When the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a series of Mohammed caricatures in 2005 the outcry was huge. Understandably so. The caricatures not only used sacred imagery and words distorting them in meaning and look, they also did in fact attempt to picture Mohammed, something that is strictly forbidden in Islam. But the controversy does not stop there. The caricatures were not only featured in the newspaper itself. As a result of the discussion that ensued they were also printed in other magazines, published online, shown on TV and discussed by scholars for lectures and other educational purposes.
What characteristics determine whether the reuse of media is considered acceptable or unacceptable? Was the publishing of the caricatures in Jyllands-Posten inappropriate, but their circulation within the media afterwards acceptable? One cannot legitimately generalize about this. There is no way, we can define 'objective' criteria that would help establish such thing as a 'degree of acceptability', a continuum – appropriate to unacceptable. Apart from legal issues one must consider the ethics involved in the process of repurposing media.
Brian Jungen combines Northwest Coast imagery as well as icons of Western pop culture such as Nike sneakers in his artistic practice, a mixture which is key to his hybrid, super-contemporary sculptures that are the tangible result of global, modern-day media circulation (Burnett 2006). Reusing the concept and evoking on the aesthetics of the Northwest coast mask, his works allude to Haida or Kwakwaka'wakw imagery and thus also to certain intangible values. However, his works hardly seem to raise controversy. Admittedly, Jungen is neither Haida or Kwakwaka'wakw, but he is of First Nations descent which seems to account for a somewhat 'authentic' approach. But why did Westerners not get offended by Jungen's use of Nike sneakers and his sharp comment on consumerism – the supposed religion of Western society? What would happen if it was the other way around? What if a Caucasian North American artist was to incorporate Northwest Coast imagery in his/ her work and combine it with popular culture?
Relative power relations as well as the nature of past and present relationships between the 'copier' and the 'copied' definitely do influence the way we perceive a reuse of media: T-shirts featuring Che Guevara can be found all over the place. Cover versions of pop songs are released on an almost daily basis. Youtube videos like Rebecca Black's Friday are responded to within hours of them being posted often with parodies being uploaded shortly after. Having said that, we must not forget the input of remediated images and experiences we receive on a daily basis. Every time we watch the news we are confronted with images, bits and pieces of media that have already been reproduced many times. This is hardly ever questioned, let alone is the reuse of media by the media ever truely contested: “As media simulations become ever more pervasive they gradually encroach upon our experience of 'first order' reality” (Walker and Chaplin 1997:23). Their reliability and authority is taken for granted precisely because they have come to be essential parts of our lives. In addition to that, things have become even more complicated since the onset of the contemporary digital age.
All of this might lead us to believe that it is the context in which media are reappropriated that determines whether cultural borrowing and the reuse of mediated images are acceptable or not. Does the remediation belong within the realm of art; is it meant to be aid in educating people as in the case of the lecture on the Mohammed caricatures: or is it the light-hearted copying of famous people's faces that end up on shirts and fashion accessories? But who, then, determines if something is light-hearted and meant in a playful manner like for example the responses to Friday? One might say that it is the intention with which certain imagery or media in general are treated? But what if this intention does coincide with people's perceptions of the act of reappropriation? And how could the sincerity of one's intention ever be determined?
These things largely rely on assumptions: It is the assumed intention, the assumed message and meaning as well as what is deemed 'appropriate' regarding the right to copy that determine whether the use of media is acceptable. A consensus is hardly ever reached. “[A]ppropriation is a creative act” (Novak 2010:42) Although this may ring true, in certain contexts it is a rather cynic statement. The Mohammed caricatures very well fall into the category of 'art' or 'artistic freedom', 'freedom of press', but they also touch on contemporary cultural and religious issues and this is exactly where their controversial potential stems from.
References Cited
Burnett, Craig
2006 Owls, Inuits and Cultural Collision: Museums, Marketing and Clichés. Frieze Magazine 98 (April): http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/brian_jungen/.
Novak, David
2010 Cosmopolitanism, Remediation, and the Ghost World of Bollywood. Cultural Anthropology 25(1):40 –72.
Walker, John A. and Sarah Chaplin
1997 Visual Culture: An Introduction. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press; New York: St. Martin's Press.
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