A cartoon that showed President Jacob Zuma seated on businessperson Atul Gupta's middle finger and pulling the middle finger has been withdrawn from being used on a theatre poster, City Press newspaper reported on Sunday.
"Everyone else seemed scared to use it. People seem scared, especially in kwaZulu-Natal," the cartoonist Nanda Soobben told the newspaper.
The cartoon – which shows the Zuma figure showing both his middle fingers while perched on Gupta's middle finger – was to have been used as a poster for the play, Xse! You Ain't Seen Nuthin Yet.
Durban theatre promoter Logan Moodley apparently requested that the image be changed so that Zuma was shown as refraining from the rude gesture and was seated on Gupta's palm and not his middle finger.
Moodley told the newspaper he was worried the cartoon would be "offensive" for Indian theatregoers in Durban.
"It was my call. There was no pressure from anybody else," he said.
The show's producer Vanessa Kisten told the newspaper that she then took a "business decision" to change the poster to allow it to be suitable for "family viewing". – Sapa