“Political Cartoon Analysis”
Political cartoons can be quite funny. Especially if it’s the other political side that you do not agree with getting made fun of. The reason why I think we have political cartoons is to make us laugh, but at the same time to persuade us and to make us want to agree and lean on whatever side the cartoonist might be. Which is what a lot of advertising companies want to do. The companies want to try and persuade you to buy their product. They make their products look appealing to the human eye so they can get you to purchase the item. The book talks about how “advertising has been the method by which companies, or stores reach a mass audience, utilizing the distribution system newspapers or electronic media outlets have created” (Pavlik, 270). Even though political cartoons are not trying to sell you anything, they want to see if they can change your mind on your own political party.
This political cartoon was one that caught my eye out of many. I would have to say that I agree with this cartoon. I chose this cartoon, because I feel that in today’s day everyone believes everything that the media is saying to be true, but what if the advertisement or article is wrong and is giving everyone false news to make the person who is being spoke about look bad. I think sometimes media just likes to twist and turn the truth a little bit to gain more followers and to entertain their audience. The first thing I noticed about this cartoon was the couple watching television, they are probably watching some political ad on T.V considering that this cartoon was made on November 4th, 2014. When elections are around the corner, commercials and political ads are at their highest.
I think the cartoonist may not really like politics or has a political party he agrees with since he said “political ad” and didn’t really specify which party was false and misleading. I think he does a good job conveying his point of view to the audience. You can tell he isn’t a fan about all the political ads that go around. He may think that political ads are lying and just trying to persuade you and brainwash you into voting for that specific party. I think this cartoon was aimed to target the whole government and both parties. Most political parties only aim to target one political party and hurt them. This cartoon I believe is targeting both parties, because he did not specify which party was misleading or false. This cartoon does a good thing of making you think about both sides and what exactly are they telling us? Are they just trying to get a vote or are they actually going to do what they say?
The first thing I noticed about this cartoon and I’m pretty sure everyone else does to is the sign on the side of the street. It looks like the cartoon takes place on a highway. The sign says “Your government at work next 100 miles” with nothing around, just the sign, highway and dirt. I think the cartoonist is trying to let people know that they believe the government is doing nothing at all to help any problem we are having in today’s society.
I think the cartoonist does a great job on conveying their audience, because I knew immediately what they were trying to say and get out of this cartoon. Even though nothing is really going on in this cartoon, you understand what is being said. It is not ambiguous. The cartoon is short and sweet and is straight to the point. It is aimed to the government as a whole. America looks to their government as to what they are going to do to help Americans and the situations that might be happening at the moment. Sometimes, the government doesn't handle situations properly or at all, and this makes America mad, which this cartoon shows.
I think the reasoning for political satire is to attract the audience without using little to no words at all. Many political cartoons are funny and make people laugh. Political satire could be used to make politics less intense and make people laugh about the situation. Many people take politics very seriously and argue with each other about different political topics. So, political satire makes it less intense. I don’t really think political satire has value to society, we don’t really need it. But, it’s there to make us laugh about a deep and intense topic and everyone deserves a good laugh here and there.
