Editing Garry Trudeau (section)

== Appraisals and controversies ==
{{further|Doonesbury#Controversies}}
[[Eric Alterman]], writing in ''[[The Nation]]'', called ''Doonesbury'' "one of the great intellectual/artistic accomplishments of the past half-century, irrespective of category".<ref name=Alterman>{{cite magazine|last1=Alterman|first1=Eric|title=The Altercation Gift-Giving Guide, Part I|url=http://www.thenation.com/blog/156673/altercation-gift-giving-guide-part-i#|access-date=April 14, 2015|magazine=The Nation|date=November 2, 2010}}</ref>

Trudeau has also attracted criticism both for the comic strip and for his own opinions. In 1985, responding to changes after his [[Doonesbury#1983–1984 hiatus|1983–1984 hiatus in ''Doonesbury'']], readers of ''The Saturday Review'' voted Trudeau one of the "Most Overrated People in American Arts and Letters", stating that after his hiatus, his comic strip was "predictable, mean-spirited, and not as funny as before."
<ref>{{cite book |last=Davis  |first=Brian |date=April 7, 2015 |chapter=Trudeau, Garry (1948-) |chapter-url= |editor-last=Jarvis |editor-first=Zeke |title=Make 'em Laugh! American Humorists of the 20th and 21st Centuries |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n5eIBwAAQBAJ&q=mean-spirited |format=E-book |language=en |location=California: Santa Barbara |publisher=ABC-CLIO |pages=68–69 |isbn=978-1-4408-2995-6 |access-date=February 22, 2021}}</ref> Trudeau's acceptance speech on the occasion of receiving a [[George Polk Awards|Polk Award]] in 2015 for lifetime achievement stirred controversy.<ref name=Mark>{{cite magazine|last1=Hemingway|first1=Mark|title=Garry Trudeau Calls Charlie Hebdo 'Hate Speech'|url=http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/gary-treaudeau-calls-charlie-hebdo-hate-speech_915393.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150412093229/http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/gary-treaudeau-calls-charlie-hebdo-hate-speech_915393.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=April 12, 2015|access-date=April 14, 2015|magazine=Weekly Standard|date=April 10, 2015}}</ref> In the speech, Trudeau criticized the cartoonists of ''[[Charlie Hebdo]]''—after a number of ''Charlie Hebdo'' writers, editors and cartoonists had been murdered execution-style in their own Paris offices by Muslim terrorists—for "punching downward... attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority with crude, vulgar drawings closer to graffiti than cartoons", and thereby wandering "into the realm of hate speech" with cartoons of [[Muhammad]].<ref name=TrudeauPolk>{{cite magazine|last1=Trudeau|first1=Gary|title=The Abuse of Satire|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/04/the-abuse-of-satire/390312|access-date=14 April 2015|magazine=The Atlantic|date=11 April 2015}}</ref> Writing in ''[[The Atlantic]]'', in which Trudeau had published his speech, political commentator [[David Frum]] criticized what he called Trudeau's "moral theory" that calls for identifying "the bearer of privilege", then holding "the privilege-bearer responsible".<ref name=Frum>{{cite magazine|last1=Frum|first1=David|title=Why Garry Trudeau Is Wrong About Charlie Hebdo: The cartoonist urged satirists to "punch up" against authority, but the world does not divide so neatly between the privileged and their victims|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/why-garry-trudeau-is-wrong-about-charlie-hebdo/390336|access-date=14 April 2015|magazine=The Atlantic|date=13 April 2015}}</ref>