REHUGO Analysis - Political Cartoon

Samira Haikal
Mr. Soeth
P2 AP Eng Lang
24 February 2011

REHUGO Analysis: Political Cartoon

A. MLA Citation: 
Smeltzer, Steve. "'And you honey, how was your day at the playstation?'" Cartoon Stock. http://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoonview.asp?catref=ssen4. Cartoon. 24 February 2011.

B. Societal Trend:
Smeltzer uses satire to criticize the dominance of videogames and electronics in the life of America's twenty-first century youth as compared to the formerly active lifestyle of the child and teenager.


C. Effectiveness:
The viewers of this social commentary cartoon see a typical American family at dinner, clearly discussing the day's events with each other. Before the technology age, a common question and answer at the dinner table would regard a sports game, a test at school, the workday, friends, homework, upcoming plans. However, Smeltzer substitutes "your day at the PlayStation" in place of another, more mind and body engaging activity. The mother's quote conveys a certain irony with the typical American family discussion at dinner, and what it has emerged into over the past few years due to technological changes and changes in youth culture. In this cartoon, the visual itself does not depict much like other other cartoons usually do, but rather, the verbal sect of the image typifies the new and modernized meal discussion. Furthermore, the casual tone of the dialogue reflects the unfortunate acceptance of society of an Internet-and-videogame-dominant youth culture. Another aspect of the satirical attitude of Smeltzer lies in the diction of "day," which demonstrates that children and teenagers spend several straight hours in front of a television or computer monitor instead of spending hours playing outside with friends or studying as previous generations did. The genial expressions on the mother, father, and son's faces further represent the social acceptance of and lack of action against this new and negative impact of twenty-first century techonologies on today's children.


D. Implications of the Trend
Indeed, today's technologies have positive and negative impacts on society as a whole. New and shocking advancements improve medicine, education, and business, yet negatively influence the lives of people all around the world. Industry and entrepreneurs create all these videogames and internet trends for children for the sake of money, but few people tend to recognize the cultural dependency on and dominance of the digital world, which are not always a good thing. Children need to live the active lives that preceding generations lived not only for their own health and intellect, but also to feel and witness the endless "childhood" that is ever so typified as exhilerating and spontaneous by older generations.