Leunig Goes Full Anti-Vaxx In New Cartoon, Internet Goes Full Anti-Leunig

By

Published

August 19, 2015

America has Jenny McCarthy. Australia has Michael Leunig.

‘Course Melbourne artist Leunig has long protested that he’s not *specifically* anti-vaccination, rather that he has a “grey area stance” on the matter. Even though all artistic evidence make his thoughts pretty fkn blunt, TBH.

Today’s cartoon, published in Fairfax papers, kinda removes any lingering doubt.

Leunig goes there (again) on vaccination. @theage pic.twitter.com/3rRJf0LX3M

— Michael Rowland (@mjrowland68) August 18, 2015

Oy vey, where to begin with that. The short-sighted bastardisation of religious iconography? The needle-sharing imagery that evokes the Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS shock campaigns of yore? The insinuation that science is somehow a blindly followed cult without reason beyond “belief”? Or even the the abstract thought that maybe the people in charge of looking after public health are deliberately forcing something onto children that isn’t in the interests of public health?

Leunig’s newest batch of railing against the non-existent machine is in the wake of the Victorian State Government‘s planned “No Jab, No Play” legislation that will bar any unvaccinated children from attending public schools.

And hell hath no fury like the backlash against a misguided opinion re: science on the internet.

Michael Leunig – another rich old white male monetizing his outrage that the world he’s comfortable in no longer exists.

— Bernard Keane (@BernardKeane) August 19, 2015

Reposting earlier yet freshly topical Leunig gag (I have lifetime immunity) https://t.co/T1CGLbyLab

— Dom Knight (@domknight) August 19, 2015

Does Leunig live in the inner north I’m gonna need to know so I can set up an exclusion zone around his house. I don’t want whooping cough.

— Sabine Wolff (@sabinewolff) August 18, 2015

[leunig looks up at the stars]
have we forgotten this?
[looks at the rolling hills]
this is beauty
[looks at someone with polio]
i love this

— colley (@JamColley) August 18, 2015

[leunig watches a doctor immunise a child]

fascist

[sees the child grow up healthy]

this is what the nazi’s did

— colley (@JamColley) August 18, 2015

Hell, when even hyper-conservative 3AW announcer Tom Elliott chimes in to say you’re done goofed, it’s probably safe to say that you’ve proper done goofed.

Tom Elliott has NOT held back when discussing today’s “disgusting” cartoon in The Age http://t.co/vlB4c8wgYE pic.twitter.com/fh4WxJd3SL

— 3AW Melbourne (@3AW693) August 19, 2015

Still, if the occasional nose-turned-up cartoon from an artist tucked away safe in the Fitzroy bubble is the loudest voice the movement has in this country, then we’re not doing too badly at all.

And, as always, the definitive source for all your scientific worries vis-à-vis vaccinations and their potential harm can be found here.

UPDATE: The Michael Leunig Appreciation Facebook page posted this response, allegedly written by Leunig, claiming that the cartoon is commenting on the ‘human rights issue’ and not vaccinations. AKA, Ye Olde Anti-Vaxxer Script.

This letter was sent by Michael Leunig as a reply to a woman who took exception to his cartoon (published in The…

Posted by Michael Leunig Appreciation Page on Tuesday, 18 August 2015

Photo via Twitter.