Creator of “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” won’t draw Muhammad
Chris Spags A Seattle-based cartoonist named Molly Norris attempted to rally the troops in support of her fellow artists being threatened for creating and distributing images of the Muslim deity Muhammad. But as soon as her movement called “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” started to pick up steam, she wants out, claiming she no longer wants a part of it.
The original cartoon drawn by Molly Norris that spurred on “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day”
Norris initially emailed several members of the media in an attempt to draw attention to her goal of making May 20th into a day in which the world drew the Muslim prophet to show that we won’t back down from people infringing upon the right of expression. Pretty cool, right? Yeah, not so much.
According to a report in the Los Angeles Times:
[Norris posted on her Web site,] “”I am NOT involved in “Everybody Draw Mohammd [sic] Day!”
“I made a cartoon that went viral and I am not going with it. Many other folks have used my cartoon to start sites, etc. Please go to them as I am a private person who draws stuff,” she writes.
It went viral, however, because she was the one who passed it around. Sending it to people like Dan Savage, a popular Seattle-based blogger and nationally syndicated sex advice columnist.
Once it became a national story she reeled back, asking Savage — in an email he provided to The Ticket — if he would “be kind enough to switch out my poster” with another one — a much tamer version which has no images attributed to Muhammad.
“I am sort of freaked out about my name/image being all over the place,” her e-mail reads.
According to the same article, the creator of a Facebook event for the movement bowed out as well, making a long-winded statement about hatred and mud-slinging that’s too boring to recreate here but that you can read at that Facebook link.
I absolutely get that Muhammad is a sacred figure and it’s never fun to be offended by something that means so much to you. But at the same time, it’s just an illustration or artistic representation. Either draw it or don’t, but to attach yourself to this cause and then back out is just cowardly.
I will stand up for our rights to artistic expression. I just drew several pictures in my notebook which involve Muhammad high-fiving Jesus and saying that his sandals are dy-no-mite (I like to imagine that Jimmy “JJ” Walker and Muhammad have much in common). Unfortunately, I don’t have a scanner to post them right now but, rest assured, they really make my point. The fact that they’re parallel to doodles and my signature as if I were married to Megan Fox only accentuates the poignancy of my illustrations.
Creators of ‘Everybody Draw Muhammad Day’ drop gag after everybody gets angry [LA Times]
Everybody Draw Mohammed Day [Facebook event]
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