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4.2.12
WC: 191694

"Despite their sometimes caustic nature, from the early cartoon portraying George Washington as an ass down to the present day, graphic depictions and satirical cartoons have played a prominent role in public and political debate. Nast's castigation of the Tweed Ring, Walt McDougall's characterization of presidential candidate James G. Blaine's banquet with the millionaires at Delmonico's as "The Royal Feast of Belshazzar," and numerous other efforts have undoubtedly had an effect on the course and outcome of contemporaneous debate. Lincoln's tall, gangling posture, Teddy Roosevelt's glasses and teeth, and Franklin D. Roosevelt's jutting jaw and cigarette holder have been memorialized by political cartoons with an effect that could not have been obtained by the photographer or the portrait artist. From the viewpoint of history it is clear that our political discourse would have been considerably poorer without them."

It ruled that parodies and caricatures, even revolting ones, were protected by the First Amendment.

Several years after this decision, a young man named David Heller called me. He had been sued by a 60 year old fellow employee, Sylvia Smith Bowman, who was running for the presidency of their local union. Here is how the court described what Heller did:

"[W]hile the plaintiff was on an approved leave to campaign in the union election, the defendant, David Heller, an employee in the plaintiff's office who supported the incumbent president, created two distinct photocopied representations of the plaintiff by superimposing a photograph of her face and name on two different photographs of women striking lewd or masturbatory poses. The photograph of the plaintiff's face was taken from a campaign card she had distributed to union members. The photographs on which the defendant superimposed the plaintiff's face were taken by the defendant from pornographic magazines. In one of the photographs, the model is nude from the waist down, except for garters, and is posed toward the camera with her legs wide apart as she holds a banana next to her exposed breast. In the other photograph, the model is entirely naked, and appears to be engaged in masturbation. The representations were crafted by the defendant during regular office hours and reproduced on photocopiers owned by the department. The defendant then distributed his handiwork to five coworkers in the Worcester office. Subsequently, the representations were reproduced by employees other than the defendant and distributed to a wider office audience."

Heller said that he had decided to create these parodies after Bowman had made what he regarded as crude and sexist statements against men, including calling them "dickheads."

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts eventually ruled, over a strong dissent, that Bowman was not a "public figure" because the union election was not "a public controversy." The dissenting judges disagreed, arguing that "an election is the absolute paradigm of a public controversy." My own view is that the majority, especially the woman who wrote the decision,

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