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Political caricatures have a long tradition—the Egyptian pharaoh Akhnaton is often considered the first monarch caricatured, approximately thirty-three hundred years ago. Throughout their history, political cartoons have raised awareness and controversy, parodying important figures and bringing issues to the attention of the public.

Political Cartoons In The Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries

Perhaps the most famous political cartoon from the colonial era, “Join or Die,” was created by Benjamin Franklin and published in the Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9, 1754. It shows a snake divided into eight pieces, symbolizing the isolation of the North American colonies’ governments from the British monarchy an ocean away in Europe. In France, political cartoons became common in newspapers during the French Revolution (1789–1799), and have been common features in periodicals worldwide ever since.

German-born painter Thomas Nast (1840–1902) is often considered the “father of American caricature” because of politically provoking cartoons, many illustrating his opposition to U.S. president Andrew Johnson. Beginning in the midnineteenth century, his cartoons, published in Harper’s Weekly, skewered government corruption at the local, state, and national level. Nast also was the first to represent the Democratic Party with a donkey in 1870 and the Republican Party with an elephant in 1874, symbols still used to represents these parties in the twenty-first century.

In Canada, the most representative political cartoonist was Jean-Baptiste Côté (1832–1907), who opposed the Canadian Confederation and published satirical caricatures in the publication La Scie.

Political Cartoons In The Twentieth Century

In Belgium, cartoonist George Rémi (under the pseudonym Hergé) drew illustrated stories with a political background that are similar to political cartoons. Featuring teenaged hero Tintin, the first story pits his hero against the Stalinist regime and initially appeared in 1929 in a Belgian weekly paper supplement under the title “Tintin au pays des Soviets” (“The Adventures of Tintin, reporter for ‘Le Petit Vingtième’ in the Land of the Soviets”). The compiled album of the comic strips of this story was officially released in Belgium in 1973.

During the German occupation of Belgium during World War II (1939–1945), Hergé continued his illustrated stories in the Brussels daily Le Soir. His story “Le Secret de la Licorne” (“The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn”) contained references to rationing and the black market in Brussels in 1942. Fascinated with the universe of Hergé, U.S. filmmaker Steven Spielberg produced a free adaptation of this story in 2010. Since their first publication, the stories of Tintin have sold hundreds of millions of copies and have been translated into sixty languages and dialects.

In France, comic heroes in children’s magazines, such as the weekly Journal Pilote, often promoted a political or satirical message. The champion of these stories, Astérix, was a Gaul character created in 1959 by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. Although the action is set in Gaul in the year 50 BCE, there are countless references to contemporary French history and political culture, with such themes as occupation by a foreign army, in which the Roman army symbolizes the Nazis, and many inside jokes referencing modern French politicians. In the book Le Combat des Chefs (1966), a character adopting the famous pose of Napoleon (with his hand partly hidden inside his shirt) is considered a fool by the old Gaul druids because no one around him can figure out whom the character was trying to impersonate. Like Tintin’s tales, the stories of Astérix have sold hundreds of millions of copies and have been translated into thirty languages.

In Chile in 1971, two young scholars—Ariel Dorfman of the United States and Armand Mattelart of Belgium— analyzed and decoded the hidden capitalist and imperialist ideologies in Disney comic strips published in Chilean newspapers, especially Donald Duck. The original Spanish version of their book, How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic, was considered so subversive that it was banned after the Pinochet coup d’état in 1973; the two authors later reported that five thousand copies were thrown into the Pacific Ocean near Valparaiso.

Scott Adams created the comic strip character Dilbert in 1989. The character and his officemates illustrate the consequences of uncontrolled stewardship when poor leaders gain too much power, and its stories symbolize the absurdity and the contradictions of the bureaucracy in modern offices, like those Adams himself witnessed in Silicon Valley during the 1980s. Adams’s insights are so thought provoking that several books on management have subsequently used his comic strips to exemplify specific management dos and don’ts. As of the early twenty-first century, Dilbert still appears in hundreds of newspapers and the cartoons are translated into a dozen languages.

Political Cartoons And Controversy In The Twenty-First Century

In Denmark, on September 30, 2005, an international and interreligious controversy exploded when twelve cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad as a Taliban-like terrorist with a black beard and a bomb inside his turban were published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Created by Kurt Westergaard, the cartoons were perceived as a provocation by many Muslims worldwide, and the immediate, violent reaction of some of these protesters was interpreted by Western observers as a sign of intolerance and fanaticism. As other newspapers around the globe reproduced these cartoons, the indignation and anger of protesters increased, and as a result, some European politicians asked newspapers not to mention or reproduce the cartoons, going against the normally respected freedom of the press.

Observers and scholars should be aware that while political caricatures can be seen as a sign of a healthy press and freedom of speech in democracies, they also frequently rely on clichés, common sense (in a sociological perspective), and sometimes prejudice, these cartoons can reinforce the usual clichés of “corrupt politicians” and “lazy bureaucrats.”

Animated Films And Illustrated Texts

An essential part of popular culture, animated movies began as early as the first experiments in moving pictures, notably with Charles-Émile Reynaud, who invented the “praxinoscope” in 1876. Since then, many cartoon characters from comic strips have been transposed to film. Animated films have always enjoyed a large and durable circulation in movie theatres, from the golden age of cinema, when animated shorts were an integral part of the movie-going experience, to full-length films and television programs featuring popular animated characters.

During World War II, popular animated characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck appeared in films made for propaganda purposes. Among these animated shorts is the Warner Brothers’s Herr Meets Hare, in which Bugs Bunny defies Nazi officer Hermann Goering. A decade later, the cold war stimulated countless cartoons and television series in the United States and elsewhere.

A less-studied genre in popular culture, some illustrated novels, especially those created by women, are meant to be subversive and politically engaging. The autobiographical book series Persepolis by Iranian writer Marjane Satrapi is a strong critique of the conservative interpretation of Islamic law found in Iran since 1978. First published in 2001, her books have been translated into many languages, and a critically acclaimed animated feature film of the same name was released in 2007.

Bibliography:

Adams, Scott. The Dilbert Principle. New York, HarperBusiness, 1996. Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. www.editorialcartoonists.com.
Dorfman, Ariel, and Armand Mattelart. How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic. New York: International General, 1975.
“The World of Thomas Nast.” www.thomasnast.com.
Hergé [pseud.]. The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn. Lawrence, Kan.: Mammoth, 1942.
Tintin: Reporter for “Le Petit Vingtième” in the Land of the Soviets. Lawrence, Kan.: Mammoth, 2007.
Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood; The Story of a Return. Pantheon Books, 2005.