The Hecklers
1975 · 58m · Canada
Directed by Ian McLaren
Genres: documentary, historical, satire
Tones: contemplative, humorous, provocative
Political cartoonists including Duncan Macpherson, Robert LaPalme and Aislin discuss five decades of Canadian cartoons and the public figures they targeted.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 1975 doc where cartoonists basically sit around vindicating themselves feels like the opposite of subversive—these are the establishment gatekeepers of snark, not the rule-breakers, and the film knows it but doesn't seem to mind.
McLaren situates this squarely in the documentary-as-testimony tradition, letting five decades of Canadian political cartooning unfold through the artists' own measured reflection; it's a film that understands its subjects as cultural historians, not just entertainers.
The real lift here is trusting the cartoonists' voices and the archival drawings to do the work—no narrator, no score fussiness—which lets a modest budget become an intimate master class in how line and wit can dismantle power.