Jim Carrey’s burgeoning career as a political cartoonist
Jim Carrey has spent a bunch of time over the past several years holed up in his studio, drawing, painting and sculpting. And for several months, he’s been tweeting out his political cartoons, featuring captions attacking the Trump administration and prominent Republicans.
But his latest has drawn some loud criticism. The cartoon — believed to be White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders — shows a scowling woman, which he referred to as a “so-called Christian whose only purpose in life is to lie for the wicked.”
“Fox and Friends” did a segment on the portrait, asking, “too far?” Sanders’ father, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, picked up on it, tweeting Monday that Carry was “Pathetic BULLY, sexist, hater, bigot & ‘Christaphobe.’”
The unflattering caricature and harsh caption are in line with a lot of his other political cartoons.
After the presidential election, Carrey tweeted a sketch with the caption: “Don’t worry. What we are is bigger than our differences, bigger than our president, bigger than our red, white and blues.”
He followed that with anti-Trump memes.
Carrey tweeted his first political cartoon in August 2017, showing President Trump sailing on a sea of “lies” and asking “WHAT WILL IT TAKE for the GOP to throw this madman overboard?”
Known for both his slapstick comedic performances (”Dumb and Dumber”) and more serious roles (”The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”), Carrey has in recent years disappeared from the spotlight, popping up for bizarre red carpet interviews and projects such as a Netflix documentary about his role as Andy Kaufman in “Man on the Moon” (1999).
He’s also devoted a lot of his time to the visual arts — his work has attracted the attention of LeBron James, and he even had a pricey solo exhibit in Las Vegas back in September.
While his paintings cover a variety of subjects, he’s painted Trump several times. And he started tweeting such sketches more regularly starting in November. The images depict Trump and his associates as buffoonish and frightening caricatures.
Carrey has also targeted Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, paid tribute to Stephen Hawking, drawn a crying President Abraham Lincoln and criticized the GOP tax plan with a sketch of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan.
Fox News, Breitbart and Daily Caller have all written about the cartoons over the past several months.
In a September 2017 interview with W Magazine, Carrey said it was cathartic to paint Trump, adding, “I think no one can really escape that aspect of life at this moment — the feeling of loss of control.” And he likened tweeting and drawing political cartoons to having a part to play in an unwanted battle.
“Every day at some point there’s pretty much a peaceful acceptance of what’s going on in my life right now,” he continued, “but I do also tune in to the Republican — what could I call on it? — war on logic, intelligence, and compassion at least once a day.”
Carrey has been doing political cartoons “all along,” he told the magazine. “When I was in grade six, my teacher confiscated a bunch of the cartoons I made in the back of class of her being mutilated by bombs and axes, dogs chewing her leg, whatever. And then she sent them back to me when I got famous. (Laughs.)
“She’d been saving them; she said she knew something was going on there.”
But a lot of Carrey’s art has nothing to do with the president. He’s painted James Dean and babies and mad elephants. He uses bright and psychedelic colours.