Matt Inman is a very didactic cartoonist, and his lessons are very simple. Check this cartoon below, that teaches that polar bears are better than people. Much better. So much better that Eskimos can be sacrificed to their pleasure! Because polar bears are even more awesome than usual when they are partying, tossing around a human being “like a hot potato.”
Eskimo Hot Potato, by Matt Inman
A polar bear can go months without eating and still be awesome. If food is scarce, a polar bear can reduce its metabolic rate and enter a state of “walking hibernation.” In this state, polar bears can go months without eating but still walk around and do things like sunbathing and partying. PARTY TIME! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Eskimo Hot Potato — a popular game at polar bear birthday parties.
Very funny, right? Yeah, if you’re a psycho! Inman has dehumanized a vulnerable group of people — replace “Eskimo” with “LGBT person” and tell me how long before that cartoon fetches a lawsuit! Of course, he isn’t helping the polar bears with their image much, either — aside from those with irrational blood-lust, are there really people who admire the polar bear’s omnicidal appetite? Atavism isn’t really a tenable life philosophy. We need protection from wild beasts that have the power to tear us in half and eat us. That’s why there are no bears in Europe. They took it too far, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to worship bears.
The only thing that keeps Inman a comfy cartooner in a cozy Seattle pad is the social order that keeps large, angry bums from killing him and taking his stuff. It’s not unrestrained killing capability that makes Seattle a nice place to live for those with money. Whatever laugh you get out of this type of “humor” is not worth the resultant coarsening of character you suffer when you buy into something like this. So in this photoshop project I tried to put the mauling of human beings in proper perspective — where it’s really felt – on the delicate human bodies of innocents.
Gabe Recouvreur Getting the Eskimo Hot Potato Treatment, Stage 1, Before the Bears Remove the Wrapper
Awesome Birthday, Huh Gabe?, by Tara Carreon