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| POWER OF THE PEN | |
 August 10, 2000  |
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With his days of drawing a weekly comic over, political cartoonist Jules Feiffer discusses his future and reflects on his lifelong look at the American political system. Online Special: Browse through a portfolio of Jules Feiffer's recent work. The NewsHour Media Unit is funded by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.
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TERENCE SMITH: Jules Feiffer, welcome. JULES FEIFFER: Thank you. TERENCE SMITH: Not long ago you had a cartoon in which you followed Edmund Morris's lead in approaching politics and politicians. Tell me about it. JULES FEIFFER: Well, I did a cartoon during the primary season saying I couldn't get a grip on the campaign, and couldn't get interested in any of the people running. So I took a leaf from Edmund Morris's book, and...
JULES FEIFFER: About Ronald Reagan…and I made myself a candidate for President, but a cartoon candidate for president. I was running in the Democratic Party to the left of Al Gore. Next to a cartoon character, even Gore has to look real, so that my triumph was that I gave Al Gore his vital signs. TERENCE SMITH: (Laughter) Right. I had a suspicion-- looking at some of your more recent cartoons-- that you were actually deciding to give that part of it up because Campaign 2000 seemed too dull. JULES FEIFFER: Campaign... Well, that's true. The leaders of the two parties are so unscary and so dull and so dim |
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| Bringing out the inner politician | ||||||||||||||||||||
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TERENCE SMITH: Tell me about the under-Gore.
TERENCE SMITH: Well, then, where does a lefty-- to use your phrase about yourself-- go today? JULES FEIFFER: You know, do you have a place? It's hard. There is no place that I know of, and I am a lost soul looking for a place. I am looking for a left that's no longer there, or maybe I'm looking for an illusion. TERENCE SMITH: Of all of the topics or subjects you've talked about-- the people, the politicians, if you like-- who's the best?
TERENCE SMITH: Explain "betrayed." JULES FEIFFER: People used to say, "you must hate Nixon." I never hated Nixon. To hate somebody, there has to be some element of personal disappointment, some trust that's been misplaced. In Johnson's case it was very much so. In Nixon's case, I kind of adored Nixon because he was always Nixon, just as I adored Ronald Reagan. I mean, these guys were wonderful characters. Jimmy Carter never got to be interesting in four years. He was just one big... and I drew him, as I used to say, in disappearing ink. I mean, I put the image on paper, and it would kind of vanish, like the Cheshire Cat. He would just go away. All that would be left was piety. TERENCE SMITH: Should a political cartoon draw blood? JULES FEIFFER: Yes. Yes. One of the things that always enraged me in cartoonists was doing a strip, say, on the President, and then being flattered when the White House calls and asks for the original. It means you've failed. |
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| Journalism and television | ||||||||||||||||||||
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JULES FEIFFER: I don't watch the news anymore, or hardly watch the news anymore, and I don't feel as if I have to know. TERENCE SMITH: And you don't feel as though you're missing anything. JULES FEIFFER: I'm sure I'm missing something, but I don't think I'm missing much. When I used rage in the political cartoon, it was aimed at certain people for certain reasons and on certain issues. But now it seems that attitude has replaced politics or replaced sensibility and any kind of philosophy. It's "gotcha," and smugness, and "I'm cool and you're not," and "I know more than you do," and "I'm going to write with an attitude which will stop you from asking questions." TERENCE SMITH: News with a sneer, as somebody called it. TERENCE SMITH: How much of the angst that you have portrayed so wonderfully is your angst? JULES FEIFFER: None of it. I'm just commenting. I don't know what... TERENCE SMITH: I can see. I can see. I mean, how much of what you draw comes from the inside? JULES FEIFFER: All of it reflects me and reflects what I think, but
the words the characters use may well have nothing to do with what I
would say ordinarily. There's no character in any play I've written
who says directly what I have to say, what I would say in a private
conversation... or I don't think there is. And so it is with a cartoon.
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| What's next? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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TERENCE SMITH: Finally, let's look ahead a little bit at Jules Feiffer's schedule for the next period.
TERENCE SMITH: Whatever. What's in it, plays? What's on the agenda? JULES FEIFFER: I have a new children's book that I illustrated-- I didn't write-- coming out in October, which is called "Some Things Are Scary," by a wonderful 80-year- old author named Florence Parry Heide, and it gave me more fun in drawing than I've had in years. TERENCE SMITH: What is it about an audience of children that is attractive to you? JULES FEIFFER: Well, having poisoned the minds of one generation, I'm getting a shot at another. There is the feedback one gets from kids as you read to them-- say, in a bookstore or in a class-- and I go to these things, the questions they ask, the excitement. It's all about feeling alive, and relating to an audience that matters and that thinks you matter. So it's not blasé, it's not this old boring stuff all over again. It's not complaining about the same old things. There's something quite alive about it. And then I'm getting involved in theater again, which is-- maybe to my detriment-- but it's a form I love. And after a ten-year hiatus, I'm trying to get one play on. And I've been commissioned to write a new play for Lincoln Center, here in New York, and look forward to getting the work on. So there's a lot I want to do, but I do want to find a job for the dancer.
JULES FEIFFER: It's -- well, it's not a retirement. It's a refocusing. I need time to work on these other things in order to, you know, to build up such a lot of weight on myself that I can finally have my breakdown. TERENCE SMITH: Thank you. JULES FEIFFER: Thank you. |
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TERENCE
SMITH: At 71, Jules Feiffer still enjoys causing a stir with his pen.
This summer he announced he was closing down his weekly strip, a cartoon
conversation that has been syndicated to newspapers for decades. While
Feiffer says he won't miss the deadlines, he is sorry to have to retire
his famously limber dancing companion. Feiffer introduced his running
social commentary in the "Village Voice," New York's liberal
alternative weekly in 1956. Just five years later, he won an Academy
Award for an animated version of his short story "Munro."
It was not long before he began drawing for bigger publications and
targeting bigger fish, among 
them,
the American Presidents. In 1986, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial
cartooning. He has also written for the stage and screen, including
the 1971 hit "Carnal Knowledge." Feiffer, a former Democratic
Convention delegate, has not retired his political cartoons altogether.
He's just gone monthly on Campaign 2000 and other contemporary topics.
He discussed politics and life's tribulations in an interview in his
apartment on Manhattan's upper west side.
TERENCE
SMITH: About Ronald Reagan. 
JULES
FEIFFER: Al Gore, who-- in the first strip I did on him-- as he's running
during the primaries, I called UnderGore, as a super hero, like superman.
UnderGore was somebody who looks like a super hero, is built like a
super hero, and never fails to disappoint. I mean, that there aren't
expectations low enough for him not to surpass. And what you want in
these guys as fictional characters and as presidents, for that matter,
is something larger than life, but not less meaningful than life. And
what you get in a Gore is can you be larger than lifeless? Because that's
what he essentially is, and what Bush is, somebody who just -- you know
he doesn't give a crap. 
JULES
FEIFFER: It seemed to me the most impressive presidency, in my time,
was those nine months from November 23, 1963, until Lyndon Johnson won
the presidency that he ran for himself. And in those nine months he
passed poverty programs, the Voters Rights Act, civil rights programs...
I mean, the sort of thing that simply couldn't be done, and through
his determination was this extraordinary period of dream legislation,
which made him so good that he was a lousy subject. It was only after
he ran as a peace candidate and became a war criminal that I went to
work on him. I never felt so betrayed by anyone as I did. by Lyndon
Johnson. 
TERENCE
SMITH: Another subject. You have appeared in newspapers most of your
life, and your characters are often watching television. Let's talk
about those two things, about journalism and about television…television,
particularly. Can you stand it? 
JULES
FEIFFER: Yes. Yes. I think so. And one sees it everywhere. And it's
dispiriting. It's demoralizing. When I started the cartoon, back in
the 50's, the response I began to get from readers was not how good
the work was or how funny or how... But "how did you get away with
that in print?" "How did they let you say that?" Because
what I was being told was that I was representing my readers, and they
didn't think their views were allowed in the newspaper.
JULES
FEIFFER: Decade or two? 
TERENCE
SMITH: Sounds like a very busy retirement.