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How America Was Destroyed, and the nature of Satire

This cartoon is from April, but it is similar in nature to The New Yorker cover:
Tom the Dancing Bug
© Ruben Bolling

Ruben has an excellent article talking about satire and the importance of satirical intent. In his view, the satirical intent of The New Yorker cover is unclear, because you need too much context to understand what is the target of the satire. If the exact same cartoon was drawn by a conservative cartoonist and published in (say) the New York Post, it would be tasteless and offensive. “A cartoon shouldn’t rely on the context of its creator and publisher in order to successfully make its point.”

(tip o’ the hat to allep10)

UPDATE: Added bonus cartoon:
Tom Toles
© Tom Toles

I can tell the difference, but I’m worried that most people aren’t sophisticated enough to understand.

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This was written by iron. Posted on Wednesday, July 16, 2008, at 10:43 pm. Filed under Humor. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Post a comment or leave a trackback.

4 Comments

  1. Weird Cool Pictures wrote:

    Isn’t ironic, don’t you think?

    Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 6:06 am | Permalink
  2. Song wrote:

    A little too ironic..it’s like raaaaiiin..

    Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 9:33 am | Permalink
  3. John Q. wrote:

    Your right, your the only one smart enough to get it. Please tell me how to tie my shoes again.

    Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 1:07 pm | Permalink
  4. Zooph wrote:

    I believe you meant “you’re”.
    And stick to Velcro shoes.

    Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 2:43 pm | Permalink

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