A CARTOON ANALYSIS

About Joe Heller : an American editorial/political cartoonist who was born in Wisconsin, USA and grew up in Milwaukee. Currently, Joe lives in Green Bay with his wife. He has just put his editorial cartoons into a collection entitled Give em Heller. What we have here is a cartoon drawn (draw/drew/drawn) by Joe Heller , a famous editorial cartoonist for the Green Bay press Gazette. The cartoon probably first appeared in Green bay Gazette in 2009 as it is mentioned in the top-right- hand corner of the cartoon. It is quite a recent back-to-school cartoon which consists of a drawing with some text. (it dates from 2009) The general atmosphere is both ordinary and ironical . The setting is a school and more precisely an American classroom. The scene takes place during the day, more precisely in the morning as shown by the clock on the wall and very likely right after the summer vacation .It is the beginning of the school (scholastic ) year. The drawing is a caricature of a class in the USA. It shows a female teacher and three of her pupils in a classroom. However we can imagine that there are more pupils attending the teachers class who are not shown in the cartoon .The teacher is caricatured by the cartoonist and the focus is on her . She is quite tall and rather over-weight .She is a curly brown -haired woman with glasses . She is wearing old-fashioned tight-fitting clothes , a blazer with a checked skirt and a pearl necklace. She must be in her fifties and she looks very strict, not really attractive. She is pointing with her pencil at a sheet of paper which is an essay for the pupils to write. She is standing next to her desk and in front of the blackboard on which is written : ESSAY What I did on my summer vacation . She expects her pupils to write about their summer holidays and she must be explaining to the kids the topic of the essay. The first kid, the closest one to us, is a small boy with glasses and straight hair. He is sitting at his desk playing with his calculator. He doesnt seem to be listening to his teacher. The boy looks bored and doesnt seem to be interested at all. The second pupil is turning her back to us so we cant see her face. She is curly-haired with a bow in her hair. The third child is a girl with a straight cut fringe and braided hair. She is facing us and raising her hand. She looks puzzled and inquisitive. The characters are caricatured by the cartoonist so as to put the stress on their feelings. This cartoon is ironic and funny in two ways. Firstly , by saying : You mean you havent been following me on Twitter all summer? the girl means that if the teacher really wanted to know what she did this summer she could have gone on Twitter and checked that out. It is ironical because the young girl refers to Twitter, which is a social networking site. She wonders why her teacher hasnt checked out her Twitter updates. She is asking the question in a very natural way and she doesnt really understand the purpose of the essay. The second part that makes the cartoon funny and ironic is that the teacher looks very strict compared to her pupils. She doesnt seem to be fitting in with the pupils. Indeed the teacher is a symbol ; she stands for a stereotype . Shes definitely not the Twitter generation and thats what the cartoonist suggests. The girls reply shows that social networking sites have become an integral part of childrens lives too. The aim of the cartoonist is to pass on a message. What he means is that internet has changed our lives. Kids have become addicted to social networks such as Twitter or Facebook .The cartoonist mocks this Google generation which is opposed to the teachers generation. The cartoon illustrates the gap between the 2 generations. The cartoonist also asserts that the teacher gives the same assignment every

year. There is a contrast between the teachers expectations and the young girls reply. The cartoon is topical. The cartoon raises the issue of social networking sites. With this funny drawing the cartoonist aims to show the importance of social networks in the lives of children and teenagers, that is to say the new generation. He wants to denounce the fact that the digital world invades our normal world and changes it. There is another clich with the boy focused on his calculator . Obviously, he does not feel concerned and he is not interested in what is being said. In my opinion the cartoon is funny and it can entertain children , however older people can understand the joke. I find it funny and ironical because the cartoonist criticizes the school system by making fun of teachers and their traditional teaching methods that seem to have become inadequate . Of course, as a teenager I feel concerned . What strikes me the most is the contrast between the teachers expectations and her pupils interests . The cartoon is thoughtprovoking and topical. My feeling is that this is very well-done in that we can easily identify with the characters. I believe that the cartoonist achieved his aim. I find his message is effective because it evokes a very popular website among teenagers, so the impact is direct. His drawing is provocative with the caricature of the teacher and it is aimed at amusing . To sum up , the teacher looks old in her old-fashioned clothes ..her ideas must be old-fashioned her traditional teaching methods must be miles away from online teaching and Twitter updates.