Pundits and Cannibals

(Tomorrow)

When I first stumbled upon the comic “If Jeffrey Dahmer had been a Right Wing Pundit,” I laughed and then immediately felt uncomfortable for laughing. Comparing a person or group of people to someone who has committed violent atrocities is always questionable, but I believe the sheer absurdity of this comparison, a serial killer and cannibal with right wing pundits, is what makes this 2005 comic from the series This Modern World an effective criticism of both right wing pundits and the apathetic news media that sensationalize them. Specifically, the reactions to Dahmer’s outrageous claims of cannibalizing liberals and the comic’s allusions to specific right wing pundits are what make the comic both compelling and darkly humourous.


The comic purposely exaggerates the political and news media climate with an extreme figure, Jeffrey Dahmer, to argue that the political and media climate allow pundits to get away with saying whatever they like without being critically challenged. Even when Dahmer’s assertion that liberals should be cannibalized is challenged in panel four, Dahmer responds, “Of course you don’t [agree with cannibalizing liberals], Alan—you’re a liberal!” This response parodies and draws emphasis to the stereotypical attitude of partisan politics that has come to dominate many news media programs and, because it uses murder and cannibalism as its subject matter, points out how insane a dangerous this attitude is.

(Platon)

Also, “If Jeffrey Dahmer had been a Right Wing Pundit” is an effective criticism because it makes allusions to specific pundits and news media. For instance, the fifth panel references the now defunct Fox News pundit program “Hannity and Colmes,” as indicated by the Fox News logo and caricature of liberal pundit Alan Colmes, and parallels Dahmer with the show’s conservative voice, Sean Hannity. Similarly, the next panel is a direct spoof of Ann Coulter’s 2005 Time magazine cover, right down to the caption “is he kidding… or just hungry?” which mirrors the original, “Is she serious or just having fun?” The directness of these references is effective because they give the comic a focused target for its criticism, making its satire all the sharper, and give it specific historical and social context.


Tomorrow, Tom. “If Jeffrey Dahmer had been a Right Wing Pundit.”            Cartoon. www.thismodernworld.com. 31 May 2005. Web.
Platon. “Ann Coulter: Ms. Right.” Photo. Time. 25 April 2005. Cover.

Exploring Goya's Saturn

(Goya)

Francisco de Goya’s Saturn Devouring his Son subverts the traditional conventions of Classical mythological imagery to reflect the barbarism hidden beneath humanity’s thin veneer of civility. This critique of humanity is important to examine because it does not simply derive from an academic notion of civilization and its faults; it derives from Goya’s personal experiences with war, cruelty, and intolerance. During his time, Goya witnessed two of the most brutal events in Spanish history: the Inquisition and the Peninsular War. While the influence of these two events is seen more literally in Goya’s The Disasters of War prints, Saturn Devouring his Son provides and excellent metaphorical glimpse into Goya’s experiences.

As the beginnings of Western philosophy and the inspiration for the Renaissance, Classical culture is almost always used to connote high civilization and is represented in art as such. Muscular gods, beautiful goddesses, and noble heroes are often posed dramatically and with an air of sophistication. Goya’s Saturn defies all of these ideas. Naked and wide-eyed, Saturn (or Cronus) is depicted as little more than a murderous madman so megalomaniacal and paranoid he is willing to brutally cannibalize his own offspring to protect himself. While the painting is visual disturbing, the beauty of Goya’s painting is its unforgiving frankness. At the heart of the original myth is a crazed madman who eats his children; there is no veneer of Renaissance sophistication, a veneer that two centuries earlier smoothed over many of the violent and atrocious realities of Classical culture, in this painting. Goya digs beneath the surface of a culture held up as a model of high civilization and exposes the viciousness beneath. In doing so, Goya makes his strongest point: if the culture looked to as epitome of civilization is barbarous and violent, then the true and brutal nature of all culture is simply masked by a thin veneer of civility.

Goya, Francisco. Saturn Devouring his Son. 1819. Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Protecting Domesticity

(Fallout Shelter Handbook Cover)

My recent interest in the Cold War and the culture it created compelled me to take a closer look at this cover for a 1962 guide to building and living in a fallout shelter. At the centre of the cover is an image of a white, middle class, suburban mother, father, and child—the ideal nuclear family. This image is particularly powerful because it suggests that even after a full-scale nuclear attack, the American, capitalist way of life will still prevail. Considering the Cold War was a clash of economic ideologies and of ways of living more so than it was a clash of literal military force, suggesting the post-nuclear attack survival of the American way of life is extremely important to the rhetoric of this piece. In essence, not only will this guide save your family’s life, it will save their comfortable, domestic way of life.

            Also, the image and the preview of contents text at the bottom of the page suggest that the Cold War itself is something that can be tackled domestically with the consumer goods that help drive the American capitalist way of life. In the image, this family is not just surviving, but they are surviving comfortably with all the goods they possessed above ground. Looking at the family, the mother looks at ease with her presumably well-stocked pantry of supplies, the father lounges peacefully in his stylish and new looking chair while smoking a pipe and listening to a record, and the child sets the table with clean dishes on neat, white placemats. This family, and other middle-class families just like them, can buy their safety and comfort.

            The text at the bottom of the page reinforces the message of the image by providing a shopping list of sorts. Each point on the cover either tells a family what they will need to buy in order to survive a nuclear attack, or tells them that somewhere else in the book will tell them what they will need.

           

Fallout Shelter Handbook Cover. 1962. Fallout Shelter Handbook. By Chuck West. New York: Fawcett Publications. Cover. Print.