A few of Charlie Hebdo's rather controversial cartoons
On January 7, 2015 two masked gunmen, Saïd Kouachi and Chérif Kouachi, armed with assault rifles, shot and killed 11 people in the Paris offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Six others were killed and another 11 were wounded in related shootings. The attacks were reportedly in response to the newspaper’s frequent, offensive depictions of the prophet Muhammad, in satirical cartoons.
While it goes without saying that the terrorist attack was heinous and inexcusable, it shouldn’t have come as that much of a surprise to anyone, especially the editors and staff of Charlie Hebdo who apparently made a habit of tempting fate by antagonizing Islam’s extremely radical fringe elements with depictions of Muhammad that even a casual viewer would find distasteful.
Nevertheless, for those who claim the newspaper staff nor the French authorities could see this coming, I point to an exchange between two hitmen, Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega, in the classic 1994 film Pulp Fiction — with some editorial license taken to drive the point home:
JULES
You remember Charlie Hebdo? Half-satire, half-news, used to call it Hara-Kiri.
VINCENT
Yeah maybe, sleazy right?
JULES
I wouldn’t go so far as to call the newspaper sleazy. It’s got a far left editor. What’s the nigga gonna do, he’s French.
VINCENT
I think I know who you mean, what about it?
JULES
Well, a couple of Islamic terrorists fucked their ass up good. And word around the campfire, it was on account of the prophet Muhammad.
VINCENT
What’d they do, denounce him?
JULES
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, nothin’ that bad.
VINCENT
Well what then?
JULES
They printed a cartoon.
VINCENT
A cartoon? That’s all?
JULES
Yes
VINCENT
What did the terrorists do?
JULES
Sent a couple of guys over to their office. They went in and took out the maintenance man, shot his ass at the reception desk.
They went to the second floor, to a meeting room enclosed in glass. Niggas shot cartoonists, editors, columnists. Since then, the newspaper’s kinda developed a bigger following.
VINCENT
That’s a damn shame. Still I have to say, play with matches, you get burned.
JULES
Whaddya mean?
VINCENT
You don’t be givin’ a fanatical Muslim an insulting cartoon of the prophet Muhammad.
JULES
You don’t think they overreacted?
VINCENT
Charlie Hebdo staff probably didn't expect the terrorists to react like they did, but they had to expect a reaction.
JULES
It was a cartoon, a cartoon is nothing, I draw my mother cartoons.
VINCENT
It’s depicting the fanatics' prophet in an insulting way. Is it as bad as a drone strike? — no, but you’re in the same fuckin’ ballpark.
JULES
Whoa…whoa…whoa…stop right there. Droppin a bomb on a bitch, and drawing a cartoon ain’t even the same fuckin’ thing.
VINCENT
Not the same thing, the same ballpark.
JULES
It ain’t no ballpark either. Look maybe your method of satire differs from mine, but drawing a cartoon of Muhammad naked and dropping a bomb from hundreds of miles away on the holiest of holies, ain’t the same ballpark, ain’t the same league, ain’t even the same fuckin’ sport. Cartoons don’t mean shit.
VINCENT
Have you ever drawn an insulting, satirical cartoon?
JULES
Don’t be tellin’ me about cartoons — I’m the satire fuckin’ master.
VINCENT
Drawn a lot of ‘em?
JULES
Shit yeah. I got my technique down man. I don’t blaspheme or nothin’.
VINCENT
Have you ever drawn Muhammad naked?
JULES
Fuck you.
VINCENT
How many times?
JULES
Fuck you.
VINCENT
Would you draw me naked? I’m kinda sacred.
JULES
Man, you best back off, I’m gettin’ pissed. Look, just because I wouldn’t draw an insulting cartoon of Muhammad, don’t make it right for the terrorists to shoot up a motherfuckin’ office, fuckin’ up the way the newspaper is published. That ain’t right, man. Motherfucker do that to me, he better paralyze my ass, ’cause I’d kill’a motherfucker.
VINCENT
I’m not sayin’ they were right, but you’re sayin’ an insulting cartoon don’t mean nothing, and I’m sayin’ it does. I’ve read a million cartoons in a million newspapers and they all meant somethin’. We act like they don’t, but they do. That’s what’s so fuckin’ cool about ‘em.
This satirical thing’s goin’ on that nobody’s talkin’ about, but you know it and Muslims know it, fuckin’ terrorists knew it, and Charlie Hebdo editors shoulda known fuckin’ better. That’s their fuckin’ prophet, man. They ain’t gonna have a sense of humor about that shit.
JULES:
That’s an interesting point.
Editor’s Note: Just because you have the right and ability to publish an insulting cartoon of a religious icon whose fanatical followers have no sense of humor, are totally irrational, and are willing to die to right the perceived slight, doesn’t mean you should publish said cartoon. If you traffic in the provocation of maniacs, don’t express shock and chagrin when those same maniacs do something irrational and unspeakable.