Culture

Twitter Is Melting Down Over Leunig’s Incomprehensible ‘Take’ On Marriage Equality

Leunig's gone Full Leunig.

by Matilda Dixon-Smith  25 October 2017
Leunig cartoon

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Uh-oh, Michael Leunig, Fairfax’s veteran cartoonist (beloved by many, confusing for many, many more) has gone Full Leunig on marriage equality in today’s cartoon. The cartoon features a bunch of Leunig-style men and women whose bodies are curled together to spell “YES NO NO YES”. Which means… ???

Absolutely nothing. It means literally nothing. Classic Leunig, you guys! He’s produced yet another incomprehensible cartoon that somehow manages to fail at being a) visually interesting, and b) an actual comment on anything at all. In Leunig’s defence, it didn’t help that this is how The Age chose to share the cartoon on Twitter:

First of all, I am all about that comments-to-likes ratio — the surest sign of a bad tweet. And second, this is not, in any way, shape or form, a “take” on the same-sex marriage debate. It’s not a take on anything! It’s just the words “yes” and “no” spelled out with Leunig characters!? That is, excuse me for saying, less than nothing.

Twitter, like me right now in this article, absolutely lost it over the cartoon.

The problem is, not only is Leunig kind of bad at doing cartoons that mean anything these days (along with being anti-vaccination), he’s also taking up a perfectly good spot as a newspaper cartoonist that could be passed on to someone who actually… y’know… does newspaper cartoons properly.

Newspaper cartoons are really a dying artform. At their best, they’re capable of producing some of the most biting political satire you can find. So keeping some old dude like Leunig on staff while the rest of Fairfax is gutted is just going to kill the artform faster.

So, I guess, time to start the #ReplaceLeunig campaign. Just know that I am behind this initiative one trillion percent. Give his job to one of the many, many clever young artists who would contribute actual analytical satire to the daily news cycle thanks.