I think the cartoon is supposed to get a sarcastic "heh" out of people who think the stimulus package is as jumbled and incomprehensible as though it were written by a rabid monkey.
The main problem of the cartoon is that it conflates a well-known, bloody story (the chimp run amok, then shot) with a less-powerful political message. The innocent message of "the stimulus bill looks like it was written by a monkey" is completely overpowered by the bloody mess of the chimp story. It makes people logically look around for a nasty message to match the nasty story, and it was pretty easy to find a nasty message. The artist's actual point would be better served by say, an image of some broke zookeepers turning their monkey house into ghostwriters for Congress because the monkeys would do a better job AND the zoo would finally get some money. Something benign like that wouldn't have overshadowed the cartoon's point.
It's like the artist hitched two horses to one cart, and one was a lot stronger than the other. So, instead of both horses pulling the cart straight ahead to Humor Square, the big, bloody horse dragged the cart off-course to Racist Ghetto.
That's why you don't pick gruesome stories like the chimp to conflate with political observations. Because you can't mix a lot of tragedy with your point and expect the mixture to be funny. You just get more tragedy and your point is lost. You need a big point and a little tragedy to get some spicy funny.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 04:30 pm (UTC)The main problem of the cartoon is that it conflates a well-known, bloody story (the chimp run amok, then shot) with a less-powerful political message. The innocent message of "the stimulus bill looks like it was written by a monkey" is completely overpowered by the bloody mess of the chimp story. It makes people logically look around for a nasty message to match the nasty story, and it was pretty easy to find a nasty message. The artist's actual point would be better served by say, an image of some broke zookeepers turning their monkey house into ghostwriters for Congress because the monkeys would do a better job AND the zoo would finally get some money. Something benign like that wouldn't have overshadowed the cartoon's point.
It's like the artist hitched two horses to one cart, and one was a lot stronger than the other. So, instead of both horses pulling the cart straight ahead to Humor Square, the big, bloody horse dragged the cart off-course to Racist Ghetto.
That's why you don't pick gruesome stories like the chimp to conflate with political observations. Because you can't mix a lot of tragedy with your point and expect the mixture to be funny. You just get more tragedy and your point is lost. You need a big point and a little tragedy to get some spicy funny.