Social media was abuzz with mixed reactions after a cartoon portraying former tennis world number one Serena Williams smashing her racket was given an all-clear by the Australian media watchdog on Monday.
A Melbourne-based publication, the Herald-Sun, in September last year defiantly published the cartoon showing Williams furious after losing to World Number One Naomi Osaka at last year’s US Open.
The publication’s actions sparked widespread condemnation across the globe, with top personalities and media among those blasting the cartoon.
The Australian Press Council, after receiving complaints about the ‘Sexist and Racist’ nature of the cartoon, went ahead to rule that the Herald-Sun never intended to paint a ‘Racist and Sexist’ picture and acknowledged that there was “sufficient public interest in commenting on the behaviour and sportsmanship during a significant dispute between a tennis player with a globally high profile and an umpire at the US Open final”.
“The Council considers that the cartoon uses exaggeration and absurdity to make its point,” It accepts the publisher’s claim that it does not depict Ms. Williams as an ape, rather showing her as ‘spitting the dummy’, a non-racist caricature familiar to most Australian readers.” the Council added.
This ruling has sparked mixed reactions around the world as a section of the people think the publication was okay while others see it as racist.
Here are some of the reactions captured by Opera News:
I love #SerenaWilliams. One of my heroes. The white media hates Serena. They go as far as body shaming her. pic.twitter.com/ZPE27TVDth— sophiem store (@SophiemStore) February 25, 2019
What STANDARDS? How can they even judge, when they lack the ability to understand this? They needed to hire a DIVERSE crosss-section panel to judge this matter. This tells me there was never an earnest investigation They had no interest in ever doing the right thing.— GENNY_ELMO (@genny75) February 25, 2019
— Aj jeya (@aj_ajanand) February 25, 2019