Our Next War, Vol. XXXII, 1898, LIFE.
Political cartoons have been used across centuries in order to push satirical parodies and political views of magazines. More often than not, these political cartoons rely on archetypal devices in order to make one side of the argument appear a certain way over the other. This is specifically done in order to persuade readers to what a political cartoon may pose as the more dignified or correct side of the argument. LIFE magazine is no exception to this common trope amongst magazines, specifically those of the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s. This is seen in the image above entitled Our Next War in which a screaming ape is labeled as “yellow journalism” while a depiction of Uncle Sam is approaching with an ax to take down the ape. The piece draws the audience to view this discussion as not only ridiculous and cartoonish, but also broad in its application to different situations in the political atmosphere. Relying on tropes of dehumanization and over-generalization, LIFE magazine has utilized political cartoons to create a conditioned view of situations in politics and encouraged a loose use of the term “yellow journalism” to be applied to many journalistic works.
The elements utilized in this image seek to satirize the “yellow journalists” and depict them as uncivilized disrupters of normalcy. The depiction of the journalists as an ape creates a sense of dehumanization that makes the entire image extremely un-serious, making this entire encounter seem tedious or trivial. The added detail of the ape frothing at the mouth with a wide, expressive gesture makes the entire depiction of yellow journalism as something that is loud and brash, something that is making a scene to be as attention grabbing as possible. This message is furthered by the newspapers all around the ape, all exclaiming to expose a kind of scandal or controversy, all the while the image playfully makes the inclusion of the “smoking gun”, both to make the entire scene more humorous and also to make it seem like the media’s use of “smoking gun” only serves to push more sellable headlines. In Jason Hill’s How to Look at News Pictures in America, he points to the purpose of stereotypes that are placed onto caricatures in order to convey generally recognizable traits in cartoons, “Stereotypes, for Lippmann, are that set of familiar signs people invoke in order to understand a given phenomenon, however unfamiliar. “In untrained observation,” Lippmann wrote, “we pick recognizable signs out of the environment. The signs stand for ideas, and these ideas we fill out with our stock of images,” a stock of image… We do not see journalism’s mediated phenomenon (“the news”) as it is in its full complexity, such as might necessitate a reassessment of preconceptions; instead, we fold it into a familiar framework for understanding structured by those preconceptions, to see “chiefly what our mind is already full of” on that subject.” This idea of the stereotypes bringing together ideas that paint a clear message for the audience is shown perfectly in the “Our Next War” image, the ape embodying the caricature and serving as the device that sends out a message to viewers that this type of media is unreasonable and ridiculous. All of these elements brought together creates the idea in readers that the yellow journalists make no sense and are designed to be as loud in order to gain the attention of potential readers. All of these elements to the ape are directly contrasted by the depiction of Uncle Sam, who has been a classic stand in for America as a whole. Uncle Sam here is depicted as a strong, civilized figure who the readers can place their trust in silencing the ape. There is no exaggeration to his body language or features, instead he is shown somewhat realistically, which places him as the more mature figure in this encounter. This depiction of character that is so stark creates a sense of dismissable nonsense coming from the ape that is silenced by the mature, more human Uncle Sam, swaying audiences to see one side as clearly more favorable than the other.
Taking into account the lengths that the political cartoon goes in order to establish two opposing sides as deliberately unbalanced, the question arises as to what impact this has on the readers and how they internalize the message being sent here. The assertion of the cartoon that yellow journalism is unreasonable and sensationalized creates a strong stance against what could be perceived as overdramatic news media, which initially bears no issue since yellow journalism is harmful and an unfaithful news practice. However, a problem arises when the line between an overblown story and a true exposed scandal is left blurred by the cartoon, making no distinction as to what the difference is between journalism and yellow journalism. This muddying of definitions brings any story exposed by the media into immediate conflict between what may be sensational and what is an actual issue, and ultimately devalues the importance of journalism through the blanketed idea that news in general is just like the ape in the cartoon– overdramatic and attention seeking. This message is furthered by the presence of Uncle Sam in the cartoon, establishing a trust that the readers must have in Uncle Sam, and therefore the government, to believe that any claim made against the US government is immediately over-blown. Barbie Zelzier’s work for the book Visual Culture and the Holocaust makes note of how deliberate visual actions can sway audience minds, “…which has tended to privilege the factual over the represented, and silence the alarm bells that tend to ring when representation tugs at reality. In visual representation, these alarm bells have encouraged evaluations that are of two minds: first, to steadfastly uphold the under-privileging of the visual alongside the verbal; and second, to valorize visual forms like the filmed testimony, archival photograph, or documentary film more than representations that track reality in a less manifest fashion.” Zelzier’s argument here describes the specific phenomenon at play in this political cartoon, as its framing removes nuance from the reality of its viewers, instead isolating and uplifting this view of unclear yellow journalism that becomes a factual annoyance in the minds of the readers. This dangerous idea ultimately sways the readers dramatically onto the one side of this scenario over the other, pushing an extreme idea that doesn’t make clear the distinctions between what would fall under being the sensationalized ape and what should be considered serious pieces that expose crimes.
The deliberate framing of the situation that places a vague definition of yellow journalism as something nonsensical and absurd directly against the more understandable and mature Uncle Sam helps construct a harmful narrative of large news stories being solely sensational and untrustworthy. The medium of political cartoons serves well to portray the “enemy” as something to gloss over or to see as humorous while still maintaining an overall seriousness in its depiction of the “correct side” of a situation. The creation of a biased “objective” viewing to the scenario that plays out leads to an over-generalization to the media readers consume in equating all that the cartoon calls over dramatic and inhuman to be the same as the genuine news.
Sources
Hill, Jason E. “How to Look at News Pictures in America.” American Art 30.2. 78-91. 2016
Zelizer, Barbie. “Visual Culture and the Holocaust.” Rutgers University Press. 1-10. 2001
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