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Friday, May 09, 2008

That damned Noseworthy

What's Mallard raving about today?

Racism, Elitism.

How little must you think of your own ability and the intelligence of your readers when you have a character introduce himself and state his purpose every time he appears?

Bonus points for the totally nonsensical use of the word Elitist here just because it was the Right Wing Water Carrier's word of choice when this was written. Much of an echo chamber, Mallard?

8 comments:

Matt Ramone said...

Wait, did Tinsley just admit that red staters are bitter? Didn't Obama get roasted for that recently?

Anonymous said...

Straw man of the year so far.

So, who's elite? As far as I can decipher from recent political discourse, you're elite if you went to college, consume certain foods and beverages, drive certain vehicles, or have opinions that are backed by research and careful analysis rather than "common sense" or gut feel.

rewinn said...

Keeping in mind Tinsley's intentions, this is actually one of his better-written scripts.

The purpose is today's strip is to insulate Tinsley's fans from claims of racism, by depicting a wholly spurious and ridiculous claim of racism. Remember that while the intellectual brain sees this as a cartoon and thus fiction, the emotional brain experiences it as something actually seen, and therefore an emotional true.

Thus, when someone tries to talk about race, Tinsley's fans can enjoy the emotional association with this absurd cartoon definition of it, instead of (let us say) Selma or the recent shooting-up of a black wedding party by cops in disguise.

Tinsley earning extra points for associating elitism and claims of racism. Remember, Tinsley is not making an intellectual argument, but an emotional argument. His fans have an essentially racist dislike of Obama for being a black man who wears better suits and shows more smarts than they do. But they know if they come out and say it, people will think they are "racist". So they call him elitist instead. He's a black man who is smarter and classier than they are, so he must be an elitist, they feel. Emotionally, anyone who accuses them of being racist is therefore also elitist.

I realize that the above formula is not intellectually logical, but that's the way emotional logic works. And make no mistake, Tinsley's strip works for his fans.

Anonymous said...

I can only imagine that he gets called racist a hell of a lot to be so sensitive about it.

Seriously, devote that much of your time and resources to mocking discussions on racism (we all know there are hundreds more strips in this vein) coupled with the occasional one about how bad affirmative action/admitting "turnips" to university is, plus some curiously hook-nosed caricatures of actual Jewish people...and people are going to start to wonder.

Anonymous said...

And let's not forget how he drew Hu Jintao with squinting eyes and buck-teeth.

Gold-Digging Nanny said...

Nice analysis, rewinn.

rewinn said...

ty gold-digging nanny. I think I was applying some ideas from Thom Hartmann (although I haven't actually read Cracking the Code which is a must-do!

Anonymous said...

And let's not forget the fact that Colbert commented that the caricature of John Stewart looked like something from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.