Conclusion
In our research about Equal rights and sexual minorities we've not only discovered
how big a topic this actually is, but we also discovered many different stories of people for
and against the various topics that can be assigned under this vast title. Our main focus
for this project centered around the Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, Transgender, and Queer. This
led us to research topics ranging from athletes coming out in sports/clubs, to gay marriage, to researching about Caitlyn Jenner. The amount of information in just the past few
years is staggering. In most of the cartoons that we’ve selected you can find many different
examples of the five different persuasive tools (outlined in the introduction of this wonderful magazine) that cartoonists use to persuade the populace for or against these topics,
symbolism, exaggeration, analogies, labeling, and irony. We’ve learned a lot about just how
much these tools are used in order to get the public's view on the side of the cartoonist.
Although this topic makes it hard to change your mind with just a simple cartoon, they
still can be very persuasive
In the examples used for this project, while satirically representing the LGBTQ community, cartoonists favored symbolism and analogy as well as heavily using irony. It is easy
to use symbols such as “the closet” (Beeler) to represent hiding one's sexual preference. It
is easy to recognize the closet as a symbol, especially when the artist utilized labeling to
bring it to the forefront of the cartoon. Symbols allow an artist to take advantage of pop
culture to frame their cartoon. In some cases it can help make a cartoon easy to understand without the necessity of excessive labeling.
The IRS was represented very Ironically as they end one discriminatory practice but continue another (Beeler). Irony can make it more difficult to understand the artist's motive
for drawing the cartoon as it can muddy the line between support of an issue and opposition. To offer an example of this is it difficult to discern in the cartoon IRS and Gays if the
cartoonist is in support or opposed to the policy of the IRS.
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The power of editorial cartoons is most definitely apparent. Especially when they
are being used as a form of communication inside the ongoing political fight against
transgender rights. The major issues found inside the transgender cartoons will all be
viewed differently. Governor McCrory supports giving zero equal rights to transgender
while Caitlyn Jenner spoke up about having felt like a woman in a man’s body in hopes to
help others struggling like she has all her life. The cartoons clearly depict a society that
was founded on a solid foundation of value, but has yet to fully deliver those values to everyone. A blind eye is turned to the deaths of transgender people because of excuses such
as, “I didn’t know he/she was transgender” (Diebel, 2015).
This project has taught us a lot about the LGBTQ community and the challenges
they f ace everyday as well as the hurdles the U.S. has pushed through to give rights and
that all men and women be treated equally without question. It can take one person to
stand up and start making a change. Will you?
Additional Citations:
SCOTUS. (2015, April 28). Obergefell v. Hodges. Retrieved March 29, 2016, from http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf
PBS. (n.d.). American Experience: TV's most-watched history series. Retrieved March 29, 2016, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/
americanexperience/features/timeline/stonewall/
GERC. (2013, July). Definition of Terms. Retrieved March 29, 2016, from http://geneq.berkeley.edu/lgbt_resources_definiton_
of_terms
Milestones in the Transgender Movement. (n.d.). Retrieved March 30, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/15/
opinion/editorial-transgender-timeline.html
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