Writing essay#1

The Effect of Political Cartoons

Not one person is untouched by political cartoons. We often see some political cartoons in our daily life. There are a lot of political cartoons in newspapers, magazines and television commercials from the mass media. When people see them, what do you think about them? Sometimes, we may think they are funny and make us laugh. Also, we believe all of their content and we change our minds by getting a different view and some new information that we didn’t know.

Now, why do we change our mind when we see political cartoons? There are some reasons that political cartoons affect people. First, they are very funny and quite simple in meaning, that is to say we can understand difficult politicians easily. This is because we feel politics is difficult and some people avoid it. But we recognize it by seeing political cartoons without hearing deep and troublesome lectures and policy. Second, the influences and impact of political cartoons are very great because they are direct to the eye. The faculty of sight gives us a bigger impression than reading. Then we know the view on ahead and understand the meaning by reading. Finally, we received a strong impression because of the caricature and the irony. It is both inspiration and propaganda. Cartoonists want people to believe something, for example, about an election, a warning, or political activity. We believe the cartoon because of the cartoonist’s skill. I think they may understand people’s mind better than psychologists, because they can change our mind like a magic trick.

Next, a political animated cartoon is more sensitive than a normal comic political cartoon, because we can hear the appeals and can understand them more easily than those of a normal political cartoon. It is very rhythmical and can remain in our memory. Especially, music is very impressive because we can memorize it soon. There are many animated political cartoons in America. For example, the election campaign of George Bush vs. John Kerry in 2004 is known by many people. In a movie called JibJab, each person appealed to good things and also criticized and blamed each other. I think the cartoons like this influenced many people’s ideas because people are favorably impressed by comic rhythm, shocking pictures and foul language. On the other hand, political animated cartoon is not quite popular in Japan. Most of them are political cartoons in newspapers. Of course, they express policy by using ironic language. For instance, there were many political cartoons about the behavior of Koizumi, who is the previous president in Japan. He contributed some important thing, such as the solution to an abduction. He appeared in a lot of cartoons because he said bad words and did bad actions. However, I haven’t seen political animated cartoons like America’s. In my opinion, Japanese may not be able to describe strong policy and behavior in politics. Japanese don’t say things as directly and understand something without direct behaviors and words, because of culture by tacit agreement.

By the way, believing all political cartoons is very dangerous. This is caricature and irony. And cartoonists try to make us believe all of them. Political cartoons are not always true. They often use big words and exaggerate. But people confuse whether they are true or not true. In addition, this gives children bad influence. It is a cruel act, like people killing someone. Children may learn bad words and bad behavior from political cartoons. I think that the adults need to protect children from them. However, many the adults allow them. So, we should evaluate the real true thing from them. And we must have a strong opinion without being dependent upon them. By acting like this, political cartoons may be useful because we have the prerogative of gaining useful information.

Finally, we are susceptible to political cartoons because we try to understand politics with easy methods. But we change our mind because of the influence from them. And we lost our real mind. Sometimes political cartoons are usual. However, I think that they are not a good thing; they are a deceitful thing and don’t inform us of real truth. So, when we see them, we should pay attention to them.