Traditional Marriage
Team Member Name: Devin Fowles
Publication: Salt Lake Tribune
Date: 4/29/2015
Cartoonist: Pat Bagley, U.S.
Title of cartoon: Traditional Marriage
Cartoon# 16
What action is taking place in the cartoon?
What is the context?
As noted before in other cartoons, this cartoon was
specifically drawn because of the controversy of legalizing gay marriage. This topic has been discussed
at great length for the last few year and has crawled
its way to the top mindset of almost everyone, especially in the united states, when it was declared legal
in all fifty states June 26, 2015 (Bill Chappell, June
2015, pg 1). Pat Bagley labels each different person
as a specific culture that had laws, or a least rules,
against marriage of a specific type of people.
What are the symbols in the cartoon?
Pat Bagley used a lot of symbols here, from the
caveman to the KKK member, to the priest each can
be a symbol of a certain type of culture in their own
way. Symbolically, each member represents a leader
in their respective groups, that declared a type of
marriage illegal.
What “reality” is constructed/framed about
your issue?
The cartoon shows a scale of history. You could
call it a history of unapproved marriages. In every
culture it seems that there is an infidel, or a lower human population that exists only to be hated
by the ‘betters’. In the cartoon we see a timeline
of leaders within different cultures that preached
against people who wanted to be married to the
inferiors. At the end we see a priest with the saying
“Same sex partners is just not natural”, condemning
it as a sin. The saying that same sex marriage is not
natural is framed in a way that shows the same type
of thing happening throughout history and in many
different cultures. This cartoon is Framed by stereotypes, Pat Bagley uses each individual character
to represent a different culture that is, or has been
throughout the history of the world. These stereotypes show that each culture, though very different
from the others, has had a certain marriage ban on a
certain type of marriage.
Tone of the cartoon:
1) positive or negative framing of the issue
2) framing is supportive of or opposed to supporters
3) framing is supportive of or opposed to opponents
Bibliography:
Chappell, Bill. “Supreme Court Declares Same-Sex Marriage Legal In All 50 States.” NPR. NPR, 26 June 2015. Web.
29 Mar. 2016.
Bagley, Pat. “CagleCartoons.com - View Image.” CagleCartoons.com - View Image. 29 Apr. 2015. Web. 30 Mar.
2016.
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