Very Serious Cartoon Analysis™
Bors Blog Exclusive Analysis
A cartoon from the January 4, 2010 issue of The New Yorker, by Jack Ziegler:
The visual in this comic has some potential for a funny gag about different/convergent tastes in music across socioeconomic and cultural strata but instead opts for a stale and unsophisticated "uh-oh", which the reader is to understand as: Look, honey! Punks about to play that racket they call music!
Some people listen to loud and obnoxious music and when you want to enjoy your eggs benedict, well, it's a real bummer if they decide to indulge at that particular moment. To truly find this cartoon humorous, however, you would need to identify with the sterile suburban couple whose male half wears a sweater vest to brekkie. What sort of music are we to believe excites this man?
Also: What sort of disastrous music choices are even available on the quaint diner's jukebox that warrant such an ominous attitude? Cannibal Corpse? (That, along with the bizarre placement of some napkin holders, could explain the lack of other patrons.)
In reality, the cute punk couple--drawn with less imagination than the dreadful white couple--is probably going to choose the one good tune in that jukebox every finds agreeable, such as an early Elvis Costello number. Imagine the opening bars of "Radio Radio" filling the diner and someone objecting. You can't, can you?
A cartoon from the January 4, 2010 issue of The New Yorker, by Jack Ziegler:
The visual in this comic has some potential for a funny gag about different/convergent tastes in music across socioeconomic and cultural strata but instead opts for a stale and unsophisticated "uh-oh", which the reader is to understand as: Look, honey! Punks about to play that racket they call music!
Some people listen to loud and obnoxious music and when you want to enjoy your eggs benedict, well, it's a real bummer if they decide to indulge at that particular moment. To truly find this cartoon humorous, however, you would need to identify with the sterile suburban couple whose male half wears a sweater vest to brekkie. What sort of music are we to believe excites this man?
Also: What sort of disastrous music choices are even available on the quaint diner's jukebox that warrant such an ominous attitude? Cannibal Corpse? (That, along with the bizarre placement of some napkin holders, could explain the lack of other patrons.)
In reality, the cute punk couple--drawn with less imagination than the dreadful white couple--is probably going to choose the one good tune in that jukebox every finds agreeable, such as an early Elvis Costello number. Imagine the opening bars of "Radio Radio" filling the diner and someone objecting. You can't, can you?
posted by Matt Bors at
12:30 AM
13 Comments:
I was thinking more a rousing hank snow number.
Maybe they're playing "Don't Stop Believing" and the older couple knows of the bloodbath to come... the husband's going to look up at the last second and everything will whip-cut to black, forever and ever...
Perhaps it's because I haven't seen a jukebox since I was 10 (and never a table-side one...is that a NY thing?), but I don't recall there even being any music a stereotypical "punk kid" would listen to on one of those things.
This artist needs to get out in the real world a little more. Reacquaint themselves with humor.
Might I point out that the generation to which the middle-aged couple belongs buy cars who use The Jam in their ads and belong to a retirees' org that used The Buzzcocks?
Oops - my point was that the cartoonist is behind on his own generation's music.
Cartoon would have been way funnier if the caption read "No Meat Touching Please".
If the "punk" kids are going to play some emo shit, I'm on the boring middle-aged folks' side.
I had to explain this one to my cartooning partner Estelle. But I could only explain it after studying it for a while. The "gag" was so obvious I figured there must be some hidden meaning I was just too dumb to comprehend.
I feel a little smarter now.
This is a reprint from 1982, yes?
Art is limited only by the viewer's imagination. I imagine the younger guy selects a Carpenters song and the older guy becomes the villain. Funny!
When I was a punk kid in Fargo, my buddy and I used to go into Sammy's pizza downtown, order cokes, smoke cigarettes and listen to the same three songs on the jukebox: "Back on the Chaingang" by the Pretenders, "Woman" by John Lennon, and "Old Hippy" by some 80s country guy. We did this almost every day for the while summer of 1986, until we were booted out after an altercation about how we never bought anything but Cokes. Nobody ever said "Uh oh" when we put money into the jukebox, though.
I thought the jukebox was a condom vending machine. Very confusing. Especially the idea of cafeterias with condom vending machines at every table.
Uh oh indeed.
Haven't you heard? That caption was supposed to read "Christ, what an asshole"--just like every other New Yorker cartoon.
http://modernarthur.com/blog/christwhatanasshole.html
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