Working backwards here… finally selecting the winner of the November caption contest. Winner of the December contest, which got hilarious entries, will follow at the end of the month. Been very busy so please excuse the brevity.
I had a bit of a hard time deciding on this one. I asked some friends and here’s what came in as the favorite caption for the November contest:
DJ!
Thank you so much DJ for an awesome cartoon!
Wait up, people. I am here with my sad and belated little November caption doodle and list of reasons for the delay that I’m itching to kvetch about. My tablet electronic drawing pen got lost and I could not draw anything new (I posted stuff from my cartoon freezer). Yes, lost. The dog did eat my homework, I swear. A junior person in our house took it from where he shouldn’t have taken it and claims to have put it to “good use” but he totally forgot the location of this “good use”. He and I combined forces into a split-task search team: me looking, him not looking –and found nothing but toy stores under the gas range. So I ordered a replacement for the expensive pen. By the time the new pen arrived it was past November 6, past elections, past Obama staying and Sandy storming, and a host of opportunities to cartoodle was lost.
I had been hoping to do a captionless drawing about current events, politics, Israel, natural disaster, Thanksgiving, etc, because I thought it would be fun to hear your twist on it all. I’ve been thinking about these things lately because Hurricane Sandy left us without power, heat or connection for a whole week. At the mercy of good people, we wound up sheltered by a family of political enthusiasts who sought to enlighten me on the values of the exciting Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and Herman Cain. I generally tune out politics; I’ve tired of it and I’m cynical of the Washington business of washing hands. But listening to my passionate Republican hosts preach about abortion made me think about it a lot. I decided the time was ripe for a doodle with turkeys at abortion clinics and pumpkin pies in the sky. But like I said above in reason numero uno, the drawing pen got lost.
So I found this oldie and pathetic drawing in my doodle folder. Maybe you guys can come up with something witty that’ll make a mentch of it. Last month’s winning was hilarious. That was a good final cartoon (and I’m really grateful to Shulem for writing that really sweet and thoughtful post, especially at a time of blackout when I could manage nothing more than finding my way to bathroom with a flashlight.) For this month’s cartoon, if you can think of something smart and funny, I’d love that. Next month, I promise, I’m going to do something relevant. Maybe with Obama and Judy Brown and Christmas Trees and Deborah Feldman with my Jewish History professor Glenn Dynner whom I’ve doodled all those times I pretended to take notes. Or not. Keep brainstorming, Shpitz.
Now that I got all that off my chest, here’s the cartoon for the November caption contest. Please comment — and thank you!
Commentary by Shulem Deen, editor of Unpious:
When I first looked at this cartoon, I wondered: who is the joke on? Women? Mikva-goers? Cell phone users?
Being that we’re all here in the service of advancing the agenda of shkutzim and apikorsim (we are, aren’t we?), there must be an anti-religious point here, I reasoned. An anti-chasidish point. An anti-mikva point. An anti-something point. But I couldn’t find it. It seemed like most who submitted captions were looking for the same: a message in this cartoon condemning something.
And then it hit me. It isn’t condemning anything. It is simply, as its creator does so consistently, being funny.
Humor is a funny thing. It can often cast a glow on human foibles in a way that reasoned arguments cannot. But despite that, I believe that humor fails in one particular instance: when it turns polemical. Sure, it can still be funny. Side-splitting hilarious, even. But not necessarily convincing.
This reminded me of one of the funniest anti-religious movies I’ve ever seen: Bill Maher’s “Religulous.” I remember watching it with friends in a Brooklyn theater surrounded by howling crowds. And I remember thinking: This shit is funny! And then thinking: This shit isn’t going to convince anyone who isn’t already convinced.
“If you want to go back to scientific proof,” a truck driver sitting in a small roadside church says to Maher, “I think it was the turban of shroud.” “The Shroud of Turin,” Maher corrects him. “Or whatever,” the truck driver says. He’s made his point.
A U.S. Senator tells Maher he does not believe in evolution, after which he helpfully adds, “You don’t have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate.”
Funny stuff, I thought, and was too busy laughing to give to give too much more thought to the film’s effectiveness as an argument. This was comedic gold, one scene after another: a minister who believes himself to be a reincarnation of Jesus Chris and wears 2,000-dollar suits and a pirate’s chest full of bling. The Jew for Jesus guy whose life is “filled with miracles.” (One example: He was thirsty once, held out a glass, prayed, and it rained.) The ex-gay minister who professes to “heal” other gay people but whose therapies appear to have had dubious effects on himself.
It wasn’t until about an hour into the movie that I began to really think about the argument part of it. It was when Rabbi Yisruel Duvid Weiss appeared—the Neturei Karta guy from Monsey in his plotchige bieber hit, Chicago accent, and Palestinian flag pin on his chest–that I realized: The movie just lost its chance to convince any Orthodox Jew of the ridiculousness of religion. THAT guy?! We ALL know he’s crazy!
Maher’s movie highlights why making comedy out of religion doesn’t work–if, that is, you’d like to actually change minds. The most bizarre beliefs and practices—those with the most comedic potential—don’t allow “normal” religious people to see themselves in all that nuttiness. Sure, THAT guy is crazy, but OUR beliefs are sane.
All of which is to say: if you’re going to make your point by trying to be funny, you will almost certainly fail. You won’t likely make you point, and there’s a good chance you won’t be funny either.
And this is one reason why OyVeyCartoons delights me as much as it does. It’s also what made me realize that the answer to my question—where’s the anti-religious point?—that there is in fact no such point. Shpitzle does what Shpitzle does most brilliantly: highlight the craziness in us as humans—not only the crazy in religious people, but also the crazy and the neurotic and the obsessive and the just plain silly in all of us. (Even, often enough, among our brethren OTDs.)
And this is also why I chose the caption that I chose to win. It is the funniest, in my opinion, but it is funny precisely because it mocks a human habit, not a religious one. There is no mocking of mikvas, or of kosher cell phones, or of rabbis inspecting underwear (all of which deserve to be mocked—certainly!—but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily funny). Only of the obsessive cell phone user, pious or otherwise, who simply can’t disconnect until the very last moment.
And so I declare the winner of the October Caption Contest:
Wannabe: Every time I take off my turban the stupid phone falls out! argh!
It’s been real, folks. Congratulations to the winner, and a great thank you to Shpitzle for inviting me to be the judge on this month’s contest. May she forever keep doodling and forever keep us laughing.
October caption contest is here! I’m excited to have a very, very special guest judge for this contest! The esteemed Shulem Deen, the original Hasidic Rebel, founder and editor of Unpious (where my best writing is published) and my personal writing guru will put on his black judge’s chalat, review your submissions and put down the gavel on the winner. Said Justice Deen will write the post for the winning announcement at the end of the month, when his recess is over.
Since this doodle is a little extra daring, I’ll ask you to please exercise good taste in posting sexual captions. I’m all for having some fun with it, but try to keep it clever and with Yiddishe Taam.
Sadly, there will be no cash prize for this month’s caption contest, but despair not my dears, I’m trying to think of something else I may be able to offer as the contest prize. So far everything I’ve thought of – my old Pesach dishes, twin bed linens, wall of china tablecloth, tichels and turbans and dickies from my garage – seems to come out more advantageous to me than to the person who receives those vunderbar gifts. But I’m still thinking.
For now I guess we’ll find out if this can work without dangling incentives. Go for it!
Toda!
With many apologies for the delay in announcing the winner of the all-mighty cartoon caption contest for the sacred month of September, we at the New Dorker want to head right for our towels and get this ceremony underway. Ahem. Right, not very professional is I, being as this whole thing got farshlept. Well, the main thing is I’m here now with the finalist and winner after a very busy few weeks of holidays and new-semester workload. Despite the delay all the great prizes and honors will still be awarded. Yes, twenty five dollars. No small thing, considering this is the last caption contest with a cash prize — until the next bailout! I will continue to do caption contests, but it will now be primarily for the benefits of amusement of yours truly and anyone else who cares, meaning, there will be a much altered profit definition.
And with that…The runner-up to the caption contest is:
Matty: “Must. Keep. Practicing.”
This gave me a real chuckle. I love deadpan humor especially in strange situations! Must. Keep. Trying. Matty. No. Money. Surry.
As for the winner of the caption contest and of the twenty five bucks and the creator of my all new funny cartoon that fits right into my cartoonist’s portfolio-in-the-making:
David: “Why throw out the shofer with the bathwater?”
I love the whole bathwater concept because the analogy has been taken in every possible direction, stretched to fit the religious values of every stripe and creed. I always get confused by what the baby is and what the bathwater is, in terms of real life. What counts for the metaphorical baby? Is a pair of jeans a baby? Is a shofer a baby? Is shabbes a baby? Is God a baby? Really? What’s the matter with people taking an analogy and running with it?
From my perspective everyone should do whatever they want with their bath and bathwater, so long as there are enough bubbles to cover up whatever I’d rather not see. And in terms of religion, when people choose to distance themselves from religion altogether instead of staying partially religious as Modern Orthodox or LWMO or such, it is their choice, their preference. Leaving religion altogether doesn’t constitute an act of recklessness or extremism, it constitutes a choice in life.
