Categorical Aperitif

Sir:

I wish I knew how to quit you. But no: lately, it seems like every time I get a Slate "Today's Cartoon" email, the featured scribbling is a particularly rank and odious one of yours, and I am driven to the blogosphere for solace. Oh well. At least you've gotten better at making donkeys look like donkeys since our last encounter:

I have admit that this one actually made me giggle a little when I first read it; however, I'm still trying to figure out why. Let's take the possible sources of "humor" one by one.

(1) The use of the expression "pervert Republican" in the first panel. At first I thought I might be responding to this nasty little bit of name-calling, either because (a) I get some kind of sadistic joy out of hearing a Republican described by such a vile adjective or (b) there's a pleasant surprise element in seeing you use such an adjective for a Republican—in this case, Larry Craig. Upon reflection, though, I realized that (a) I don't get joy out of hearing anybody called "pervert," particularly when their main offense seems to be cruising for consensual sex using a code that practically guarantees that only the willing (or cops bent on entrapment) will even know what's going on and (b) it seems likely that you get some sort of sadistic joy out of calling someone a "pervert"—when you could have used a less charged adjective such as gay or homosexual and it still would have been quite clear that you're alluding to the Larry Craig case. And that's not a kind of joy I'd like to share, thank you very much.

(2)The sudden reversal created by mentioning Barney Frank in the second panel. A lot of humor is created by sudden changes of direction, as in Henny Youngman's famous imprecation, "Take my wife—PLEASE." I thought I might be responding to the sudden switch from "pervert Republican" in the first panel to "Barney Frank" in the second panel. There is a reversal here, from talking about a Republican to talking about a Democrat; however, when I think about what connects the two in your cartoon, all the humor just kind of melts away. You see, if this reversal is meant to be funny, it can only be because you're taking us from (in your mind) a "pervert Republican" to a "pervert Democrat"—and we run afoul of the abovementioned "pervert" problem again. The reversal amounts to you trying to shift our attention off a Republican by pointing at Barney Frank and screaming "Hey, look, the Democrats have perverts, too!" Except that Barney Frank isn't a "pervert." Barney Frank is gay, and there is a difference between being gay and being a pervert. I'm sorry if this needs to be explained to you. I wouldn't call Larry Craig a pervert, either; hell, he even denies being gay. Given that he's spent much of his political career demonizing people for being gay, though, and for engaging in the same kinds of activities of which he now stands accused, I might call him a hypocrite, but that's a different matter. Read "A Prayer for Larry Craig" by James E. McGreevy, who eloquently shares his own memories of living in the unique kind of hell that is a closeted life in politics, and you might even feel compassion for a guy like Larry Craig. I do; thus, I can find no humor in dismissing him with the sick name pervert.

By the way, this also undercuts another possible source of "reversal" humor in the cartoon. Being cynical about politics myself, I thought that maybe I was responding to the cynical depiction of your two DNC operatives: eager to exploit a Republican scandal but worried that one of their own might be caught up in it. That might be funny, were it not, again, for your regrettable use of the word pervert—for once again the humor depends on us finding it funny to call gay men perverts. And if we don't, well, bang goes your joke. Which leaves me with one last candidate for why I found your cartoon at all funny:

(3) The manic energy depicted in your "D.N.C. Machine" exchange. In Freud's book on jokes he identifies one of the sources of humor as differences in "expenditure": for example, between the amount of effort actually required to accomplish a task and the exaggerated, extravagant movements of a clown or a good physical comic. (The "Ministry of Silly Walks" sketch is funny on many levels, but surely its foundation is John Cleese's hilarious ability to create this "expenditure" difference by, well, walking sillily.) Something like this seems to be happening in your cartoon, where the one DNC operative comes running in excitedly in panel one, bellowing, hat falling off, arms gesticulating, tie in disarray, etc., only to go rushing off in similar fashion in panel two—so much sound and fury over such a relatively unimportant (except to those involved) matter. I have to admit: I think that's kind of funny. It's the political cartoon equivalent of slapstick, but hey, it's better than nothing. So congratulations: at long last, you made a funny.

I'm almost eager for the next gay Republican scandal—if only to see how you manage to work in the name "Barney Frank" again. Oh, I know it'll be there. I am hopeful, however, that next time you'll forego the sick little thrill of calling a gay man a "pervert." There's a reversal that would raise some pleasant spirits, don't you think?

Labels: editorial cartoons

// posted by nash @ 8:51 AM