'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!' gains steam in reaction to 'South Park'
The Islamic producers of the Web site RevolutionMuslim.com last week were able to silence a "South Park" speech about fear and intimidation. That censorship, however, has spawned another cartoon event: "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day" -- a campaign that might not be so easily muzzled.
The event, scheduled for May 20, is gathering momentum online.
A poster-like cartoon titled "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!" has been posted on sites ranging from Dan Savage to Andrew Sullivan. But here's the rub: This is not at all what the cartoonist intended to occur.
"I made a cartoon that went viral but [this campaign] isn't really my thing," Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris tells Comic Riffs, characterizing her cartoon as merely a personal response to Comedy Central's censorship. "Other folks have taken it over" -- an unintended appropriation she clearly distances herself from.
That "takeover" now includes a Facebook page titled Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. As of Sunday morning, the page had exceeded 1,500 "confirmed guests."
The creator of the page, Jon Wellington, tells Comic Riffs: "I created a Facebook event because that's an easy way to remind myself of upcoming events, and I thought it might serve that purpose for others too."
Adds Wellington: "I am not a cartoonist, and I loved [Norris's] creative approach to the whole thing -- whimsical and nonjudgmental." As for the event itself, Wellington calls it "a bit of a phenomenon" -- one, of course, that he himself has helped grow in popularity.
The text of the cartoon that's circulating says, in part, that an Everybody Draw Muhammad day would "water down the pool of targets" for Islamic terrorists. It also jokes that the day is "sponsored by Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor or CACAH (pronounced ca-ca)."
Some artists aren't waiting till May 20 to generate their own Muhammad images, which range from the straight-forward to the overtly grotesque and puerile. Any depiction of the prophet Muhammad is considered blasphemous by some Islamic adherents.