January 27, 2003
writes:
I just noticed on your blog the illustration in the Jan 22 entry concerning the death of Bill Mauldin.The altered cartoon is thumbnailed up to the left of this post. The ad’s caption reads “With great sadness, the Jeep brand says goodbye to the great cartoonist who immortalized the heroic enlisted men of WWII. Bill Mauldin, 1921-2003.”Jeep has taken out full page ads in the New York Times (today, p. A11) with this very illustration, albeit slightly changed: The gun, with which the soldier puts down his wounded jeep, is replaced by a box of tissues! I did not know the cartoon before, and it did not make to much sense to me when I saw this (it certainly made some sense as a tribute to the artist, but in the context of that cartoon, why would the soldier be crying and having a box of tissues on his jeep?) So thank you very much for providing this bit of correction. And shame on DaimlerChrysler for messing up the cartoon.
The crack staff of art critics here at Electrolite agrees with Reader Klein. The original cartoon is funny on several levels: it’s a parody of a whole genre of scenes about heroic cavalry officers and their horses, and it’s an acknowledgement of the genuine feeling World War II soldiers had for their Jeeps. Obviously, somebody at Jeep understands the second point, at least. But wouldn’t it have been much funnier and more appropriate to reproduce the original cartoon? As Klein’s remarks demonstrate, the altered image simply makes no sense if you’ve never seen the original. And it’s very strange to pay tribute to a wickedly funny humorist by altering one of his most famous images to remove, well, the humor part.
As for the fact that, in 2003, “Jeep is a registered trademark of DaimlerChrysler Corporation,” we pass over it in silence. And the owl was once the baker’s daughter. [05:29 PM]
The original is a well known, iconic image. I would be very surprised if there are too many people who are interested in comics that are unfamiliar with it: it is the image I described to my daughter when I was explaining who Mauldin was. I was surprised that none of the obits I saw used it, actually. So when I saw the altered version, I got it, and thought it was a nice tribute. I didn't think about the DaimlerChrysler Corporation part, I must admit. At least it wasn't Porsche. Or Braun. It is possible to get a little too Jackie Mason over this, I suppose. How about this: it was a sincere seeming tribute, even if it took the joke out of the original work.
I wonder if there was some fear that a gun would be offensive?
The same thought crossed my mind as Mitch's -- in fact, I wonder if some papers would have balked at running the cartoon with the original pistol. We sure wouldn't want people associating the US Army with gun violence!
I agree with Bill, this is an iconic image -- to some people. The problem is that my iconic image is someone else's obscure artistic reference. Overestimating what your audience knows is a typical mistake (underestimating what your audience knows is another -- nobody ever said this would be easy :) ) and the original image would be very familiar to anyone with an interest in Jeeps, WWII, or editorial cartoons. The media folks at DaimlerChrysler probably fit into two of those groups. A lot of the audience fit into none of them.
As for the gun, I wonder if it was not so much that it would be offensive as concern that it might be confusing considering the context of the death of the cartoonist.
I'd bet you dollars to donuts that the gun was removed on the orders of some marketing or legal exec in order to protect their branding. For the same reason that you don't want your product shown in a movie being used by the bad guys, you don't want to show your product getting shot for any reason. I don't think this was done out of some misplaced sensitivities--it was done in a misguided attempt to protect the brand. Of course, it was shortsighted: For those of us for whom this cartoon was our introduction to Mauldin, it's a travesty. And don't forget, the folks who make Kleenex[tm] are fiercely protective of their brand, as any author whose tried to use "kleenex" as a common noun might attest. So I imagine they've pissed off Kimberly-Clark, too.
[Speaking of branding, as an aside, it's worth getting the DVD of "Return of the Living Dead" just for Dan O'Bannon's story about getting a can of Lysol into a scene involving the stench of a dismembered, rotten, re-animated corpse. Lysol, as it turns out, can permanently remove all traces of zombie-stink with a three-second burst.]
Homonym trouble. That should be "who's," or maybe "who has."
How does it make sense as a tribute to the artist?
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