoons were first published the general sentiment was “we’re going to make fun of you, because that’s waht satire is. don’t expect to get treated any different.” But as far as i know (and to be fair i don’t keep up with the danish news service as often as i should) Jyllands-Posten hasn’t printed a full page of characatures of Ganesh or Buddha or even Jesus for that matter. And they certainly didn’t REPRINT the same cartoons again, essentially to show that they could.
This issue here is that stale jokes are stupid. and claiming you’re making a stale joke because that’s your right, makes you a bit of an ass.
Besides which the fundementalist Muslims who objected to the cartoons were upset because they were a depiction of Muhammed at all, which they consider taboo, not because that depiction showed Muhammed with a bomb in his turban. Jyllands-Posten could print a tasteful and respecful portrait of Muhammed (similar to the lovely Jesus in dreads) and make their point just as well.
February 15th, 2008 at 1:53 am
I think it’s great the Jylland posten (and 2 or 3 other Danish newspapers this time) are making a stand against religious fundamentalists. You can’t let some agressive group have their way with freedom. In fact they’re making a stronger point using the ‘old’ picture, because otherwise they would be a habitual islambashing newspaper. Now they are only saying: you don’t tell us what to print.
February 15th, 2008 at 1:53 am
The YMCA picture is fucking hilarious.
February 15th, 2008 at 12:36 am
Flemming Rose, Jyllands-Posten’s culture editor .
This.
The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point: We are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.
February 14th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Wow, the black Jesus is HOT.
February 14th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
I never knew Jesus had hypnotic nipples.
February 14th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Oh, and Arrested Development Movie!!! Huzzah!!!!
February 14th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
I wonder why people don’t riot over certain superbowl ads promising a certain number of sales leads for free. If I were a panda I would have ripped the heads off of more than a few kids at my zoo after that commercial aired. Why should radical muslims get to have all the fun?
February 14th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Oh no! I’ve been tailsmacked!
Here’s hoping that becomes a meme and they get a billion hits a day from /b/ people trying to piss one another off.
February 14th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Ross. Let me say this clearly: I will never forgive you for that. Ever.
And Swaim. Sure I could go on and on again about how i didn’t make a joke about dead baby grace, but did make a joke about the sketch artist, but me trying to prove I’m not a dead baby joke-making ghoul, is like you trying to pretend you didn’t design the protocol for the Tuskegee experiment.
February 14th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
While Swaim was typing up that well-thought out missive, I was busy making this.
February 14th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Point taken, but all I’m saying is if their fundamentalists hate us enough to devote their lives to killing our civilians, I don’t think slapping them in the face is the way to get them to come around. Just or not, the goal IMO is less exploding babies. Yes, a one-year-old infant was used as the bomb element in a suicide bombing attack.
Sorry to totally kill the comedy, but I’m sure Gladstone will be in here soon enough to crack some jokes about the dead baby and his utter inability to service 72 virgins.
February 14th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Actually, its about time somebody slapped them in the face. I mean you have churches in europe changing Lent to “Christian Ramadan.” All for the peaceful religion of Islam, furthermore..wait…when did Janet reveal a boob?
February 14th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Did you say tailsmack.com?
TAILSMACK.COM?
February 14th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
They should do something REALLY offensive… like putting a picture of Muhammad on tailsmack.com.
tailsmack.com
February 14th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Jyllands-Posten is like one of those annoying ritalin kids who just does what you tell him not to, just for the sake of pissing people off. Jyllands-Posten clearly doesn’t know the difference between attention and negative attention. Jyllands-Posten needs a time out.
February 14th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
If you haven’t guessed from my name, I also happen to be a Muslim, and I, for one……OH SHIT!!!! AN ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT MOVIE!!!!!!!!
February 14th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Thoughts and prayers
Mormons
Jesus and Allah.
IS TODAY GOD DAY AT THE CRACKED BLOG?