The Rhetoric Behind Political Cartoons

Cartoons date back many generations in time, and have been created for humoristic purposes for centuries. Mort Gerberg shaped cartoons and paved the way for many other cartoonists to rise to stardom. Gerberg was a professional cartoonist, whose works made appearances in The New Yorker, Playboy, Harvard Business Review, and The Huffington Post. Gerberg argues that cartoons cause the audience to think critically and analyze the rhetoric behind each work. He claims that cartoons are made of eight different things: cast, dialogue, caption, gesture, setting, cliché violation, composition, and cultural stereotype. Although all cartoons contain the previous characteristics, there are different types of cartoons as well. The most common form of a cartoon is a political/editorial cartoon followed up by comic strips, web comics, and cartoons in movies. One cartoon that stands out with a lot of humor behind it is the Trump for President political cartoon by Jos Collignon. Collignon is a Dutch cartoonist that is well known for his political cartoons. In 2009 one of his works won the Inktspotprijs, and then in 2012 Collignon won the Grand Prix Press Cartoon Europe. A careful examination of Jos

Cliché violation is defined as, “anything which is so familiar to us that we automatically accept it, almost without notice” (130). Golf in this instance is a form of cliché violation because everyone that looks at the cartoon can relate to the game of golf whether they have played it or not. Trump is relaxed in the cartoon because he is playing golf. Golf is a slow game and can be extremely relaxing. Trump’s action of playing golf comes off as he is a poor leader because of the selfishness of himself as president. It primarily gives off the meaning that he is not going to accomplish anything in office because he does not care for anything. Clichés within a cartoon can make or break the humor of the