Artist's compromise over cartoon of Brexit BoJo running from EU death camp just kills the joke stone dead

When Italian cartoonist Mario Improta backed down over a controversial Nazi death camp-themed Brexit joke, he mistakenly compared his capitulation to the fate that befell French satirical mag Charlie Hebdo.

When Improta posted on social media an illustration of re-elected British PM Boris Johnson dressed as a prisoner fleeing a EU concentration camp, it was a pretty good gag.

But when he folded under the pressure of the apparent uproar that followed, it was a kick in the nuts for freedom of speech and an act or artistic cowardice for which he should be ashamed.

So what if Virginia Reggi, the mayor of Rome, canceled her links with Improta? He has illustrated an educational campaign featuring her as a Manga hero. It all says more about her lack of ability to understand political satire and the febrile atmosphere of Roman politics.

©  Facebook / Mario Improta

The cartoon had nothing to do with her. Then Improta told one Italian newspaper that he would do it all again. Really? He said: “It is freedom of satire. And if satire is not a punch in the stomach, it is not satire.”

Then why did he back down and alter the original image? He even compared himself to the cartoonists at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. That’s the same Charlie Hebdo whose office was attacked by Islamist terrorists in 2015, leaving 12 people dead after they unapologetically ran various images of the prophet Mohammed over a number of years.

They did not back down after a public clamor, nor even after their offices were bombed in 2011. What would they make of Improta’s retreat?How Improta thinks his behavior is on the same level as what the staff at Charlie Hebdo endured is incomprehensible, when you look at his decision and groveling apology, in which he said it wasn’t correct to “identify the EU with a concentration camp.” Why not?

He felt emboldened enough to reference a Nazi camp for the satirical dig at the Brexit fiasco but why did he then back down and replace the image with that of a toilet? It kills the joke stone dead and shows how the online humor police and liberal chattering classes have commandeered comedy to such an extent that it is now completely unacceptable to make a joke if anyone might be even mildly offended. And, oh, you cross that line at your peril.

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As long as there is one person who liberals can take offence on behalf of, then they will rain down upon you with biblical fury.What they fail to understand is that many regular folk will have taken the references to a Nazi concentration camp in the abstract sense, a comic approach to a cultural meme referencing the worst experiences of humanity.

They would understand what Improta was trying to convey and not that he was deliberately attempting to revive nightmarish memories of the Holocaust or to taunt Rome’s Jewish population.That is not satire. That is just sick.

So that should have been Improta’s response to any criticism or allegations of insensitivity and he should have stood unbowed by that defense. Are there that many people who are so thick they just cannot get past the satirized illustration of a concentration camp and see the intended joke beyond that?In short, yes. Meanwhile, by reporting the storm in Italy, online newspapers like The Times of Israel and the Jerusalem Post ran the online cartoon again, to be seen by thousands more people than would have seen it in its original iteration.

So the newspapers whose readership are among those allegedly upset by this illustration published it again as an example of what they should be outraged by in case they ever see something similar.

Now that is funny.

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