| <><> MEDIA CIRCUS<><> |
|
|
|
| MEDIA ANALYSIS
READ ALSO...
Watching the news shows discuss Terri Schiavo
|
Cartoon Propaganda
by John Kelly
No one doubts that images are important. It is probably no understatement to say that the videos of Terri Schiavo, showing her interacting with her mother in a loving, connected way, saved her life.
Now that the trial has moved from the courtroom to the television studios and op-ed pages, images will continue to be influential. As perhaps the major story of last week of October, Schiavo naturally became the subject of political cartoonists. Most of them criticize along the theme of "excessive Government intervention in the private lives of Americans". If you would like to see a great one, skip to the bottom.
Matt Davies by Matt Davies
Jeb Bush got involved precisely because there was no living will, there was a conflict between family members, and there were questions regarding both Terri's actual condition and the credibility of her husband.
This cartoon denies these truths. It asserts that Jeb Bush is a loose cannon who is out to interfere in the private lives of responsible people planning for their futures. It argues that a living will is no defense against the predations of the state, when it is much more true that it is the opposite: that a clearly expressed wish to live will be ignored. Noticed the pejorative use of the word "artificial"
Dan Wasserman by Dan Wasserman, October 28, 2003
Following the liberal/feminist line, this cartoon equates the two Bushes' actions as right-wing attacks on the privacy and bodies of women. For liberal Wasserman lovers (he is a wonderful cartoonist , so this sort of thing is all the more painful), the cartoon brings up the specter of a fanatical religious right especially out to get women. Notice how the woman is wearing a business suit, is middle-class, and very sympathetic to "us," right-thinking , well-educated, White liberals. The woman is interested in personal rights for women like herself, but all the Bushes offer is a feeding tube for the vegetative.
The people that this cartoon appeals to are the very people that we must persuade in order to succeed. For such people, the privacy rights involved in controlling reproductive decisions, even in extreme situations where the band procedure might be necessary, are the same privacy rights involved in controlling end-of-life decision-making. The fear of the loss of this control makes it impossible for such people to look under the surface, where coercion, abuse, and shaky diagnosis are the real stories.
Stuart Carlson by Stuart Carlson
(This is not a well done cartoon. In the second panel, it really looks like the legislator is about to pull the plug, whereas for the cartoon to make sense , the legislator simply must be trying to stick the air tube back in.)
This cartoon is especially rich, and might best encapsulate the mainstream response to Schiavo's situation. A hypocritical, right-wing, religious-right, legislature feels no compunction in basically torturing someone who, for all intents and purposes, is dead.
This cartoon offers a good glimpse into the mind of the mainstream American trying to imagine end-of-life issues. The figure in bed represents both Terri Schiavo individually and all people in end-of-life crises. The patient is basically under siege from multitudes of wires, IVs , and the dread ventilator itself. It doesn't matter that Terri is not terminally ill; she may as well be. This dynamic is exactly like that with the victims of Jack Kevorkian. The media consistently, impervious to all correction, described his victims as terminally ill, because in the mainstream mind, disabled and dependent is just as bad as terminally ill.
How an 8 inch rubber tube can be transformed into all these machines, IVs, etc., is a testimony to the success of medical ethics in defining feeding tubes as "artificial," "extraordinary," and "intrusive."
Important Note: because the ventilator is the most feared of all machines, and Terri is not on a ventilator, an available strategy would be to emphasize Terri's difference from such people. This is both a trap and immoral, in my opinion, because it allows the subject to be changed from the question of her wishes and diagnosis to her place on a hierarchy of social value, outside of all context. Her life would be just as valuable if she were on the ventilator, she would be just as interactive, and she would be just as much a victim of abuse and coercion from a sleazy husband. The life of not one disabled person should be denigrated in order to save the life of another.
Ann Telnaes by Ann Telnaes. October 26, 2003
Ann Telnaes is one of very few female political cartoonists, and is an effective liberal feminist. Here, she shows off the deficiencies in feminist thinking around the Schiavo case.
Her message is especially stark: Terri Schiavo is already dead. She would be at peace now but for the Florida State legislature.
Like so many of these cartoons (and media coverage in general) , this one engages in massive "projection," taking your own feelings and beliefs and putting them into the mind and experience of another person. The people who are not at peace in this situation are those who can't imagine living while dependent on other people, or getting anything out of life with a cognitive impairment. Thus Ted Koppel's question to Schiavo's father, Robert Schindler , the day her starvation ended: "What's the point?"
Regardless of the cognitive abilities of a human being, when they are showered with love and good care, they have the chance to feel quite peaceful, thank you. Terri is not in extreme pain, either.
Congratulations! You have made it this far, and are now ready to really appreciate the single best cartoon on the matter.
Chip Bok by Chip Bok
Wow, is this sharp! The fresh scrubbed, well-meaning (white, middle-class looking) young man, in the traditional role of supplicant to his beloved's father, asks for her hand in marriage and then, boom! reveals himself to be a shallow, cruel , selfish man who will cut and run if it comes to it.
The middle-class father sits in his favorite armchair with his loyal dog, and frankly looks like he is right now having a heart attack over the question. The genius of this cartoon resides in its use of reversals, within the question itself (from traditional romantic ideal to modern callous reality), between the question and the young man's appearance (vicious and heartless versus all-American boy), and between setting (the safe, calm, soothing living room of the idealized american home) and the conversation ("Mind if I leave your daughter dead in her bed, collect a bunch of money if possible, and walk away without any remorse?")
Posted Oct. 31, 2003 WHAT DO YOU THINK of what you've just read? Click to tell us.
|
ABOUT US | SUBSCRIBE | E-MAIL EDITOR | HOME
This Website produced by Cliffwood Organic Works
