Political Caricature & Test Logistics – Meeting 5

Fifth class meeting; upcoming test on Friday
- Begins $08{:}40\,\text{AM}$ sharp – submission deadline $09{:}40\,\text{AM}$ via Canvas
- Followed by 15–20 min break → lecture/discussion will resume ≈ 10 AM (shorter session than usual)
Extra-time accommodations
- Students with SAS accommodations must coordinate in advance with their SAS adviser
- Instructor cannot grant in-class extensions; writing into the break discouraged (noise)
- If SAS logistics fall through, instructor can proctor on an alternate day/time, but summer timetable is tight
Lecture recordings & transcripts
- If tech fails / names missing, notify instructor → potential FAQ page with clarifications

Originally hoped to cover broader caricature modes, but narrowed to narrative & historical development of political cartooning
Warning: many examples are controversial, outdated, or offensive; analysis ≠ endorsement
- Purpose: trace how representational practices evolve and why certain visual shortcuts persist

Trump’s inner circle staged as choir/Christmas recital for a white-supremacist audience
Key visual signifiers students identified:
- Alt-right/neo-Nazi undercut haircuts
- Tiki torches & Confederate flag → Charlottesville resonance
- Stylised KKK crowd behind Confederate statues
- Angel/tree-topper resembles Vladimir Putin (possible halo = nuclear symbol)
- Capitol & White House frozen/derelict ⇒ apocalyptic mood, hints at Jan-6 precursors
- Possible anti-Semitic layer: Six-pointed yellow star on one figure (problematic symbolism flagged by student)
Caricature techniques: facial grotesque (Trump rendered quasi-inhuman), bricolage of context-specific icons, colour as ideology code (snow = whiteness, red caps, etc.)

Commentary on late-2016 geopolitical anxieties (Russia, NATO, Syria, Brexit, etc.)
- Encouraged students to excavate context from memory – demonstrates temporality of referents

Created by Matt Fury in indie comic Boy’s Club
- Hijacked c. 2015 by 4chan/Reddit white-supremacist sub-culture → meme weapon
2016: Anti-Defamation League adds Pepe to hate-symbol database; later attempts joint campaign to “Save Pepe”
Fury’s response: drew Pepe’s funeral; declared character irredeemable after Trump’s self-Pepe tweet (Oct 2015)
Take-away: meanings of caricature are volatile, co-produced by audience context (“connotation over denotation”)

19th-c. American editorial cartoonist; coined donkey = Democrats, elephant = Republicans
- Origin: two fake-news stories converged → Nast seized on animals as anthropomorphic shorthand
Also developed enduring personification Uncle Sam (govt) vs. Columbia (nation/people)
- Contributed to “funny-animal” lineage → links to George Herriman’s Crazy Kat, etc.

Nast’s relentless exposure of Tammany Hall corruption
- Tweed offered vast bribe for silence; Nast refused
- Tweed later recognised & arrested abroad due to Nast’s widely circulated depictions – proof of cartoon’s reach

Examples shown: Miss Canada & Uncle Sam, eagle, beaver, etc.
- Caricaturists dip into historical “visual lexicon” for quick rhetoric

Cartoon in El Universal: Chávez’s autograph as ECG line flat-lining
- Critique of healthcare collapse; avoided banned likeness by depicting signature (index)
- Outcome: artist fired; example of semiotic workaround

King censored hostile cartoons → Charles Philipon, Auguste Bouquet, Honoré Daumier respond:
- Four-panel morph shows monarch’s head becoming a pear (slang “gros-poire” = fathead/idiot)
- Subsequent images display pear alone to evade likeness ban; one prints pear where guillotine once stood (Place de la Concorde)
- Govt accuses artists of inciting regicide; Philipon argues “only jam-making” – loses; committed to proto-asylum (branding dissent as madness)

Comparative frames:
- Britain (George III) tolerated savage caricatures – neutralised criticism?
- France (July Monarchy) repressed → martyr effect, underground potency
Student viewpoints:
1. Permitting ridicule signals strength; may dissipate dissent if govt is confident
2. Authoritarian regimes benefit from censorship: keep populace uninformed, stifle mobilisation
3. Caricature can be weaponised as state propaganda; context matters (economic crisis, war, etc.)
Instructor anecdote: post-Tito Yugoslavia
- Artists free to lampoon society but taboo to caricature Tito – typical partial-tolerance model

Cartoon (2000s): crocodile (“temza”) sheds fake tears while strangling journalist
- Word-play on Ayatollah Mesbah = “temza”
- Released pre-election; sparked seminary walk-outs & govt backlash
- Consequences: detention, interrogation, prison, death threats – “Being funny is not that funny in Iran”
Historical notes:
- Medieval/Persian empire precedent of image-policing
- Post-1979 revolution: early hope for artistic freedom; Minister of Culture soon bans satire that targets Khomeini → exodus of senior cartoonists; younger pro-regime artists focus on foreign enemies (Saddam, Reagan, Thatcher, Uncle Sam)

Oxford Art Online: “exaggerating characteristic features for amusement & criticism”
Etymology: Italian caricare = “to load/charge” → image likened to loaded firearm
Carracci Brothers (Bologna, late 16th c.)
- Annibale & Agostino coin term “caricature” for their quick “ritrattini carichi” (small loaded portraits)
- Agostino more pivotal: engraver trained to reduce tonal range → economy of line; academy exercises included “draw classmates as animals”
Roots in classical physiognomy, four-humour theory, human desire to classify/typologise (zodiac, etc.)

Animation as contemporary extension of political caricature (student contribution)
Importance of audience knowledge: some symbols obvious only to in-group (e.g., Venezuelan audiences reading Chávez signature, French slang “poire”)

Caricature’s connotative power can:
- Shape public memory (Boss Tweed’s downfall)
- Be co-opted by hate movements (Pepe)
- Endanger creators under authoritarian rule (Khalsar, Soprani)
Government reactions fall on a spectrum: tolerance, co-optation, censorship, or criminalisation → each with strategic trade-offs

Instructor will check recording settings & post missing names/terms if Teams transcript fails
Will revisit donkey/elephant origin stories, “funny-animal” continuum, and further historical lineages in upcoming sessions
Students encouraged to keep testing ideological limits of caricature: Who controls meaning? How do context shifts rewrite symbols?