This degree of understanding relates back to some of McCloud's comments about closure. Because Nest and Keppler packed their political cartoons with so much information and symbolism only understood by certain people during a certain time period, they reduced their cartoons' abstraction levels. Thus, the viewer-identification of these cartoons was limited to either political junkies of the 19th-century or modern day American historians. For example, for someone who has no clue what was going on during the Republican elections during the 1880s than good luck trying to dive deep into a thoughtful analysis! I surely didn't and had a difficult time trying to interpret what the artists were trying to say.
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Knowing your audience
After viewing the 19th-century American political cartoons, I realized how much background knowledge the illustrators expect their audience to know. As a modern-day viewer, I found it difficult to go beyond a simple analysis - "Okay, this guy is unfavorable and this other guy is drawn to look favorable" - and actually be able to 1) identify who those "guys" were, and 2) why the artist portrayed them as "unfavorable" or "favorable." In contrast, I had an easier time making sense of the French and English cartoons in the other room because most of them didn't critique a certain policy/individual/etc.
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I had a very similar realization with respect to comics as a whole. After the exhibit today I realized that without knowledge of a comic's historical context it makes it almost impossible to enjoy it as it was intended. Whether it be Superman and its importance to Americans during WWII, Wonder Woman and her influence on the suffrage movement, or Torchy Brown and her commentary on racial tensions, without the knowledge of their context many (if not most) comics lose the majority of their substance.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Luis, that context is essential is interpreting these comics and perhaps our removal from the past prevents us from experiencing the comic in the way the cartoonist intended, but Superman and Wonder Woman are in a different category. Maybe we think it's cheesy, but it's clear who is good, who is bad, where the plot goes in Superman in contrast to me being in the dark with every one of those 19th century cartoons. For a political cartoon, Torchy brown requires a little context occasionally, but those were also easy to glean some sort of understanding.
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