The Fine Line of Humor: A Personal Reading of Doğan Pehlevan
One of the figures that undoubtedly shape collective memory is the cartoonist. Yet this work of memory does not progress solely through laughter; at times it advances by dividing, unsettling, and even provoking.
When I recently saw the name Doğan Pehlevan return to the public agenda through a controversial drawing, I found myself asking a simple but essential question: “Is a line truly just criticism, or can it also be a deliberate tool of influence?”
- His drawings often reflect ideological positioning rather than personal critique.
- A caricature language that goes beyond the limits of criticism and targets the sacred or political legitimacy.
- Instead of universal humor, symbols that deepen cultural polarization.
In some of his past drawings directed at President Erdoğan, what stood out was not humor but rather agitational imagery that bordered on violating personal rights. Today, using a similar method to symbolically target a religious figure appears not as a purely individual expression, but as a strategy of consciously steering collective emotions.
Humor that does not provoke thought is not humor at all—it is merely another instrument of the attention economy. Such content creates tension rather than reflection, potentially estranging a society from its own essence.
A caricature can make a society laugh; it can also make it think…
But it can just as easily, over time, estrange a society from itself.
There are lines that are drawn not only with a pen, but with conscious intent—and sometimes with anger.
Being able to recognize this difference is as much a responsibility as humor itself.