Even when wrong he's wrong
Feb. 19th, 2009 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebratqueenBy now you've probably heard about the political cartoon about the chimp and the stimulus. If not, read the link. I posted this in a discussion over on Journal Fen but it's long enough that I figured I may as well post it here.
In response to how the cartoon makes no sense:
Yeah. I mean if we were totally ignoring the racism aspect - for argument's sake let's sake it was a wild coyote, or panther, or insert any other animal here that was shot in reality and used in the cartoon - the cartoon doesn't mean anything. If you're trying to riff a joke from "wild animal attack" to "stimulus" then your comment would be more along the lines of using the animal to represent people who opposed the stimulus, or shooting down insane suggestions about how to fix the economy. Basically anything that covers the concept of "going wild/stopped by being shot." One could even argue for something that riffs off of the idea of a supposedly tame thing going beserk, which is arguably a better metaphor for wall street these days.
But if that's not the joke you're going for then frankly all that's left is the racism. Because the joke hinges on the audience automatically associating a chimp with the guy who came up with the stimulus package, with an undertone of violence against blacks being the 'correct' way to deal with them.
Compare the cartoon to any other joke that hinges on an "ism" and violence and you immediately see how it's trying to speak that language, albeit poorly. Without it there is no other way for the so-called joke to work*, which is why at best people read this and scratch their heads.
(* I realize there could be an argument of the whole monkeys/typewriters/Shakespeare thing but that again hinges on the audience instinctively thinking of the creator of the stimulus as some kind of gibbering idiot. Which, color aside, you could possibly get with an inarticulate moron like Dubya but not so much with Obama. Which is why even then it hinges on the audience making that connection solely based on the use of a chimp. It's a mental path of chimp->black guy->being stupid instead of chimp->stupidity->stupid thing you're referring to.)
Which all goes to say why I think any attempts at saying that the cartoonist didn't mean the racist part is utter bull because without the racist part the cartoon doesn't work.
Don't fuck with me and the proper construction of humor, man. I will cut you.
In response to how the cartoon makes no sense:
Yeah. I mean if we were totally ignoring the racism aspect - for argument's sake let's sake it was a wild coyote, or panther, or insert any other animal here that was shot in reality and used in the cartoon - the cartoon doesn't mean anything. If you're trying to riff a joke from "wild animal attack" to "stimulus" then your comment would be more along the lines of using the animal to represent people who opposed the stimulus, or shooting down insane suggestions about how to fix the economy. Basically anything that covers the concept of "going wild/stopped by being shot." One could even argue for something that riffs off of the idea of a supposedly tame thing going beserk, which is arguably a better metaphor for wall street these days.
But if that's not the joke you're going for then frankly all that's left is the racism. Because the joke hinges on the audience automatically associating a chimp with the guy who came up with the stimulus package, with an undertone of violence against blacks being the 'correct' way to deal with them.
Compare the cartoon to any other joke that hinges on an "ism" and violence and you immediately see how it's trying to speak that language, albeit poorly. Without it there is no other way for the so-called joke to work*, which is why at best people read this and scratch their heads.
(* I realize there could be an argument of the whole monkeys/typewriters/Shakespeare thing but that again hinges on the audience instinctively thinking of the creator of the stimulus as some kind of gibbering idiot. Which, color aside, you could possibly get with an inarticulate moron like Dubya but not so much with Obama. Which is why even then it hinges on the audience making that connection solely based on the use of a chimp. It's a mental path of chimp->black guy->being stupid instead of chimp->stupidity->stupid thing you're referring to.)
Which all goes to say why I think any attempts at saying that the cartoonist didn't mean the racist part is utter bull because without the racist part the cartoon doesn't work.
Don't fuck with me and the proper construction of humor, man. I will cut you.
