Who is the Joker? Two cartoons test the limits of free speech on the Internet (again)

Updated 09/19/09 2:23 PM EST: A doctored picture of President Barack Obama depicted as the, shall we say, “surgically” mouth enlarged Joker featured on an imaginary Time magazine cover, has stirred up waves of controversy on the Internet. The picture, distributed through Flickr and virally, through hard copy printouts pasted on lamp posts in Los Angeles,

was pulled down by Flickr on account of possible copyright infringement (since the substrate image reproduces an original Time Magazine cover). However, as noted by photographer Thomas Hawk,who among other things is also a voting democrat, this looks like censorship: “Personally, I think it’s unfortunate that Flickr would embark upon yet another act of censorship when an image was so clearly parody and fair use. What bothers me even more is that this is still another example of Flickr censoring users who are critical of President Obama and his policies. In June Flickr deleted the entire account and photostream of Flickr user Shepherd Johnson after he posted comments critical of the President on the Official White House Photostream. Now I’m actually a Democrat who voted for President Obama and am super happy to see the President using Flickr. But while Flickr’s staff is obviously proud of the fact that they have President Obama’s official photostream on Flickr, I don’t think that this fact ought to be the impetuous for them to censor and delete users who are critical of the President.”

On the other hand, copyright infringement or not, the discussion is clearly about the present heated political moment and about the fear many nourish that any attack on President Obama is a return to the country’s racist past. Yet, if we are to broaden the discussion, the fact that the political commentary entailed by this specific manner of caricaturing is seen as beyond the pale is somewhat odd given the rancour with which the past two presidents, William J. Clinton and George W. Bush have been vilifed. Should the gory metaphor contained in the illustration considered excessive in this context? Well, let us see. Is the demonic animus bottled in the picture less powerful and deleterious to political conversation than the caricature depicting GW Bush as the same Joker of Dark Knight?

It is clear that we live through dark and bitter political times. In this case, the only other question that might be asked is if demonization by a powerful media organization, read or at least enjoyed by a relatively closed circle of cognoscenti, is somewhat OK, while the web 2.0 brushfire of Flickr of satire is not?

PS: The LA Times blogger commentator Tony Pierce believes that choosing the Joker to demonize does President Obama a favor, in fact. Now, this is something to ponder about.
What do you think?

PPS: It is interesting, that as the News Busters blogger/commentator remarks, parodies of Time Magazine covers are a frequent occurrence on Flickr. Three recent examples: