Colonel Blimp is a British cartoon character bycartoonistDavid Low. It was first drawn forLord Beaverbrook'sLondonEvening Standard in April 1934.[1] Blimp is pompous, irascible,jingoistic, and astereotypically British. He is identifiable by hiswalrus moustache and theinterjection "Gad, Sir!"
Low claimed that he developed the character after overhearing two military men in aVictorian-style Turkish bath declare thatcavalry officers should be entitled to wear theirspurs insidetanks.[2] The character was named after thenon-rigid airship andbarrage balloon, which were known asblimps.
Blimp issues proclamations from the bath, wrapped in his towel and brandishing some mundane weapon to emphasize his passion on some issue of current affairs. Red-faced with rage and emotion, he often makes confused pronouncements.[3] Blimp's phrasing often includes direct contradiction, as though upon starting the sentence he did not know how the sentence was to end. His initial words were always a part of an emotional catchphrase. For instance: "Gad, Sir! Mr Lansbury is right. The League of Nations should insist on peace — except of course in the case of war.", or: "Gad, Sir! Lord Bunk is right. The government is marching over the edge of an abyss, and the nation must march solidly behind them." Blimp is usually depicted speaking to a cartoon version of David Low, the cartoon's creator, and Blimp's comments are not infrequently directed at the opinions ofLord Beaverbrook, the owner of the newspaper in which the cartoon appeared.[citation needed][4]
Blimp was asatire on thereactionary opinions of the British establishment of the 1930s and 1940s. The cartoon was intended to criticise attitudes of isolationism, impatience with the concerns of common people, and a lack of enthusiasm for democracy. These were attitudes which Low, a New Zealander, considered as being common in British politics.[2] Although Low described his character Blimp as "a symbol of stupidity", he lessened the insult to the British upper class by adding that "stupid people are quite nice".[5]
The character has earned a legacy as aclichéd phrase – very reactionary opinions are characterised as "Colonel Blimp" statements.[6]
George Orwell andTom Wintringham made especially extensive use of the term "Blimps" to refer to this type of military officer, Orwell in his articles[7] and Wintringham in his booksHow to Reform the Army andPeople's War. In his 1941 essay "The Lion and the Unicorn", Orwell referred to two important sub-sections of the middle class, one of which was the military and imperialistic middle class, nicknamed the Blimps, and characterised by the "half-pay (i.e retired) colonel with his bull neck and diminutive brain". He added that they had been losing their vitality during the past thirty years, "writhing impotently under the changes that were happening".[8]
E. M. Forster used the term "Colonel Blimp" to described British people who expressed disdain forIndian culture.[9]Herbert Read has also used the term to describe people who were strongly hostile tomodern art.[10] The history bookRoads to Ruin: The Shocking History of Social Reform (1950) byE. S. Turner, was ironically dedicated to "Colonel Blimp", and reprinted a Low cartoon of Blimp next to the dedication: Turner's book described traditionalist politicians who opposedhumanitarian reforms as "Colonel Blimp figures".[11]
The term "Blimp" continues to be referenced from time to time. In a 1994 article published inThe New York Review of Books,John Banville recalled a televised exchange between an elderly lady andKingsley Amis as "an endearing moment, in which one glimpsed the warm and funny man that Amis used to be before he decided, some time in the 1960s, to turn himself into a literary Colonel Blimp".[12] In a 2006 book, historianChristopher Clark used the term "blimpish" to characterise thePrussianField Marshal von Mollendorf (1724–1816), who distinguished himself as an officer in theSeven Years' War but whose conservatism and opposition to military reform were considered to have contributed to Prussia's defeat in theBattle of Jena in 1806.[13] In his review ofGarner's Modern American Usage,David Foster Wallace referred to the "Colonel Blimp's rage" ofprescriptivist journalists likeWilliam Safire.[14]
The graphic novel seriesThe League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which depicts numerous literary characters interacting with each other, includesHoratio Blimp as an overconfident major of the British army who commands the initial strike against the Martians ofH. G. Wells'The War of the Worlds.[citation needed]
In 1943,Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger wrote, produced, and directed the motion pictureThe Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943). Filmed during wartime, the movie portrayed the life of an admirable British officer named Clive Candy. The story encouraged the audience to accept that although the officer was honorable, with time his opinions had become outdated, and that winning a modern war required irregular means. The British film featuredRoger Livesey in the title role,Deborah Kerr, andAnton Walbrook. The "Blimp" character was not actually called "Blimp" other than in the title, nor did he die.
The Home Guard is (…) an astonishing phenomenon, a sort of People's Army officered by Blimps.
...certain journalists whose bemused irony often masks a Colonel Blimp's rage