The idea went viral this week when Molly Norris, who draws for Seattle's CITY ARTS Magazine, suggested it.
The idea was that people voluntarily draw the prophet Muhammad on May 20 and post it online on their site, their Facebook page, etc. to support free speech. This was in reaction to the censorship of a Muhammad-based episode of SOUTH PARK.
Now, now it's Friday and Fox News was crowing about how she called it all off:
I hadn't heard about this, but Michael Cavna of COMIC RIFFS had.
Molly, surprised by the reaction, has changed her mind. "... [This campaign] isn't really my thing," she told Comic Riffs.
From her site:
Let's call off "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day"
by changing it to "Everybody Draw Al Gore Day" instead.
Enough Mohammed drawings have already been made to get the point across.
At this juncture, such drawings are only hurtful to more liberal and moderate
Muslims who have not done anything to endanger our first amendment rights
Do something positive with that energy, like...Draw Al Gore!
Above is her apology.
I feel bad for her. Molly has ceased to be a person. Fox is telling her to "grow a pair" and a commenter on COMIC RIFFS calls this a "surrender to hate and extremism." Molly is now a symbol, being kicked around for some lofty cause.
What does she mean, we don't want to agitate moderate Muslims? This was about exercising freedom of speech to point where it's no longer an issue, and if it's still an issue then the point was never made. If someone still has to duck and cover in America for drawing the wrong thing then I'll definitely draw one that day.
ReplyDeleteDon't feel sorry for me. I made one of my weekly cartoons of a fictional poster that people took seriously. Then it went viral. I never intended on leading a movement. The 'sponsorship' behind the poster is also fictional. The one-off poster is a bad long term plan. All the vitriolic hatred this 'day' has brought out, drawings by people who only want to draw obscene images, is offensive to all of the Muslims who did NOT do anything to endanger our rights of expression in the first place. Only Viacom and Revolution Muslim are to blame. Thanks for the Imus clip -- I hadn't seen it. Dang, I'm not a liberal either. The media sucks! Molly http://www.mollynorris.com/posterdescribed.html
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