Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Oppressive Language


What the above image reveals is a political cartoon. This means that it depicts an exaggerated, and possibly amusing, illustration of a political opinion. These cartoons are almost perfect examples of oppressive language. For the most part, they tend to take a political stance, and stand up for it by bashing the opposite stance. It is an often brutal strategy for making their strategy, though effective. Yet, as I stated, political cartoons are often exaggerated, and not quite accurate. They usually take a bit more analysis.

This specific cartoon quotes Republican candidate Mitt Romney from a video recently aired on YouTube. It is his answer to the question asked of him as to how he plans to win the votes of the U.S. population’s votes. The illustration quotes him replying: “It’s not my job to worry about to worry about the 47% of Americans who are irresponsible.” Then he apparently regrets saying it that way, stating that he did not say it very “elegantly.” The cartoon then shows Romney riding a horse, and repeating the same exact quote. This cartoon is oppressive in two ways that I see. First it uses his words to make him sound despicable to the American public, specifically uncaring for a large portion of Americans: namely, the poor. The cartoon then makes fun of his interest in dressage (and indirectly his wealth) by putting him on the horse while saying the same heartless comment.

While I am avoiding taking a biased political stance, for the benefit of all my readers, most of these cartoons after all are not entirely accurate. They are often not meant to be completely accurate; nevertheless, I must point out a few problems here. First of all, I watched the video. This cartoon completely misquoted Romney. As I stated above, this quote was taken from his answer to the question of his strategy when winning votes. His point is that there is a bloc of Americans, approximately 47%, that will vote for Obama no matter what. These people tend to be those who depend more on the government, and thus do not like the Republican policy of small government. He goes on to say that he also has his bloc, and that his job is to win the small percentage of votes in the middle. He was not bashing the “poor” or anything; he was answering the question in very logical terms. Furthermore, though he did in fact make the “elegant” comment, the cartoon fails to notice his meaning, that he should have used better wording, so as to not leave a doubt. I would agree with him; the setting at the interview had been semi-casual, and he was not careful with his wording.



1 comment:

  1. Your statement about how Mitt Romney stated his words incorrectly was correct.When people are talking about a subject that most people do not like to talk about, they are more likely to make a mistake in wording or avoid the whole conersation. Also when some people are talking others may take it out of content or completely misunderstand what they are saying. That is why Mitt Romney needs to make sure he has a good choice of words before he speaks.You are right about how this cartoon is diredted toward the people who vote for Obama. When I first read it, I thought that he was insulting America, but as you stated in your analysis that is not the case at all. This is a great example of how people can take something the wrong way and it can cause problems between people.Im sure after Mitt Romney read this article in the newpaper he felt bad because he down graded America but thats is not how it really is. I agree with everything your analysis stated.

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