Political cartoons are out to send a message and this one featuring Barack Obama is no exception. It features the President in a rather pensive and worried mode focusing on the one issue which everyone seems to talk about these days and that’s the economy.
The cartoon is a rather simple one but it includes several messages. It plays upon one of Obama’s main themes which is hope and that is embalzoned in big letters at the bottom of the cartoon but then sarcastically, the cartoonist adds the words, ‘Some terms and conditions apply’ in smaller print. Obama is looking to the sky actually seeming hopeful of some divine intervention as he thinks how unemployment is going up and the economy is getting worse.
In another dig at the President we also have a line from Fawlty Towers, the popular British comedy where Obama says ‘I Know Nothing’ and that is a reference to the Spanish waiter Manwel who never knows anything when asked by his boss.
The cartoon is pretty effective but it obviously portrays the President in a bit of a bad light, subtly indicating that he is powerless to solve the country’s considerable economic problems and is looking more to divine intervention than to any real solution.
In fact the leitmotif of the cartoon is that Obama’s support is fading away and this is being portrayed by the meekness on the President’s face as he attempts to gear up for the 2012 Presidential campaign. It is an effective and powerful cartoon which hits the nail on the head quite succintly.
Works cited
How’s that Hope and Change working out for Obama supporters?; http://www.sodahead.com/fun/hows-that-hope-and-change-working-out-for-obama-supporters/question-1885809/
