AOW #17: Political Cartoon

http://andrewohene.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/cartoon.jpg
This piece is showing a girl, not properly dressed, at a voters stand obviously for the presidential election, taken by the ballot. However, unlike a regular voting ballot, it not only has votes for the president and congress, but it has a spot to vote for the “American Idol”. The satirical cartoonist decided to include this part because, as stated, this specific section is used to “increase voter turnout…”.

I am not sure of the author of this piece; however it is from Tribune Media. This is a company that produces many political cartoons that are shown in prestigious magazines/newspapers (ie NYT).

The context of this piece would be temporal. I believe that I would be temporal because although this article was created in 2007, at this time American Idol was (and it still is) an extremely popular show. So, in context, this cartoon was a direct and extremely current reaction to the time period. Although it is considered a reaction, to the public it seemed so current that it was more like a daily occurrence rather than a post-reaction to something.

The purpose for why this cartoon was created was, ironically, to attract more people to the decreasing “voter turnout” during election time. This is ironic because in the cartoon, American Idol is used to attract more voters and outside of the cartoon (in real life), the cartoonist used American Idol to attract more viewers. All in all, the purpose is a satirical twist on the real downfall of voting time: that voting for the next idol is much more important than voting for the next president.

The audience of this piece is the voting populace: people 18 and older. This is the audience because even though it may be appealing to a younger audience (due to the immediate attraction to the most popular shows at the time), it still would not have an impact on them because they can’t vote and are not aware of the current depletion of the number of voters.

Some rhetorical elements used in this peace were satire, contrast, and emphasis of text headings.  Contrast was used with the girl, and her unprofessional and risqué clothing, against the seriousness of voting for the president of the United States. This was a very useful rhetorical choice because it showed America’s love for leisure over governmental importance. In one picture, it expressed the downfall of America in its priorities by having the girl represent modernism by placing her against the importance of past developments (like democracy and voting) that we mustn’t forget, even though it looks like we already did.

Emphasis was shown within the bolded and large text on the ballot. In big, bolded letters were the three topics that were all the same size and apparently, of equal importance. This emphasis of the vote for the “President…Congress…[and]…American Idol” as equivalent sectors, again, expresses how America’s priorities have shifted for the worst…

Satire was used as a main focal point of the entire cartoon.

Everything that the cartoonist added had a satirical purpose: the big, bolded letters to show that all the topics (presidents, congress, American idol) were all of equal importance, the outfit of the girl against the seriousness of the voting…

All in all, satire was what drove the cartoon and drew in a larger audience in order to get across the importance of voting for our president.

Yes, the author accomplished their purpose. They did because with communal memory and satire, they were not only able to draw in a large audience from a great age range (18 +), but they were also able to show America’s priorities are today and where they need to shift: in the way of voting!