Name Stanley McMurtry | Role Cartoonist Spouse Liz McMurtry | |
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Born 4 May 1936 ( 1936-05-04 ) Edinburgh, Scotland | ||
Stanley McMurtry MBE (born 4 May 1936), known by his pen name Mac, is a British cartoonist. McMurtry is best known for his work for the British Daily Mail newspaper.
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Career
McMurtry studied at the Birmingham College of Art. He adopted the pen name "Mac" while working as a cartoonist for the Daily Sketch in the 1960s. That publication was absorbed by the Daily Mail in the 1970s, and McMurtry has worked there since. Mac was granted an MBE in the 2003 New Year's honours list for "services to the newspaper industry".
Work
McMurtry views his role as making "dreary news copy of the daily paper brighter, by putting in a laugh", and has claimed that his work is apolitical despite its frequent engagement with issues of race, gender, and sexuality. In most of his daily cartoons, Mac includes a small portrait of his wife hidden within the picture. However, he does not include her when the cartoon makes a political statement, or when it depicts a tragedy.
Controversy
McMurtry's cartoons have frequently drawn condemnation for homophobia, racism, and sexism. In 2001, the British Medical Association received an apology from the Daily Mail for its publication of a McMurtry cartoon which depicted a black, immigrant "witch doctor" jumping on the bed of a shocked, white NHS patient.
In November 2015, Mac was accused of "spectacular racism" for his cartoon featuring caricatures of African tribes people selling shrunken heads, which referred to the news that singer Tom Jones would undergo tests to discover whether he had black ancestry. Later the same month, following the Paris attacks by Jihadists, Mac produced a cartoon depicting refugees with exaggerated noses crossing the EU's borders with rats at their feet. Some journalists suggested the imagery evoked that used by Nazi propagandists, including in their notorious film The Eternal Jew (1940).
