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Just Tell It Straight
Mar. 3rd, 2025 10:50 pmAug 2023
Uproar! - Alice Loxton – Icon Books, 2023
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I have always enjoyed political caricature, particularly when it is imaginatively venomous. Gerald Scarfe's and Steve Bell's drawings of Margaret Thatcher and John Major are engraved on my memory and were a comfort during the long years of Tory rule in my youth. In a functioning democracy, political caricature and satire are essential to express the frustration of those whom the electoral system has left unrepresented, and it is saddening to see that the mainstream expressions of these are becoming increasingly tired and anodyne. While I refuse to accept the definitions of "cancel culture" promulgated by right-wing critics, I do worry that the calling out of violent, racist, misogynistic or homophobic opinions, necessary though that probably is in our social media-dominated landscape, might be inhibiting caricature's crude energy.
This is an interesting history book that is let down by its style. I strongly suspect that it will be unreadable in twenty or thirty years' time. Which is a shame, for its story of the rise of eighteenth century political caricature, and the popular if ultimately unsuccessful rebellion against an overmighty state that it represented, is as relevant today as it was 250 years ago.
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