Reece - Political Cartoon

Political Cartoon

Political cartoons are a popular way to express personal option. Political cartoons have been around for many years to show all different sides of politics and what people feel is right and wrong about them. Right now in 2012 is a big time for political cartoons because of the new presidential election, there are numerous cartoons about both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney it’s not very hard to find a cartoon that gets your attention no matter what side of the new presidential election you’re on.

            A political cartoon that has grabbed my interest is the cartoon that shows Mitt Romney out hunting but is holding his gun backwards. The animals are mocking Romney and talking about his story that he spent the summer shooting wolverines that were attacking his cousins, and two dogs saying that ‘they don’t think this mutt Romney knows what he’s doing.” The holding the gun backwards and the animals just standing around watching him really makes him look like he doesn’t know what he’s doing.  There are literature traits in this cartoon, some are easy to spot and some aren’t as easy to see.

            When it comes to traits this cartoon doesn’t have very many because the cartoon is pretty straight foreword when looking at it. These traits have lots of similarities. Context of this cartoon is that Mitt Romney is out hunting and is holding his gun backwards but has told stories that he spent the summer shooting wolverines. So this shows that Romney might be a story teller and is just lying to persuade people into voting for him. Exaggeration of this cartoon is holding the gun backwards while out hunting and Romney acting like he knows what he’s doing. Irony in this cartoon is the story of him hunting that he told. When he says that he has been hunting before but doesn’t know how to hold a gun.  The biggest and most obvious symbol of the cartoon is holding the gun backwards.

            “They must come to conclusions, but at the same time they must recognize the right of other men to come to opposite conclusions.” (Institute for propaganda. New York. Harcourt, brace and company, 1939) This sentence is saying that someone may think that someone else is wrong, but has to come to a conclusion that the other person might be right. This relates to my cartoon of interest because people might say he’s a liar because of the way he’s holding the gun but he might not be in the wrong because he could have been making a statement about hunting and someone might have took it as him saying he knows about hunting. I think it just proves, never judge a book by it’s cover.