RHETORICAL ANALYSIS (VISUAL DISCOURSE) FOR DARYL CARGLE CARTOON FOR THE HALLOWEEN IN 2007 - Essay Example

The Halloween of 2007 by DARYL CARGLE: The nightmares of today's society! NeebaBabu The Halloween of 2007 cartoon by DARYL CARGLE: A Review The DARYL CARGLE CARTOON FOR THE HALLOWEEN IN 2007is very effective. The Halloween of 2007 pictorially depicts the disasters average man has to face in recent perilous times. "Halloween is the devil's birthday, and everything that happens on that day is just as bad and evil! So there!" We read in one of the blogs about Halloween.If we observe the picture carefully we can see the lady in the house getting scared when she faces all the global demons right in front of her.

The picture have wonderfully dealt with the global woes like Iraq invasion of America, the dollar recession, the poverty in under developed nations, AIDS, the sicko role models of today's youth, terrorism killing many innocent people et cetera. Today, mankind behaves in an utterly foolish way-blinded by its own sinful ego and willing ignorance. No wonder history always repeats itself. It is startling to see as we study history, to realize that the same type of Nazi-fascism at work in our government today, is clearly evident in past tyrant dictatorships.

It was none other than the tyrant Adolph Hitler who stated. "What luck for the rulers that men do not think" !! Literally, today's world is filled with a bunch of people who believe everything they here on FOX NEWS. Here's a good quote."A man's judgment cannot be better than the information on which he has based it. Give him no news or present him only with distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with propaganda and deliberate falsehoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning process and make him something less than a man.

" (Sulzberger 1948).The cartoon although portrayed in a funny way (and it should be) make the viewer think of the painful plight of fellow human beings around him. For example take the case of Iraqi war. Life is meaningless to the rich selfish monsters that inflict terror upon innocent civilians through military force. What did the Iraqi people do to deserve thisThe picture has succeeded in arousing a plethora of emotions in the viewers mind.As we continue observing the cartoon we see Sudan on the extreme right, which is one of the poorest nations in the world.

It is the place where people eat mud cookies made from dirt to survive!!Food prices around the world have spiked because of higher oil prices (which is portrayed as another demon in the Halloween cartoon), needed for fertilizer, irrigation, and transportation. Prices for basic ingredients such as corn and wheat are also up sharply, and the increasing global demand for bio fuels is pressuring food markets as well. Some 18,000 children die every day because of hunger and malnutrition and 850 million people go to bed every night with empty stomachs, a "terrible indictment of the world in 2007," the head of the U.N. food agency said.

The contrasting image in the cartoon is the obesity syndrome. In one of the advertisements in TV we even see "cat litter" made from corn and wheat! While America's pets poop in litter made from food, poor children just hours away are forced to eat mud because they have NO FOOD! Lots of people suffer from obesity problems due to high fat deposition in their body just because they do nothing other than eating and eating and seeing the television most of the time a day.In Food Network the other day, the chef was using the spice Saffron, which costs about $70 per ounce!!!

The poor in Haiti cannot even afford to buy 2 cups of rice for just 60 cents, while spoiled rich people spice their foods with Saffron, and gourmet themselves at Olive Garden and Ponderosa Steakhouse!Another interesting character portrayed in the cartoon is Britney Spears who have shaved her head off recently. Not to mention she is the heartthrob of millions of people around the world. She must surely be the devils favorite who is leading millions of people to the world of lust and sin. Although Britney Spears is the only one rock star portrayed in the cartoon she is just the representative of lots of freaky youth icons like Michael Jackson, Marylyn Mason, Ozzy Osbourne and the like.

The rock music industry is driving people insane. Here is an interesting quote "Our music is capable of causing emotional instability, disorganized behavior, rebellion and even revolution." .'The Beatles' "Popular music always has directive power. That power increases as the age of the targeted audience decreases. The reason Younger kids are more impressionable due to the developmental stage they're at". (Center for Parent/Youth Understanding, 2000)Some of the people doing these insane and disgusting things like shaving their heads off even admit that they aren't sure what compels them to do it.

It is all evil.Another disaster portrayed is the increasing number of people who smokes. Surely cigarette is another demonizing factor that is destroying today's society. Many people today are knowingly destroying their health with cigarettes. Are they just stupid Where is common sense If God wanted us to smoke anything, He would have put a chimney up on top of our head! Truthfully, most smokers are depressed people, and simply don't care what happens to them. People who smoke even carelessly walk out in front of the running traffic, not even a bit bothered whether you hit them or not.

Can you ever imagine someone give another person a hard time, just because they could Why are some people so mean and cruel It is just because. they are miserable and lonely!! The cartoon has also dealt with recent dollar recession and the national debt!!!The richest country in the world US is in debt! Then where did all the money go! Interesting right The estimated population of the United States is 304,928,961 so each citizen's share of this debt is $33,896.50.The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $3.

45 billion per day since September 28, 2007!The other issues dealt within the cartoon is AIDS, Global warming, the atom - bomb disaster etc. which are the by-products of modernization and the globalization in the modern world. In short an average man today is living in a world which has more fantasy than an evil filled Halloween castle. The threats he face is scarier than all the evils in the Halloween castle put together. The cartoon is a wonderful pictorial representation of the plight of the world we see today!

ReferencesArthur Sulzberger - (Publisher, New York Times - 1948).Center for Parent/Youth Understanding (2000). Britney Spears - Driving Them Crazy. Retrieved October 17, 2008, from http:// www.cpyu.org/news/00springh1.html