Satire
and Persuasion : The power of Political and Popular cartoons on
Contemporary Society
This
essay will examine and discuss which role plays illustration during
periods of social and political upheaval. In order to stablish a
point of interest, the essay will be primarily focus on
Political/Popular cartoons and the impact that cause and had caused
cartoons in our society during the 21 century. There will be also an
approach to some of the techniques used in political and popular
cartoons such as persuasion and satire. In order to support this
analysis, this essay will also examine the work of various artists to
explore the theory behind them through comparison between some of the
most polemic and controversial cartoons from our century such as
South Park ( Trey Parker, Matt Stone), The Simpsons and Futurama
(Matt Groening ).
Introduction
The Muhammad cartoons Crisis or also
called “
Yllands-Posten
Muhammad
cartoons controversy”
after
the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten made public a series of 12
editorial cartoons on 30 September 2005, whose most of them showed
Muhammad. Since then, there has always been a forbidden taboo and
debate about representing visually a religious figure from the
Islam. Probably the origins of this fear came with the murder of Theo
Van Gogh, which was killed by cold hands on the streets of Amsterdam
by the Islamist militant Mohammed Bouyeri. The reason? Theo Van Gogh
recorded a 10 minutes long short film about criticising how the
Islamic society treat the women in their culture (Submission,
2004).
This
tragical fact created a thin line between ethics and morals, between
right or wrong because now artists would think twice before
illustrate some polemic themes or topics such as religion either on
newspaper, books, editorials, tv or any kind of media being honest.
This is due to the strong tradition of aniconism ( the absence of
material representations of the natural and supernatural world, which
it may extend from only God and deities to saint character, all
living beings and everything that exist, Wikipedia) that Islam
posses, considering this as a high blasphemy against Muslims.
In
2016 ( nowadays) , artists still find this a problem and a annoying
barrier to their freedom of speech rights, although obiously there
are some more than others. In this particular case, the famous and
polemic american cartoon show “ South Park” it is worldwide known
by it's extreme satirical humour . “If there is a line, South Park
has crossed it. If there is a distasteful joke, South Park has made
it” (SouthPark :the greatest Modern satire). So what is the recipe
for their success? The fact that posses the combination of satire,
parody and mockery to the max, being able to ridicule every cultural
and traditional values from every religion, country and society. That
is their formula.
In
a world where almost everything we do is probably going to offend
someone in somewhere,
Trey Parker and Matt Stone (director and
co-director) saw this and did not hesitate in using it as a
advantage
As
Brent Plate once mention “Blasphemy and the accusation of
blasphemy is a culturally symbolic marker that helps define societies
and religious traditions, as well as provide identities for people in
terms of gender, race,class and sexuality. Some seemingly blasphemous
images are ignored or overlooked by the masses , while religious and
political authorities exploit other seemingly tame images.
Oftentimes, those wit the most authority, politically and/or
religiously, win the battle.But not always.”( S, Brent, Blasphemy
:Art that offends, 27).
On
the other hand , the assosiation of Canadian Editorial Cartoonist has
stand against an Ottawa imam's petition for a law that prohibit the
publication of “vulgar” cartoons that makes fun of religious
figures.
“A cartoonist should absolutely be prepared to
criticize what they see as poor behaviour by any human on the planet,
whether a politician or religious figure. I find the whole
concept of ‘you can’t touch them’ as pretty sad.”
Justice
Frankfurther suggests “ definitions of blasphemy and related terms
are slippery, subjective and susceptible to manipulation by those
seeking power” (S.Brent, Blasphemy: Art that offends, 34) Due to
this , the religious leaders seeing satirical cartoons as a menace
against their beliefs, and they can't afford to see people from other
religions mocking them, leaving them in a ' weak' position and as a
'joke' for their poor behavior in some aspects. But that is exactly
what satire is all about. Robert Harris argues that there is a
misunderstanding of meaning when society talks about satire and some
of them it seems as contradiction in the term. Harris insist that the
best definition of satire should be “A literary manner which blends
a critical attitude with humour and wit to the end that human
institutions or humanity may be improved.The true satirist is
conscious of the frailty of institutions of man's devising and
attempts through laugher not so much to tear them down as to inspire
a remodeling” ( Thrall, et al 436) .
Having a closer look at
South Park's episode's structure, it always starts with a specific
theme or point of focus from the real world, passing by a stage of
ridiculousness of the problem through exaggeration and parody until
it gets to the end of the episode, where there is a strong but
sincere and honest message coming out by one of the children's
protagonists mouth, which it resemble the innocence of children. To
support this idea, Robert Harris summarise the real intention of
South Park's satire arguing that “the best satire does not seek to
do harm or damage by it's ridicule, unless we speak of damage to the
structure of vice, but rather it seeks to create a shock of
recognition” .(Robert Harris , Purpose and Method of Satire).
The
episode deals a critic against how cults exists in contemporary
society and their ways of persuasion and manipulation upon their
followers in order to increase their number. The famous
magician/illusionist John Blake interprets the role of the religious
leader of this cult ( fiction) due to his real ability to make
'miracles' , which it reminds to the same miracles quoted on one of
the most read book of all times.The Bible and its iconic figure,
Jesus Christ. Another scene from the episode, shows Stan, one of the
protagonist which realised that John Blake is brain washing their
followers and go to ask for help to Jesus. He tries to convince of
his 'power' by showing him how he can multiply fishes and bread, one
of the miracles quoted in the Bible, which after the poorly
astonishment that Stan shows, Jesus rapidly added “ I guess this
trick worked better with people 2000 years ago”. The comparison
stablished is a parody of the Christianism , providing the christians
spectator a new point of view . The directors never mentioned
directly, more likely it feels like an invitation to reconsider and
rethink about religion position on the 21 century.
At the end of
the episode, as it was mention before, this stage is about revealing
the true message behind all the jokes and nonsense during the
episode. This time, after defeating Blake, Stands says “ We don't
need religion to tell you how to live. Cults are dangerous because
they promise you happiness, hope and even sometimes afterlife, but in
return they demand you to pay money.Any religion that requires to get
money in order to move up is wrong”.
I'm
strongly agreed with Robert Harris and its perspective about satire.
This episode target was not to provoke all the different religions at
the same time as some people might think, but to make the viewers
aware of in an open way. And if in somehow, made people consider
about it, then South Park achieve its intentions.
Personal comments
- I haven't even finish the number of words we need to do. Need to work on that asap
- Haven't include the biography sheet on the draft, I just missed ,the sources I based the draft from can be found on the blog in the previous posts tho
- I haven't make the analysis of illustrations ( I didn't do it because i was expecting on my tutorial with Richard seek for advice. I dont know if including south park images from episodes will be valid to talk about in my essay as the image analysis )
- Need to write the conclusion , but to do so, i first need to fix the image issue
