This cartoon appeared in the New York Post in the cartoon section on February 18th, 2009. Since its appearance it has sparked hundreds of conversations and blog postings because of its intense controversy. The cartoonist is clever is the way that he linked two large news stories together in one cartoon, the stimulus package and the current shooting of a chimp that was a member of a family that went wild and almost killed a family friend. The police unfortunately had to shoot the animal because it could have caused more damage. To my knowledge, the woman is still in critical condition. The intended audience was readers of the New York Post, however many of them were highly offended by this because of its apparent racial slur. Logically, the cartoonist simply is trying to connect two pressing news matters and combine them together for a laugh. Delonas claims that he never meant to make the racial slur that he did by comparing African Americans to chimps, but he made an ethical blunder by not realizing that this was exactly what the cartoon did. The cartoon repulsed many emotionally because of the apparent racial zing. In today's age, it is completely inappropriate to compare a black man, much less the president of the United States, to a wild animal that almost killed a woman. The cartoon made a much larger impact because it was in a very credible newspaper. If this had been in a very conservative magazine with a very small circulation, people would not have been shocked or thought twice of it, but because it was put in the large and credible New York Post, the response was staggering. The reprecussions that will follow because of this cartoon are sure to be large. Many are trying to get Delonas along with the editor fired. Delonas was undoubtedly trying to funny and clever and claims that he never meant for the cartoon to be racial, but nevertheless that is how the majority of readers saw it and the responces continue to flood in with responces to this emotionally damaging and thoughtless picture.
I think you are very correct when you said the author of this cartoon did not take the time and think about how his audience would perceive his work. He can continue to say that he did not mean to make a racial slur, but the fact is that he did and for him not to realize that is a huge mistake in his line of work. When making an argument one of the first things we learned was to understand you audience and your stakeholders. I think you did a good job analyzing this cartoon!
ReplyDeleteI think you did a very good job analyzing this piece. When I first saw this cartoon, I immediately thought it was a racial slur. Not knowing about the shooting of the monkey that got loose. This could cause alot of contoversy. But I think you did an excellent job analyzing.
ReplyDelete