THE POWER OF CARICATURES

Based on Kevin Kallaugher's talk at TEDxWarwick 2011

If a picture paints a thousand words, a caricature can also convey blistering satire along with political and historical comment. In his TEDxWarwick 2011 talk, celebrated cartoonist Kevin Kallaugher entertainingly reminisced about his career and the people he has drawn, showing examples of his work and sketching ad-hoc caricatures on the way.

During his presentation, one person in particular from his past sprang into mind. He was 12 years-old and in a music class at St Thomas the Apostle convent school. One nun had a practice of singing with her eyes closed during class and he thought he’d capture this. Firstly, Kallaugher drew her little pug nose and her shut eyes; then he moved on to her curly hair peeking out from underneath her habit. Next he drew her mouth, unflatteringly the size of a battleship, with her tongue sticking out, happily singing away.

The girl sitting next to him in class whipped the drawing off his desk and passed it round the other children. In moments he was a star: “peer affirmation at age 12 was incredible – until the nun got hold of the cartoon”. Despite the trouble he got into from the aggrieved nun, Kallaugher said that she taught him two very important lessons: firstly that caricature is a magical tool, particularly for those under the thumb of authority; and secondly that those on the sharp end of the caricature don’t always appreciate them.

Since learning and practicing his craft during and after graduation, Kallaugher has worked to draw the personality of a person, to go beyond their physical features and capture something special. He discovered over time that caricature is to portrait what jazz is to music. You start with a core melody then go off, the whole time keeping a reference to the central core, but at the same time trying to give people a new view in an entertaining way.

As a cartoonist for The Economist he has had the opportunity to draw the powerful, such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Kallaugher witnessed these people change over the time and was able to tell stories, reflect on their personalities and what they did in the context of history. Barack Obama, when he campaigned for the US presidency, had a caricature image of a thousand-watt smile. Two years later this evolved to represent the gravity and gravitas of the role weighing down on him.

Caricatures aren’t only magical, they can also be powerful. Imagine if a caricaturist had the opportunity to take your face, pull it apart and reassemble it under their control.

From the moment we are born our eyes are fixed on faces, trying to read them and figure out if they are friendly or threatening. We rapidly process this information in our brains. “To quote the 19th century British philosophy Mary Poppins”, joked Kallaugher, “’A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down’”. A good caricature pulls people in and helps to get the political or social point across. Yet not every good artist can do caricature. It’s like asking a concert violinist to be a jazz musician. Kallaugher is taking part in a research study at John Hopkins University to look at brain activity when he is drawing caricatures.

Caricatures aren’t only magical, they can also be powerful. Imagine if a caricaturist had the opportunity to take your face, pull it apart and reassemble it under their control. That makes the caricaturist very powerful. It takes a mature person to weather a withering caricature. Now imagine if you are a public figure or politician and see your face abused in newspapers and in film. Would you be tempted to stop this?

Well in two-thirds of the world, Kallaugher soberly announced, this TEDx Warwick meeting couldn’t take place. The police would march in; both he and the attendees would be arrested for the crime of laughing at the head of state. For a time Kallaugher was president of an international human rights group dedicated to cartoonists. In other parts of the world cartoonists have been threatened, jailed, tortured and murdered because of their art. The freedom of expression that we take for granted is non-existent in those countries.

We can judge the maturity of a society by the amount of satire and caricatures it can endure. In terms of the history of the planet it is only in a virtual nanosecond that freedom of expression has been allowed. This is something we should value and fight for.

As he ‘drew’ to a conclusion Kallaugher asked the attendees to do one thing. When they go home and looked in the mirror, think about himself and his colleagues. Ponder on what they might do with your face. Draw the ears bigger? Give you a bulbous nose or pursed lips? Now imagine that the cartoonist might show your picture in front of hundreds of people at TEDx. The speech is then filmed, with your caricature going on the internet and being seen by millions of people around the world.

You know people will laugh and you may feel angry, frustrated or embarrassed. Then think again: feel proud. Be grateful that you live in a country where there’s freedom of speech and cartoonists can flourish, instead of being imprisoned and tortured.

Kevin Kallaugher (KAL) is the editorial cartoonist for The Economist magazine of London.

After graduating from Harvard College with honors in 1977, Kevin embarked on a bicycle tour of the British Isles, where he joined the Brighton Basketball Club as a player and coach. After the club hit financial difficulties, Kevin drew caricatures of tourists in Trafalgar Square and on Brighton Pier. In March 1978, The Economist recruited him to become their first resident cartoonist in their 145 year history.

By Penelope Jenkins