Tanja from Poligoths has contributed a very special Thick Sheik Competition entry. She informs us she originally had a better tagline, but wanted to avoid both a fatwa and libel suit.
All I can say is it must have been a bloody ripper, because this one is damn good.
Other entries so far are here and here. For some reason, riffs on movie posters are popular - Jason, you must have started something with that Borat send-up.
It’s good to see the great tradition of Australian larrikin humour is still going strong.
Once again, keep ‘em coming - and enjoy!
UPDATE: Over the fold you’ll find another amusing entry from Kieran at The Dead Roo.
By way of explanation, Kieran points out that the Universal Life Church is a “church” that will “make you a legally ordained reverend, in under three minutes, FREE!”
For a small price they’ll print you a custom certificate with any title you want on it. Mufti of Australia perhaps?
Regular Catallaxy commenter Amir has often pointed out the peculiar way that Hilalyous went about getting his official ‘Mufti’ title - apparently the body that gave it to him is in receivership, too.
24 Comments
Wow! Now that’s good (and funny).
Oh yes, very clever. It works on about 6 different levels, too.
Cool. I must learn how to use photoshop one of these days.
This Comical Hilali idea of yours is brilliant, SL.
I think I might print off a few copies of this one and sneak down to the local Thornbury mosque….. Nah, I’m too chicken.
I just got the old free speech bug in my hat, I guess. Classical liberals tend to put free speech on a real pedestal. And, as I pointed out over at LP on their sheik thread, it gives Hilaly the right to say whatever he wants (short of incitement or defamation of course), but it also gives me the right to respond in whatever way I consider appropriate.
And for me, humour is the way to go on this particular dill.
Show some guts for once steve and do it. Don’t get all cowardly on us now.
Poligoth:
I was going to let you know there was an outlet for your artistic talent right here but you’ve found it already …..
Everyone:
Sorry, I shall read but not contribute for once. Not out of shyness …..but because I really dislike the idea waiting for an eternity at a frontier while the local officials decide whether my name is on a blacklist because I am a true enemy of their government and of their religion - or whether it is because I merely laughed at well-deserved satire and clever cartoons. (That I myself may be offended by similar depictions of political, social and religious personages in The West is of no interest whatsoever to such people).
I am reading this to my boys now of course he would change the Lion’s name to islam
Brilliant! Definitely gets my vote!
Tanya’s work is really clever. Check out her site.
I notice Janet Jackson’s nipple in this collage, and demand an immediate senate enquiry.
Maybe we can get together a class action.
It’s a bloody classic, eh? I must admit I cacked myself laughing when it first lobbed into my intray. She won’t tell me what her original tagline was, though, on the grounds that she’d have to kill me if she did!
I dont agre that it is clever or that the satire of Islam is at all useful; Aslan was C S Lewis version of Christ so making Jesus = Islam confuses the point, is Islam being crucified? Will Hilaly become a martyr? St Hillaly?
In the original LWW Aslam was killed and rose from the dead and brought light and warmth and life into a cold, dark and sterile world which is exactly what Islam claims to be doing.
Apart from the pisstake on the layout, I thought it served to remind the Hilalys of this world of just what Islam isn’t. I’m an atheist, but I’m willing to draw distinctions between different theological traditions. The Christians and the Buddhists have got it all over the rest of them, frankly.
I think most people would simply see it as an expedient play on words. One could also mock the Mufti’s ‘out of context’ gift for gloss-hilalia without necessarily being disrespectful to the Holy Spirit.
However - on reflection - I agree with rog that Aslan is too sacred a literary figure to deserve being associated with the Sheikh and too theologically emblematic to casually cross-reference with this lowlife or with Islam.
Nothing is sacred (particularly when the Narnia film was so second rate compared to CS Lewis’ book). The moment one begins to corral ‘the sacred’ from satire or parody, one is on a slippery slope to the ridiculous Islamic reaction to the Muhammad cartoons. Every tradition is fair game.
That this principle is often unevenly applied by our friends on the left (think Serrano and Piss Christ, for example) reflects poorly on them. One either has freedom of speech subject only to rules concerning incitement and defamation, or one doesn’t.
SL, I would never argue against the freedom to produce an image or satire of the kind here being discussed. You don’t acknowledge me as a libertarian, I know, but I don’t actually support censorship - not even against Serrano and his ilk.
As I noted, this is a brilliantly executed and funny image. Poligoths has the goods. But rog has a point too - I think a strong one - when he wonders whether its iconoclastic oomph inadvertently favours the Mufti and his usurper’s worldview.
Actually I think Piss Christ was very Christian or very Catholic anyway. I don’t know what he was thinking but when I saw it that’s how I interpreted it.
There might also be a law of diminishing marginal utility for some satire. In other words, a point where the units of disempowering iconoclasm you desire - to put an enemy in his place - suddenly fall below the empowering effect on that enemy of trivialising his actual menace. No, Jap pilots weren’t all half-blind, buck-toothed ignoramuses in flying toasters etc.
That goes to quality, CL. The best satire (and funnily enough, the best propaganda) riffs on the enemy’s/target’s strengths. Satire that belittles is seldom particularly effective. That’s one of the reasons a lot of Nazi propaganda was so effective - it attributed great (negative) strengths to Jews, and therefore attached economic utility to killing them.
CL [18] and SL [19]:
You’re both right.
Funny how two things can be both conflicting and correct, isn’t it? I’m sure it happens a lot more than a lot of people are prepared to admit, too.
Something odd about the French hijab ban thread so I will link here; the burqini has copped a bit of bad press lately which I dont think is merited -
http://www.uem.es/web/arq/profesores/invitados/Burka.jpg
It seems okay now, rog. CL’s linked to the story as well.
we should see the back of burqa!!