2010-06-10
Explanation
This comic addresses the historical persecution of Alan Turing, the brilliant mathematician and computer scientist. In the first panel, a man at a podium lists Turing's accomplishments: he cracked Nazi codes (his work at Bletchley Park during WWII), helped create the computer, and made contributions to logic, mathematics, and chemistry. He concludes, "Don't fix what ain't broke." In the next panels, two people walk away from their respective podiums. Then a massive banner unrolls reading "GAYYYYYYYYY" with the word repeated endlessly, filling an enormous scroll, held by a man who concludes: "In conclusion. Totally gay."
The caption reads: "Britain, 1952 -- Respectively, the arguments opposed to and in favor of chemically castrating Alan Turing." This refers to the real historical event in which Turing, despite his extraordinary contributions to the Allied war effort and the foundations of computer science, was prosecuted for homosexuality (then illegal in Britain) and sentenced to chemical castration in 1952. He died two years later in 1954, likely by suicide.
The comic's structure makes its satirical point by contrasting the two "arguments." The case against persecuting Turing is rational, substantive, and concise -- a list of world-changing achievements. The case in favor is nothing but an absurdly long repetition of the word "gay," emphasizing that the only argument for his persecution was pure homophobia with zero intellectual content. The sheer length of the "GAYYYYY" scroll versus the brevity of the rational argument visually represents how prejudice overwhelmed reason. The votey panel drives the point home with the man concluding his scroll with "In conclusion. Totally gay" -- underscoring the vacuousness of the position.