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An Analysis Of David Rowe's Political Cartoon 'Stop The Boats'

717 Words3 Pages

Political Cartoons allow cartoonists to graphically comment on controversial political issues and events in society. As an abundance of these cartoons are purposely illustrated in a humorous manner, their focal purpose is not to only amuse but to persuade, ensuring the impression conveyed by the cartoonist, challenging the audiences’ perception on the issue presented. David Rowe’s cartoon, which appeared in the Australian Financial Review magazine on November 10th 2013, condemns the Tony Abbott Government’s implementation of the military operation on the “Stop the Boats" policy, therefore, causing the limitation of media coverage. Through the use of key satirical devices, particularly: caricature, symbolism, visual metaphors, analogy and captioning …show more content…

Rowe’s metaphorical symbol to represent Australians as ‘chickens’ expresses the concept of the Abbott government demeaning perception of the general public. As glasses are a universal symbol of knowledge and intelligence, David Rowe has utilised this notion onto the chickens, indicating the people’s awareness to the controversial issue. The implications behind these symbols are also coherent through the author’s application of colour, which forms the mood of the political cartoon. The notion of colour symbolising the author’s concepts is evident though his application of the charcoal black as the background to his political cartoon. The significance of the colour symbolism can be interpreted into two cohesive exemplifications. Either the murky background sets the sensation of the ‘evening news’ or David Rowe’s persistent association of the Abbott government to the moods of failure and misfortune. Furthermore, If the fence segregating the official targets of the political cartoon and the rustic ground are interpreted a symbolic reference to impurity and dishonesty within the sole source of official information, ‘media output’, exemplifies the effective use of colour in the political cartoon. The symbolic reference to impurity and dishonesty within the Abbott government is …show more content…

As this under garment has been used to humorously symbolise the limitation of the government’s ‘garbage’ about the ‘Stop the Boats Policy’, it also relates to the political personality who David Rowe has intentionally caricatured. David Rowe’s cartoon has intentionally exposed specific Abbot government members involved in implementation of military involvement on the Stop the Boats policy through caricature. Caricature is used to comically exaggerate the individual’s traits or defects in order to briefly state a criticism of the individual. In this cartoon David Rowe has implemented caricature to reference the political personalities of Tony Abbot, Joe Hockey, Bill Shorten and Scott Morrison. Further inspecting the visual representation of the particular personalities are either illustrated squinting or winking accompanied with a grim grin. A squint now and again indicates liars’ impulse to suppress their deception from others, whereas, winking to the accompany of a smirk suggests a conspiratorial effect indicating the government’s recognition of their

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