An editorial cartoon is a single, easily parsed opinion (more often the conventional wisdom and not that of the cartoonist himself) on a recent event or headline, distilled into cartoon form, agreed? Agreed. By definition, it is fairly easy to work out what the cartoon is saying, yes? One needn't spend a few minutes on, say, a cariacature of George Bush at the wheel of a broken-down car that says "US economy" on the door, or of Stephen Harper handing a big bag marked "$" to fat men in pin-stripe suits, right?
So why, when the Toronto Star reprints editorial cartoons from Quebec papers, which it takes the time to translate into English, does it then take the absurd step of having the cartoonist briefly explain what it was he was trying to put forth in the cartoon?
An example: this past Saturday, the cartoon, by Serge Chapleau of La Press, was titled "Ignatieff Recognizes Quebec as a Nation." In it, a jowly looking Michael Ignatieff is saying, "And if I open this door..." and is about to stick a big key into a little door marked "Constitution." The anthropomorphized doorknob yells back at him: "No! No! No!"
Get it?
Here, I'll describe it again:
A little door marked "Constitution."
Ignatieff: "And if I open this door..."
Doorknob: "No! No! No!"
Apparently this is like string theory for readers of the Star, so Chapleau offers this helpful explanation:
In this cartoon, I tried to show the sentiment in many parts of Quebec that it would be a bad idea for Liberal leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff to open the Constitution to enshrine in it Quebec's status as a nation, as he said he would like to do.
What, no explanation for the talking doorknob? Why is Ignatieff's head so abnormally huge and his features grossly exaggerated? Why is speech represented by a little, white cartoon containing actual text? How are these characters able to speak at all when they are, in fact, TWO-DIMENSIONAL REPRESENTATIONS IN INK????
No comments:
Post a Comment