Tutorial

 In the week leading up to the tutorial I finally managed to nail down exactly what it was I wanted to discuss in my essay. I already had a good idea of the general topic but needed to make it more focussed and structured to fit a 3000 word essay.

I wanted to analyse the effectiveness of various kinds of satirical illustration and the effect that changes in social and technological trends have had on this. I read an interview with Jonathan Coe in which he says that satire has become toothless and in fact acts as a tool for the government as it allows like minded people to vent their frustrations without taking action.

I don't fully agree with his comments but do believe that satire can easily work to the advantage of its supposed victim. I think that the more the public are exposed to satire they become desensitized to it and illustrators have to work harder to get their point across. I think some illustrators tried to employ more extreme images or messages in an attempt to get a response from their audience but this method has the effect Jonathan Coe was talking about. For satire to be effective i has to be based on real events and characteristics that are widely accepted as true. If an illustrator only communicates information that is biased to one side of an argument they lose any sense of integrity and will alienate the people that their message could have an influence on. To investigate this i looked at the work of Gerald Scarfe during the Thatcher era.

Gerald Scarfe's illustrations although blatantly anti Thatcher were very well balanced, his almost grotesque illustrations of thatcher used physical manifestations of character traits that were celebrated by her follows as much as they were despised by people who opposed her. By chosing these characteristics to highlight Scarfe creates a common ground for both sides of the political divide. This provides a platform to alter peoples opinions gradually over time.

After the peer feedback from the tutorial i feel much better about my essay and feel motivated to get stuck into writing it. One good suggestion form the tutorial was to look at the graffiti in Ireland in the Thatcher era. I could compare the different impact of various methods of satire and propaganda.

Struggling to find a basis for my essay

I have struggled to decide on a basis for my essay over the past couple of weeks, i want to find an interesting idea that isn't an obvious take on the questions we chose from. the problem is that the further you stray from the mainstream the harder it becomes to find literature to back up your ideas or to argue against. I have been looking a lot at the Thatcher era and the way illustration was used to in that time. As it was a period of unrest that polarized opinions about the countries leadership it was a situation that triggered powerful emotional responses from each side of the divide many of which took the form of illustrations.

Even though I had found a period of time and a general subject to concentrate on I still did not have a starting point for my essay. I started to look at satire and how it has been used during Thatcher's time as prime minister. Gerald Scarfe's illustrations depicted Thatcher as aggressive and sharp, characteristics that her fans would see as positive attributes rather than something to be made fun of. Scarfe's illustrations were obviously anti Thatcher but had a level of honesty and accuracy that may have made his work more effective. If people see that an image is accurate and and relates to current events and views held by both sides of the political divide the message of the image can be more easily trusted and in that way more effective.

Scarfe also had the benefit of his work being seen by a large portion of the population as it was published in newspapers on a regular basis meaning he could bit by bit alter the viewers perceptions and keep his work up to date with current events.

It was interesting to see the ways effective satire worked, in most cases it seems that effective satirical illustrators use a subtle approach that that maintains there credibility and means that their work is met with more trust. The further you try to push boundaries the the less credible you work becomes and the less effective. something else to be taken into account is the over saturation of satirical images meaning that the population becomes desensitized and limits the effectiveness of the images forcing illustrators to change their way of thinking. I found a really good article on ft.com made up of interviews with a variety of people well known for their satirical work.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5784ac84-bc50-11df-8c02-00144feab49a.html#axzz3sE6ZEJbK

The most interview i found most interesting is with Jonathan Coe in which he argues satire instead of stirring up rebellion and encouraging the population to take action against the political issue they disagree with in fact provides a safe environment for like minded people to vent their frustrations in the form of laughter and discussion instead of taking action. Satire can be seen as much as a tool for the rich and powerful as a rebellion against them. It provides a way for the public to feel they have won a battle or made a point without taking any notable action that could effect change.

I would like to base my question on the evolving relationship between an illustrator and their audience during times of social and political upheaval.

Image Analysis-Part 2

 My chosen question is-

“Discuss the role that Illustration can play during periods of political and/or social upheaval."

I have chosen to base my essay on the 'Thatcher Era' and the way Illustration was affected by and responded to the political climate.

 The first image is an illustration by Gerald Scarfe that shows Margaret Thatcher depicted as a shark. Gerald Scarfe is one of the most well known political cartoonist of his generation and took great pleasure in transforming Thatcher into a variety of distorted almost grotesque images. Thatcher divided the country and polarized opinion. She had a strong aggressive personality that made her stand out form most other politicians of the time. Scarfe often used these aggressive character traits in his cartoons by portraying Thatcher as an axe, shark, pair of scissors and a Pterodactyl. Although Thatcher was admired by a lot of people she was despised by many. Scarfe has said in interviews that villains were the characters people found most engaging: "It's a bit like in theatre, where the villains are the best ones - they're the ones everyone wants to see. No one cares about bland heroes." As an editorial cartoonist for The Sunday Times Scarfe's illustrations were seen by the public on a regular basis and may have had an impact on the public's perception of Thatcher rather than just acting as a representation of already held opinions. Scarfe's cartoons became easily recognisable as Thatcher no matter what he transformed her into. He used set characteristics, primarily the over sized angular nose as a visual motif. Scarfe acknowledges the ability of cartoonists to create images that become an almost universal symbol for the person they are trying to portray and in some cases even alter common perception of that person's appearance. In a interview with the BBC Scarfe said,

 "I always started with her nose, this flourish of the pen which brought about the beak-like nose.

In actual fact, her nose wasn't that big but the thing with being a cartoonist is that you can convince the public bit by bit that what you're seeing is that creature." If a cartoonist can alter the public's perception of physical attributes it is not out of the question that they could alter perception about their personality or actions as well.

Tintin - Breaking Free is a parody of the original work by Herge and was written under the pseudonym J. Daniels. In this rework of the popular cartoon some of the main characters remain but the narrative has been drastically changed. The story centers around the main character (Tintin) and his development from disaffected youth to revolutionary leader. This cartoon was first released in 1988 two years before the end of Thatcher's time in office and tackled issues synonymous with Thatcher's rule. The story depicts escalating tension between trade union workers and the government leading to strikes and demonstrations. The strikes become more widespread and the government responds with increasing repression. This story mirrors the conflict between trade unions and the government during Thatchers reign. Each page of the book is copied directly from Herge's original cartoons and has been altered to fit the new narrative. The longstanding popularity of the Tintin series meant that meant that J.Daniels had a well recognized and trusted platform to introduce his ideas to the public. The use of a usually lighthearted and innocent cartoon may have made the ideas in the book more easily trusted or at the very least will have caught the eye of people familiar with Herge's original work. The book caused a huge stir in the press with several papers condemning it for being naive and brutish or simply calling it a copy of Herge's work (The Times,1990; The Guardian,1994). I think calling this book a copy is an oversimplification and misrepresents the nature of the book but it does raise issues with the copyright of an artist's work. It is in interesting rework and the use of a well known existing publication is a tactic that has been used many times before and since but not often quite as boldly as in this case. I think that as a response to the political climate and the governing powers at the time this means of communicating serious issues and making them available and appealing to the general public is a subtle and effective one that demonstrates one of many ways illustration can be applied to periods of social and political upheaval.

Reading and Understanding Text

I chose the text 'PROPAGANDA' by EDWARD L. BERNAYS as the basis for my research.

The authors tone of voice implies he has no trust for the government and believes we are manipulated as a population in regards to our social and political beliefs. He seems to think there are a number of very deliberate techniques and agendas to the way we receive information. 

5 key points

1-The few that dictate our social and political beliefs know how to influence he masses.

2-we accept information on the word of various sources to mold our group identity.

3-The groupings and affiliations of today are no longer subject to local and sectional limitations.

4-Advances in technology allowed information to be spread across the whole of america, in some cases almost instantly.

5-propaganda influences all aspects of our lives and molds our opinions on almost everything.

5 key quotes

1-"We are all governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of."

2-"We have voluntarily agreed to let an invisible government sift the data and high-spot the outstanding issues so that our field of choice shall be narrowed to practical proportions."

3-"With the printing press and the newspaper, the railroad, the telephone, telegraph, radio and airplanes, ideas can be spread rapidly and even instantaneously over the whole of America."

4-"The America Newspaper Annual and Directory for 1928 lists 22,128 periodical publications in America."

5-"But instead of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of history"

This article speaks a lot about politics but not about individual parties or opinion on political beliefs, instead it focuses on how these beliefs are delivered to us in simplified and hand picked packets of information designed to mold our political affiliations. The author speaks about the government as a small number of individuals that are skilled at identifying ways the manipulate the ideas of the masses. Our social and cultural identity's are dictated to us with subtle propaganda. Technological advances have meant that these techniques are able to reach communities worldwide making them extremely powerful, whereas before information was confined to local community's the advent of print and faster methods of travel meant that information could become widespread almost instantly.

The sheer number of publications available in America by 1928 shows the scope of the printed word, literacy had given people the chance to expand their minds but was also a tool to control them. With this new found wealth of information available the masses needed someone to sift through it and highlight the important issues. the author says that a small group of people learned that they could use this cherry picking to dictate the way the masses acted and even thought.