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 <title>viz. - satire</title>
 <link>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/369/0</link>
 <description></description>
 <language>en</language>
<item>
 <title>Wild Horses and Bayonets Couldn’t Drag My Binders Full of Women Away: Political Satire on Web 2.0</title>
 <link>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/wild-horses-and-bayonets-couldn%E2%80%99t-drag-my-binders-full-women-away-political-satire-web-20</link>
 <description>&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;Screenshot of the Twitter feed of Invisible Obama, taken 23 January 2013&quot; src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/invisible-obama.jpg&quot; height=&quot;550&quot; width=&quot;371&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit: Screenshot from Twitter&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Inauguration officials estimate that about &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/01/official-at-least-a-million-on-the-mall-154825.html&quot;&gt;one million people&lt;/a&gt; crowded the National Mall this weekend to watch Barack Obama be sworn in as President. While this crowd was smaller than the 1.8 million who attended his first inauguration in 2008, a number of luminaries were present: Beyoncé, Stevie Wonder, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twitter.com/InvisibleObama&quot;&gt;Invisible Obama&lt;/a&gt;. Apparently Invisible Obama had a busy day planning his &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/InvisibleObama/status/293146223127445504&quot;&gt;inaugural ball outfit&lt;/a&gt;, surprising &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/InvisibleObama/status/293384312835948544&quot;&gt;Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell&lt;/a&gt;, and acting as a &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/InvisibleObama/status/293395434813145089&quot;&gt;“seat filler.”&lt;/a&gt;&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In case you’re wondering who Invisible Obama is, he is a parodic Twitter feed started during the 2012 Republican National Convention. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tampabay.com/news/clint-eastwoods-invisible-obama-fires-up-social-media/1249153&quot;&gt;As Clint Eastwood lectured an empty chair occupied by an imaginary Obama, Invisible Obama tweeted his responses back&lt;/a&gt;. Over the course of this last year’s presidential campaign, a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkantrowitz/2012/10/16/twitter-spoof-accounts-are-the-new-cool-debate-trend/&quot;&gt;number of individuals&lt;/a&gt; used new media platforms to satirically comment on the election and the debate. Yet despite the fact that the election is over, however, Invisible Obama persists in commenting on political developments and other invisibility-related issues (like &lt;a href=&quot;http://deadspin.com/5976517/manti-teos-dead-girlfriend-the-most-heartbreaking-and-inspirational-story-of-the-college-football-season-is-a-hoax&quot;&gt;Lennay Kekua&lt;/a&gt;). As I spent two weeks of December in Boston reviewing myriad eighteenth-century political satires for my dissertation, this moment finds me thinking about satire’s evolution from the eighteenth century to our present age. New forms of media—and the new possibilities for remediation that they offer—create different opportunities for rhetors. In other words, as the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licensing_of_the_Press_Act_1662&quot;&gt;1662 Licensing Act’s&lt;/a&gt; lapse and evolving engraving practices enabled satire’s rise during the eighteenth century, new media platforms like Twitter and Tumblr expand satire’s spread today. However, it seems worth asking whether or not the various proliferating political memes truly function as satire. Can we compare Twitter’s &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/paulryangosling&quot;&gt;Paul Ryan Gosling&lt;/a&gt; to Jonathan Swift’s &lt;a href=&quot;http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;A Modest Proposal&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;? And what insights does the comparison provide?&amp;nbsp; What kinds of political impact can satire make? And in what ways does it persist within the popular political discourse?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;Photograph of a page from Alexander Pope&#039;s 1728 Dunciad Variorum&quot; src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/dunciad-variorum-page.jpg&quot; height=&quot;550&quot; width=&quot;323&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=1&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;ved=0CDIQFjAA&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fgdc.gale.com%2Fproducts%2Feighteenth-century-collections-online%2F&amp;amp;ei=2u7_UK-FGeSQ2AWL8YHQDw&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNEaL0xpNTD1_N5b1Y8YmwAN0bAz3w&amp;amp;bvm=bv.41248874,d.b2I&quot;&gt;Eighteenth-Century Collections Online&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=1&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;ved=0CDIQFjAA&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fgdc.gale.com%2Fproducts%2Feighteenth-century-collections-online%2F&amp;amp;ei=2u7_UK-FGeSQ2AWL8YHQDw&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNEaL0xpNTD1_N5b1Y8YmwAN0bAz3w&amp;amp;bvm=bv.41248874,d.b2I&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Eighteenth-century satire took various forms, from text and image to performance. Whereas Alexander Pope multiplied footnotes upon footnotes in his 1729 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dunciad&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Dunciad Variorum&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt; to mock Grub Street figures like Lewis Theobald, Edmund Curll, and Eliza Haywood alongside Grub Street writing conventions, John Gay’s 1728 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggar%27s_Opera&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Beggar’s Opera&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt; turned political corruption and popular depictions of criminal life into comic melodies. The period also saw the development of a rich visual satire tradition, &lt;a href=&quot;http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20080524210556/http://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/British%20Satirical%20Prints.pdf&quot;&gt;as caricaturists like William Hogarth, James Gillray, Thomas Rowlandson, and George Cruikshank satirized eighteenth-century society at large&lt;/a&gt;. If satire is meant to enact critique, eighteenth-century satire aimed itself at many different objects. For example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gillray&quot;&gt;James Gillray&lt;/a&gt;’s 1792 print &lt;i&gt;A Voluptuary under the horrors of Digestion&lt;/i&gt; directs its ire at the spendthrift Prince Regent, who was known for his excessive eating, drinking, and gambling.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;James Gillray illustration&quot; src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/James-Gillrays-A-Voluptua-001.jpg&quot; height=&quot;550&quot; width=&quot;443&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pd/j/james_gillray,_a_voluptuary_un.aspx&quot;&gt;The British Museum&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pd/j/james_gillray,_a_voluptuary_un.aspx&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The satire here lies in the careful background details. The feathers and candles surround what should be Prinny’s crest, which here has been changed into a fork and knife crossed across a plate. His bulging gut contrasts with his carefully curled hair and elegant fob. Dice lie on the floor as a dripping pot sits behind him, both signs of his conspicuous consumption. The print hanging on the wall depicts Luigi Cornaro, a Venetian nobleman who famously wrote &lt;i&gt;The Sure and Certain Method of Attaining and Long and Healthful Life&lt;/i&gt;, a text reprinted multiple times during the eighteenth century. Gillray juxtaposes the two gentlemen not only to contrast the wastefulness of “prince of whales” with Cornaro’s sobriety, but also to generally indict upper-crust voluptuaries. If other satirists openly critiqued the fop and the macaroni as cultural types, Gillray took on the most famous and powerful example of them all.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Today’s satire groups around similar topics, but its different forms enable different effects. For example, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.yahoo.com/photos/romney-s-binders-quote-goes-viral-slideshow/romney-binders-meme-photo-1350448820.html&quot;&gt;Binders Full of Women meme&lt;/a&gt; consists of images which sprung up on Facebook and Tumblr quickly after &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/16/binders-full-of-women-mitt-romney_n_1972337.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003&quot;&gt;Romney answered a question&lt;/a&gt; about gendered pay inequity during the second presidential debate with a story of how he chose women for his gubernatorial cabinet from “whole binders full of women.” Like all memes, the visual requires popular cultural knowledge to interpret.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;No One Puts Baby in a Binder&quot; src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/baby-in-a-binder.jpg&quot; height=&quot;338&quot; width=&quot;550&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit: &lt;a href=&quot;http://bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com&quot;&gt;Binders Full of Women&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This example takes a screen still from the 1987 movie &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_dancing&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Dirty Dancing&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and overlays on top of it a rewritten line from the film: &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/28A9Jgo92GQ&quot;&gt;“No one puts Baby in a corner”&lt;/a&gt; is now updated to “No one puts Baby in a binder.” The reinterpretation works insofar as the viewer recognizes the original context, where Patrick Swayze’s Johnny Castle shows up at the movie’s conclusion to encourage the character Baby to dance with him, and thus rebel against her family’s attempts to enforce gendered and class-based restrictions. Thus, by juxtaposing Romney’s statement with this image, the meme connects Romney with similar forces of gendered oppression.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But what are the meme’s uses? The &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/TheDemocrats/status/258429990935343104&quot;&gt;Democratic Party&lt;/a&gt; quickly adopted and employed the meme to articulate arguments against many of Romney’s policy stances, co-opting the popular response for political purposes of their own. Yet commentators like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/10/17/binders_full_of_women_not_enough_to_solve_gender_wage_gap.html&quot;&gt;Amanda Marcotte&lt;/a&gt; have argued that Romney’s earlier attempts to seek out qualified women for political positions are good policy, if oddly expressed. In other words, while the meme works to satirize the popular image of Romney as a patriarchal figure—and the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/17/romney-binders-full-of-women&quot;&gt;language of restraint inherent in the word “binders”&lt;/a&gt;—its cultural extensions may in fact work to ridicule policies that do benefit women.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;Romney/Ryan 2012: Leading the Charge&quot; src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/horses-and-bayonets.jpg&quot; height=&quot;504&quot; width=&quot;500&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit: &lt;a href=&quot;http://thedailywhat.tumblr.com/post/34139091106/horsesandbayonets-of-the-day&quot;&gt;The Daily What&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://thedailywhat.tumblr.com/post/34139091106/horsesandbayonets-of-the-day&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://horsesandbayonets.tumblr.com/&quot;&gt;Horses and Bayonets&lt;/a&gt; meme, which &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/10/it-took-less-30-minutes-horses-and-bayonets-become-meme/58227/&quot;&gt;developed after a comment by President Obama&lt;/a&gt; during the last debate in which he criticized Romney’s comments on defense cuts, likewise overlays text and image to make a pointed statement. In this case, the meme gets reimagined into a Romney/Ryan slogan where Civil War re-enactors with rifles are “leading the charge” for the Republican team. The obvious Photoshopped rifles included not only suggest a link to the NRA, but also an underlying violence within the political debate.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;Obama Translated Twitter feed screenshot&quot; src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/obama-translated.jpg&quot; height=&quot;550&quot; width=&quot;371&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit: Screenshot from Twitter&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, many satirists enacted political commentary by creating parodic Twitter accounts. Taking advantage of the first-person expressive mode of the platform, individuals as varied as &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/paulryangosling&quot;&gt;Paul Ryan Gosling&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/DiamondJoeBiden&quot;&gt;Diamond Joe Biden&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twitter.com/BaneCapital&quot;&gt;Bane Capital&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/04/mitt-romney-s-debate-performance-best-tweets-about-gop-nominee-s-love-for-big-bird.html&quot;&gt;Big Bird&lt;/a&gt;, Rafalca Romney, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/MexicanMitt&quot;&gt;Mexican Mitt Romney&lt;/a&gt; began to comment on the election both in and through the persona of political actors. As Bane Capital, playing off Rush Limbaugh’s comment that &lt;i&gt;The Dark Knight&lt;/i&gt; &lt;i&gt;Rises&lt;/i&gt; was attempting to smear Romney because the movie’s villain was named Bane, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uproxx.com/webculture/2012/07/bane-capital-twitter/&quot;&gt;tweets as a pathological venture capital firm&lt;/a&gt; ready to “free Gotham’s people… from taxes on income above $250,000 per year,” the feed played on public perceptions about Romney’s morally-dubious business ethics. On the other side, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twitter.com/ObamaTranslated&quot;&gt;Obama Translated&lt;/a&gt; juxtaposes Obama’s celebrated coolness with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/09/fear-of-a-black-president/309064/?single_page=true&quot;&gt;the popular imagination of what an angry black man would say&lt;/a&gt;. In the picture above, we see how Obama&#039;s anger translator Luther reads Obama&#039;s inaugural address. This feed, however, differs from many of the other Tumblr or Twitter-based satire of the election in that it is still ongoing—and created by Key &amp;amp; Peele, a comedy duo with a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/key-and-peele&quot;&gt;Comedy Central show&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Looking back upon the variety of political memes, it’s easier to see how they functioned and what they could do. An account like Obama Translated in part continues to have life not only because Key &amp;amp; Peele have branded the idea, but also because Obama remains a powerful figure. Something like Binders Full of Women may still be able to comment on sexism, but Romney’s fall means that he is no longer the most useful means through which to do so. However, perhaps the difference between something like Paul Ryan Gosling and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver%27s_travels&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Gulliver’s Travels&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt; has much to do with the medium. While &lt;i&gt;Gulliver&lt;/i&gt; responded to a political moment, its method of publication provided the kind of narrative and conclusion that new media platforms don’t, without specifically building towards it (as in the case with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twitter.com/MayorEmanuel&quot;&gt;Mayor Emanuel&lt;/a&gt;). It may also have to do with the status attendant the book as an object that new media has not yet had the chance to obtain—in other words, we see &lt;i&gt;A Modest Proposal&lt;/i&gt; as something worth preserving, but not Bane Capital. Yet as I’ve read through &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=fN1bAAAAQAAJ&amp;amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;amp;source=gbs_ge_summary_r&amp;amp;cad=0#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot;&gt;eighteenth-century satires that attack the Duke of Newcastle’s 1750 election to Cambridge’s chancellorship&lt;/a&gt;, I have to work hard to reconstruct the moment. If eighteenth-century satire favors only slightly-veiled characterizations that make identification a guessing game for readers, new media satire retains all the same karotic specificity, but builds through repacking cultural products in new ways. I’ll be interesting to see what afterlives new media satire finds in the time to come.&lt;/p&gt;</description>
 <comments>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/wild-horses-and-bayonets-couldn%E2%80%99t-drag-my-binders-full-women-away-political-satire-web-20#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/8">Barack Obama</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/eighteenth-century">eighteenth-century</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/election-2012">Election 2012</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/memes">memes</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/mitt-romney">Mitt Romney</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/559">new media</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/369">satire</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/tumblr">tumblr</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/twitter">twitter</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/web-20">Web 2.0</category>
 <pubDate>Wed, 23 Jan 2013 14:13:58 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>Rachel Schneider</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">1016 at http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old</guid>
</item>
<item>
 <title>Mitt Romney vs. Big Bird:  When Enthymemes Attack</title>
 <link>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/mitt-romney-vs-big-bird-when-enthymemes-attack</link>
 <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/bird-behind-romney.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Big Bird stands behind Romney at an outdoor microphone&quot; width=&quot;500&quot; height=&quot;313&quot; style=&quot;display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://9.mshcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/mitt-romney-big-bird-600.jpg&quot; title=&quot;Bird behind Romney image source&quot;&gt;Unknown&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In last week&#039;s debate, one of the more memorable moments was Mitt Romney&#039;s &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/03/politics/debate-transcript/index.html&quot; title=&quot;Denver debate transcript&quot;&gt;vow&lt;/a&gt; to cut off government funding to public television despite his appreciation of both Big Bird and Jim Lehrer.  Because he would neither raise taxes nor borrow money from China, Romney argued, he would cut programs like PBS.  I suppose Romney intended the statement as a bit of red meat for his base&lt;span style=&quot;background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;—&lt;/span&gt;those who would rather their tax monies not go to PBS&lt;span style=&quot;background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;—&lt;/span&gt;and perhaps also for the putative independent/undecided voter who also distrusts such government spending. I also suppose that for such audiences the line worked. However, for other audiences, Romney&#039;s enthymeme provoked an outcry, because those audiences do not share the unstated premise in his argument that PBS does not merit continued funding. Sesame Street lovers (and Romney haters) across the web responded with a torrent of photoshopped images criticizing Romney&#039;s position.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;
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&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Video Credit: &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/yXEuEUQIP3Q&quot;&gt;PBS&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Of all the PBS programming to attack (in addition to Lehrer&#039;s &lt;i&gt;News Hour&lt;/i&gt;), Romney chose one of the most beloved children&#039;s television programs in the United States. Advocates have long grown used to defending public TV in the face of threats to cut government funding. In the video above, Fred Rogers defends PBS funding before a Senate committee considering cutting the budget for public broadcasting. The American Rhetoric website offers a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fredrogerssenatetestimonypbs.htm&quot; title=&quot;transcript of Rogers testimony&quot;&gt;transcript&lt;/a&gt; of his testimony, where Rogers wins the support of a Senator who was previously unfamiliar with Rogers&#039; work.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Romney may not be familiar with the Rogers story, or he may not care. At any event, he felt confident enough to declare that Big Bird would feast no more from the giant bird feeder of government funds should he win the presidency. I suspect that if Big Bird could &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don&#039;t_Eat_the_Pictures_(special)&quot; title=&quot;Wikipedia page on Sesame Street special where Big Bird goes to afterlife&quot;&gt;face down an Egyptian demon&lt;/a&gt; and assist a lost soul on his journey through the afterlife, Romney doesn&#039;t pose too great a challenge. And if Big Bird needs any help, he can find it in the wide-spread support being expressed on image boards and blogs.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;
&lt;object width=&quot;420&quot; height=&quot;315&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/3c5-MwrAKOo?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=367&amp;amp;rel=0&quot; /&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowFullScreen&quot; value=&quot;true&quot; /&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowscriptaccess&quot; value=&quot;always&quot; /&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/3c5-MwrAKOo?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=367&amp;amp;rel=0&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; width=&quot;420&quot; height=&quot;315&quot; allowscriptaccess=&quot;always&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;true&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;Video Credit: &lt;i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/3c5-MwrAKOo&quot;&gt;Sesame Street&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In the spirit of Sesame Street, I&#039;m excluding images with graphic language or imagery, though they&#039;re out there if you want to search for them. The images cover a range of arguments, from supporting President Obama or criticizing Romney to supporting PBS, and they use a range of emotional tenors from good-hearted ribbing to sharp satire to anger and sadness.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/bulls-eyes.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Big Bird &amp;amp; bin Laden behind bulls eyes&quot; width=&quot;243&quot; height=&quot;200&quot; style=&quot;display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit: &lt;a href=&quot;http://elections.americablog.com/2012/10/quick-recap-of-presidential-debate.html/attachment/romney-bigbird&quot; title=&quot;Bulls Eyes image source&quot;&gt;John Aravosis&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Much like Vice President Biden&#039;s &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57505234-503544/biden-we-are-better-off-bin-laden-is-dead-and-general-motors-is-alive/&quot; title=&quot;news story on Biden quote&quot;&gt;summation&lt;/a&gt; of the first Obama term that bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive, the above image contrasts the different &quot;aims&quot; of the Obama and Romney campaigns, placing bin Laden and Big Bird behind bulls-eyes.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/bird-west.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Big Bird in West &amp;quot;doesn&#039;t like black people&amp;quot; photoshop&quot; width=&quot;358&quot; height=&quot;293&quot; style=&quot;display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit: &lt;a href=&quot;http://everyonedienow.com/post/32883328692&quot; title=&quot;Source for West/Bird photoshop&quot;&gt;everyonedienow&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/mitt-swift.png&quot; alt=&quot;Romney pasted over Taylor Swift&quot; width=&quot;500&quot; height=&quot;497&quot; style=&quot;display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit: &lt;a href=&quot;http://instagram.com/p/QXnzwtky5t/&quot; title=&quot;Source for Romney/Swift photshop&quot;&gt;leuqarraquel&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: left;&quot;&gt;Two Kanye West memes have been repurposed for this debate. In the first, his claim that George W. Bush doesn&#039;t care about black people has been replaced with Big Bird West saying that Romney doesn&#039;t care about Big Bird. In the second, Big Bird stands in the background as West pulls away the microphones from Willard Mitt &quot;Taylor Swift&quot; Romney, declaring &quot;But Big Bird is one of the best birds of all time.&quot; (I have to admit that West&#039;s more proactive moderating style might have helped the debate stay on track better than Lehrer&#039;s tepid interjections.)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/west-lehrer.png&quot; alt=&quot;Lehrer&#039;s head pasted over Swift&#039;s body; Romney&#039;s over West&#039;s&quot; width=&quot;500&quot; height=&quot;338&quot; style=&quot;display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://cheezburger.com/6637110016&quot; title=&quot;Source for Romney/Lehrer photoshop&quot;&gt;LabCoder&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Other images use Sesame Street common places. In one, Big Bird informs the viewer that today is brought to us by the letter U for unemployed. In another, using a frame from an episode, he sits sadly with two children on a Sesame Street stoop holding a sign reading &quot;Will work for food.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/bird-u.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Big Bird tells the viewers the sponsor of today&#039;s letter U&quot; width=&quot;500&quot; height=&quot;397&quot; style=&quot;display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://johnnyhuckleberry.tumblr.com/post/32882309415/the-letter-u&quot; title=&quot;Source for letter u photoshop&quot;&gt;johnnyhuckleberry&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/bird-will-work.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Big Bird holds sign &amp;quot;will work for food&amp;quot;&quot; width=&quot;435&quot; height=&quot;500&quot; style=&quot;display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://cinemascapes08.tumblr.com/post/32883016465/the-government-makes-up-12-of-pbs-funding-most&quot; title=&quot;Image source for Will Work photoshop&quot;&gt;cinemascapes08&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The real urban streets too provide source images with Occupy Wallstreet protesters replaced with muppets from the TV show. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/i/#!/search/realtime/%23occupysesamestreet&quot; title=&quot;Twitter feed for occupy sesame street tag&quot;&gt;#occupysesamestreet&lt;/a&gt; meme does predate Romney&#039;s Big Bird moment, but the images seem even more relevant now.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/occupy-sesame-st.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Muppets replace Occupy protesters&quot; width=&quot;500&quot; height=&quot;375&quot; style=&quot;display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://mylivetube.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-sesame-street.html&quot; title=&quot;source for occupy photoshops&quot;&gt;Unknown&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Familiar Obama campaign imagery serves as the basis for others, with Big Bird appearing in Shepard Fairey&#039;s famous &quot;Hope&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_%22Hope%22_poster&quot; title=&quot;Wikipedia page on Fairey poster&quot;&gt;poster&lt;/a&gt;, standing next to the red, white and blue sunrise symbol, or picking up on the campaign&#039;s&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/12/obama-back-to-black-voters-radio-ad&quot; title=&quot;Guardian story on We&#039;ve Got Your Back ad&quot;&gt; &quot;We&#039;ve Got Your Back&quot; ad&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/bird-hope.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Fairey Hope Big Bird photoshop: Line drawn Big Bird head on split red/blue background&quot; width=&quot;299&quot; height=&quot;299&quot; style=&quot;display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.facebook.com/CBS6Albany&quot; title=&quot;Link to Facebook source for Hope photoshop&quot;&gt;Unknown&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/bird-2012.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Big Bird with Obama 2012 logo: red, white &amp;amp; blue sunrise&quot; width=&quot;500&quot; height=&quot;500&quot; style=&quot;display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;Image Credit: &lt;a href=&quot;http://davonemadisonjackson.tumblr.com/post/32876623247/save-big-bird-savebigbird-bigbird&quot; title=&quot;Source for 2012 photoshop&quot;&gt;davonemadisonjackson&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/bird-back.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Big Bird from behind with &amp;quot;I&#039;ve got his back&amp;quot;&quot; width=&quot;500&quot; height=&quot;500&quot; style=&quot;display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;Image Credit: &lt;a href=&quot;http://perpetualfrizz.tumblr.com/post/32882191936/my-favorite-version-of-this-poster-ilovepbs&quot; title=&quot;Source for Got His Back photoshop&quot;&gt;perpetualfrizz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

</description>
 <comments>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/mitt-romney-vs-big-bird-when-enthymemes-attack#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/8">Barack Obama</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/big-bird">Big Bird</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/18">Humor</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/memes">memes</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/mitt-romney">Mitt Romney</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/291">photoshop</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/6">politics</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/369">satire</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/sesame-street">Sesame Street</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/17">Visual Rhetoric</category>
 <pubDate>Mon, 08 Oct 2012 13:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>Todd Battistelli</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">971 at http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old</guid>
</item>
<item>
 <title>I Made America, You&#039;re All Welcome!</title>
 <link>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/i-made-america-youre-all-welcome</link>
 <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img style=&quot;display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;&quot; alt=&quot;The Founding Fathers, as depicted by modern actors.  They are arranged in two rows; standing from left are John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison; seated in front are George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.  They are posed before a background resembling the red and white stripes of an American flag; all are wearing eighteenth-century costumes.&quot; src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/founding-fathers-2012.png&quot; height=&quot;372&quot; width=&quot;521&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imadeamerica.com&quot;&gt;I Made America&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one person to distract herself from work, Facebook provides. Through the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.secondcitynetwork.com/&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;The S&lt;/i&gt;&lt;i&gt;econd City Network&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt; I found a video entitled “Founding Fathers History Pick-Up Lines.” Clearly, I couldn’t resist. I was deeply amused to watch Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington, and John Adams seduce modern women with such lines as “It’s not the Louisiana Purchase, but it will double in size,” “Never leave for tomorrow what you can screw today,” and “I take the virgin out of Virginia.” The full video below features many more salacious lines, some of which might not be SFW:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;More delightful than the video itself was discovering that it is part of a much larger undertaking. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imadeamerica.com&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;I Made America&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is a transmedia project that relies on multiple media to tell one story: how &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.facebook.com/GoGoFrankie&quot;&gt;Franklin&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.facebook.com/GetRichHamilton&quot;&gt;Hamilton&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.facebook.com/JeffersonAgain&quot;&gt;Jefferson&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.facebook.com/GoingMadison&quot;&gt;Madison&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.facebook.com/WashingtonPres1&quot;&gt;Washington&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.facebook.com/ItsJohnAdams&quot;&gt;John Adams&lt;/a&gt; were kidnapped from the past, brought to 2012 Chicago, and the adventures that followed. Transmedia, &lt;a href=&quot;http://henryjenkins.org/2011/08/defining_transmedia_further_re.html&quot;&gt;as described by Henry Jenkins&lt;/a&gt;, “represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get &lt;i&gt;dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels&lt;/i&gt; for the purpose of creating &lt;i&gt;a unified and coordinated entertainment experience&lt;/i&gt;. Ideally, each medium makes its own &lt;i&gt;unique contribution&lt;/i&gt; to the unfolding of the story.” This scattered content then &lt;a href=&quot;http://henryjenkins.org/2011/08/defining_transmedia_further_re.html&quot;&gt;“offers backstory, maps the world, offers us other character’s perspectives on the action, or deepens audience engagement.”&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img style=&quot;display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;&quot; alt=&quot;This image explains what transmedia is; there is a large green circle with other small circles within it, and text at the center. The smaller circles contain the words Journal, Video, Documents, Games, Photos, Events, and Music running clockwise from the top; in the center of the large circle it says Story Scripted and Live&quot; src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/transmedia-explained.png&quot; height=&quot;354&quot; width=&quot;366&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit: &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/j8pcdVfOGrA&quot;&gt;Screenshot from YouTube&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In &lt;i&gt;I Made America&lt;/i&gt;’s case, a series of videos shows how the Founding Fathers adapt to their new circumstances after being abandoned by &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/#%21/ARFF_PAC&quot;&gt;the American Revolutionaries for Freedom and Family Super PAC&lt;/a&gt;, who brought them to the present to endorse conservative causes. Their modern lives include &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/JKj5Km18KQ0&quot;&gt;keg stands&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/aIHPF1Xyass&quot;&gt;romantic intrigues&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/qG46uzyGTfo&quot;&gt;drunken bar brawls&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/QTKJQThjQ1E&quot;&gt;open mic nights&lt;/a&gt;, and even &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/SEG1MHNhBr8&quot;&gt;enhanced science-fiction dioramas&lt;/a&gt;. Yet the videos can’t contain the whole story—as the Founders wander about Chicago, their activities are recorded on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.okcupid.com/profile/g_washington&quot;&gt;various&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://poordicks.tumblr.com&quot;&gt;social media&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/#%21/jeffersonagain&quot;&gt;platforms&lt;/a&gt;, which are collated and archived on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imadeamerica.com&quot;&gt;the series’ website&lt;/a&gt;. Fans can thus follow their favorites from Facebook and Twitter into &lt;a href=&quot;http://psychofuzz.tumblr.com/post/21420149422/this-is-the-first-set-of-photos-from-the&quot;&gt;real life interactions&lt;/a&gt; with the characters at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.avclub.com/chicago/articles/celebrate-george-washingtons-birthday-with-the-old,68816/&quot;&gt;birthday parties&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://poordicks.tumblr.com/post/20728982714/the-cubs-invented-murder-and-a-shout-out-to-the&quot;&gt;Cubs games&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img style=&quot;display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;&quot; alt=&quot;Screenshot from Washington&#039;s blog, in which he asks about what he should name his beer&quot; src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/washingtons-blog.png&quot; height=&quot;388&quot; width=&quot;450&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit: &lt;a href=&quot;http://washingtonpres1.tumblr.com/&quot;&gt;Screenshot from It is better to be alone than in bad company&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Transmedia thus makes possible new kinds of personalized fan experience. An &lt;i&gt;I Made America&lt;/i&gt; fan can watch &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/JKj5Km18KQ0&quot;&gt;the first episode&lt;/a&gt;, then check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL70CC18645E74A795&quot;&gt;Franklin’s video blogs&lt;/a&gt;, read &lt;a href=&quot;http://hamishot.tumblr.com&quot;&gt;Hamilton’s Tumblr&lt;/a&gt;, download &lt;a href=&quot;http://imadeamerica.com/music/thomas-jefferson-songs-from-monticello/&quot;&gt;Jefferson’s music&lt;/a&gt;, and follow &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/#%21/GoingMadison&quot;&gt;Madison’s Twitter feed&lt;/a&gt;. The series’ &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.facebook.com/IMadeAmerica&quot;&gt;heavy&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twitter.com/#!/IMadeAmerica&quot;&gt;social media presence, however, means that fans can not only produce &lt;a href=&quot;http://poordicks.tumblr.com/post/20175404212/thelingerieaddict-love-via-va-bien-really&quot;&gt;fanart&lt;/a&gt; but also &lt;a href=&quot;http://poordicks.tumblr.com/post/20885777322/polks-quickly-jumps-on-the-internet-to-post&quot;&gt;share it with the objects of that art&lt;/a&gt; directly.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;Illustration of George Washington, set against a blue background. Made by a fan of I Made America.&quot; src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/washington.png&quot; height=&quot;350&quot; width=&quot;350&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit: &lt;a href=&quot;http://polks.tumblr.com/post/20885599290&quot;&gt;Polks&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Their interactions even have the power to solicit new content: as Benjamin Franklin &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/DYaH2yTeRH4&quot;&gt;often eats Pop-Tarts&lt;/a&gt; during the episodes, &lt;a href=&quot;http://poordicks.tumblr.com/post/20948493121/awesomeasia-brb-foaming-at-the-mouth-cant&quot;&gt;one fan texted Franklin&lt;/a&gt; to ask if he had ever put a whole Pop-Tart in his mouth. He then attempted to do so on video, challenged &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/kd26w-D_uTQ&quot;&gt;others&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/CoJt9CmIWz0&quot;&gt;to&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://poordicks.tumblr.com/post/21210333259/ptchew-i-look-like-a-chipmunk-a-valiant&quot;&gt;respond&lt;/a&gt;, and then &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/bfPIyI4qRHA&quot;&gt;George Washington posted video of his officemate Caroline attempting the feat&lt;/a&gt;. The audience can move from passive reception to &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/vWYQD6UROYQ&quot;&gt;active participation&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img style=&quot;display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;&quot; alt=&quot;Image of James Madison at Chicago&#039;s C2E2, confronting a Dalek&quot; src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/madison-at-c2e2.png&quot; height=&quot;513&quot; width=&quot;436&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit: &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/#%21/GoingMadison/status/191211177211203584&quot;&gt;@GoingMadison&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;However, what is the purpose of such transmedia projects? If transmedia allows audiences greater interactivity with texts, what kinds of experiences does this make possible? And what distinguishes &lt;i&gt;I Made America&lt;/i&gt; from earlier (and more conventionally produced) projects like &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blair_witch_project&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;The Blair Witch Project&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;? According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/j8pcdVfOGrA&quot;&gt;original video pitch&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;i&gt;I Made America&lt;/i&gt; is “not about selling a product, but about telling a story. A story of fiction, reality, comedy, politics, and America.” While comedy predominates, its bent is frequently satirical; we can laugh at the sheer silliness of Benjamin Franklin saying “You’re welcome for French ladies,” but Hamilton demanding “Why don’t you vote?” points out the consistent failure of Americans to participate in the political process.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;As the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence remain central to American political discourse, remediating and reimagining the Founders through embodied performance calls into question what we understand America to be. Right now, it’s not just fictional groups like A.R.F.F. who feel like they best understanding the Founding Fathers, it’s also political movements like the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/opinion/24chernow.html?_r=1&amp;amp;pagewanted=all&quot;&gt;Tea Party&lt;/a&gt; and legal practitioners of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Originalism&quot;&gt;originalism&lt;/a&gt; that imagine 2012 America should be governed like its 1788 counterpart. &lt;i&gt;I Made America&lt;/i&gt; challenges this by imagining how Thomas Jefferson might answer &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/newt-gingrich-new-hampshire-pot_n_1183618.html&quot;&gt;Newt Gingrich’s assertions of what Jefferson might do&lt;/a&gt;, as well as suggesting &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/_4sOxJuLvX0&quot;&gt;how inadequately the Founders might be prepared to deal with twenty-first century realities&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;
&lt;object width=&quot;550&quot; height=&quot;309&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/4j2TPZGpBC0?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US&quot; /&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowFullScreen&quot; value=&quot;true&quot; /&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowscriptaccess&quot; value=&quot;always&quot; /&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/4j2TPZGpBC0?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; width=&quot;550&quot; height=&quot;309&quot; allowscriptaccess=&quot;always&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;true&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/FcM0yOemH_8&quot;&gt;At the first season’s end&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;i&gt;I Made America&lt;/i&gt;’s initial light plot turns serious as John Adams begins a presidential re-election campaign and as viewers learn that A.R.F.F. holds Madison captive. What will happen next can only be predicted through another founder’s words: in this case, &lt;i&gt;I Made America&lt;/i&gt;’s creator Mark Muszynski, who planned the series to run &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/j8pcdVfOGrA&quot;&gt;“alongside the upcoming election so it can respond in real time to things that are actually happening in our world.” &lt;/a&gt;So far, Adams has made a campaign stop at Occupy Chicago and received his former Vice President’s musical endorsement. As fans continue to spread the word about &lt;i&gt;I Made America&lt;/i&gt;, I can only wait to see what happens next. Perhaps &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twitter.com/#!/GetRichHamilton&quot;&gt;Hamilton&lt;/a&gt;, Adams’s campaign manager, can learn some Chicago-style savvy from &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/#%21/mayoremanuel&quot;&gt;@mayoremanuel&lt;/a&gt;. I don’t think he needs help &lt;a href=&quot;http://hamishot.tumblr.com/post/21258141500/polkadotcummerbund-tbh-i-made-a-funny&quot;&gt;with the cursing&lt;/a&gt;, though.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/i-made-america-youre-all-welcome#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/561">America</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/438">American history</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/comedy">Comedy</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/election-2012">Election 2012</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/fan-art">fan art</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/fandoms">fandoms</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/nsfw">NSFW</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/politial-art">Politial Art</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/6">politics</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/369">satire</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/transmedia">transmedia</category>
 <pubDate>Sat, 21 Apr 2012 00:00:08 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>Rachel Schneider</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">934 at http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old</guid>
</item>
<item>
 <title>“If the unemployed are hungry, why don’t they eat themselves?”: Thinking Satire in a Tragi-Comic Age</title>
 <link>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/%E2%80%9Cif-unemployed-are-hungry-why-don%E2%80%99t-they-eat-themselves%E2%80%9D-thinking-satire-tragi-comic-age</link>
 <description>
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;iframe width=&quot;420&quot; height=&quot;315&quot; src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/embed/AGl6lHUbsg0&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Video Credit: Youtube.com&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lloyd_(writer)&quot;&gt;John Lloyd&lt;/a&gt;, producer of &lt;i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitting_Image&quot;&gt;Spitting Image&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/i&gt; (1984–1996), tells a story of how he was asked to validate the &quot;humor&quot; of the title (&#039;If the unemployed are hungry, why don&#039;t they eat themselves&#039;) to television executives who missed his allusion to Jonathan Swift’s &lt;i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal&quot;&gt;Modest Proposal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/i&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cg6UjvgHW0&amp;amp;feature=related&quot; title=&quot;Frost On Satire&quot;&gt;8:08 min&lt;/a&gt;). He had given these lines to the puppet of conservative MP &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Tebbit&quot;&gt;Norman Tebbit&lt;/a&gt; (with bat above). Lloyd’s story gestures to two limitations to satire on the boob tube:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: left;&quot;&gt;1. The public&#039;s general lack of familiarity with the satirical tradition&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: left;&quot;&gt;2. A pervasive demand for our ‘satirists’ to operate as ‘comedians’&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt; A brief explanation through the lens of satires during Jonathan Swift&#039;s era (17th–18th c.) might clearly show that the english language/english-speaking population once possessed: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;1. a refined and self-conscious conception of satire &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;2. a definite distinction between comedy and satire&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt; To begin, if we consider Samuel Johnson’s &lt;i&gt;Dictionary&lt;/i&gt;—published in the golden age of British satire—we find a striking differentiation between:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Comedy: &lt;/i&gt;[comedia, Lat.] A dramatick representation of the lighter faults of mankind&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Comical:&lt;/i&gt; [comicus, Lat.] (1.) Raising mirth; merry; diverting&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Comedian:&lt;/i&gt; A player or actor of comic parts&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Satire: &lt;/i&gt;[&lt;i&gt;satira&lt;/i&gt;, anciently &lt;i&gt;satura&lt;/i&gt;, Lat. Not from &lt;i&gt;satyrus&lt;/i&gt;, as satyr] A poem in which wickedness or folly is censured.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Satirick:&lt;/i&gt; (1.) Belonging to satire; employed in writing of invective; (2.) Censorious; severe in language&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Satirist:&lt;/i&gt; One who writes satires&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/Fetch_0.jpeg&quot; alt=&quot;Modest Proposal&quot; width=&quot;323.5&quot; height=&quot;455.5&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit: Eighteenth-Century Collections Online&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Writers and artists have formerly recognized several forms of satire. For example, there are several well-defined classical forms. A polite “&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satires_(Horace)&quot;&gt;Horatian&lt;/a&gt;” satirist would favor laughter, wit, and amusement, and tend toward conciliatory, quietist, apolitical stances. A “&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satires_(Juvenal)&quot;&gt;Juvenalian&lt;/a&gt;” satirist, conversely, would compose brash, abrasive, indignant, and confrontational works. Juvenalian satirists embraced a tragic sensibility regarding vice, folly, and corruption. They attacked forces that did not fear the law itself. The &#039;Juvenalian&#039; adopted a persona of unquestionable authority—a pose of moral righteousness. Beyond the prominent Horatian and Juvenalian styles, there is also the learned &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menippean_satire&quot;&gt;Menippean&lt;/a&gt;” satirist, who focused on ideas, mental attitudes, and the &quot;humours,&quot; and culled subject matter from an obscure and diverse array of sources. In contrast to this rich discourse of satirical possibilities, we now have a narrow idea of satire. Some influential voices in the media don&#039;t even understand what satire is. Case and point:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;
&lt;object classid=&quot;clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000&quot; id=&quot;+id+&quot; width=&quot;400&quot; height=&quot;336&quot; codebase=&quot;http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/swflash.cab&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://embed.crooksandliars.com/v/MjA5NDctNDczNDg?color=C93033&quot; /&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowFullScreen&quot; value=&quot;true&quot; /&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;quality&quot; value=&quot;high&quot; /&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;wmode&quot; value=&quot;transparent&quot; /&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowScriptAccess&quot; value=&quot;always&quot; /&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://embed.crooksandliars.com/v/MjA5NDctNDczNDg?color=C93033&quot; quality=&quot;high&quot; wmode=&quot;transparent&quot;	width=&quot;400&quot; height=&quot;336&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;true&quot; name=&quot;clembedMjA5NDctNDczNDg&quot; align=&quot;middle&quot; quality=&quot;high&quot; allowScriptAccess=&quot;always&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; pluginspage=&quot;http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Video Credit: Crooksandliars.com&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt; Wallace&#039;s obtuseness to satire (I&#039;ll be generous and not call it disingenuity) suggests to me that he and his colleagues need more exposure to it. The following video is one satire I like, because it effects the belly (laughter) and the gut (disgust). Skip the lengthy musical introduction below, but check out Amy Goodman&#039;s interview with the &quot;Yes Men&quot; and see their pseudonymous satire in the &quot;private sphere&quot; (courtesy of Haliburton). Our steak-and-potatoes badge of corporate/collective shame: &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;iframe width=&quot;420&quot; height=&quot;315&quot; src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/embed/00w3nY6hkas&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Video Credit: Youtube.com&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
So I suggest that we might start thinking about and experimenting with this wider sphere of satirical possibilities. Our society seems to be asking us to. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;iframe width=&quot;420&quot; height=&quot;315&quot; src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/embed/EXdq95uAbrQ&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Video Credit: Youtube.com&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
 <comments>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/%E2%80%9Cif-unemployed-are-hungry-why-don%E2%80%99t-they-eat-themselves%E2%80%9D-thinking-satire-tragi-comic-age#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/chris-wallace">Chris Wallace</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/comedy">Comedy</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/jon-stewart">Jon Stewart</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/jonathan-swift">Jonathan Swift</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/369">satire</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/spitting-image">Spitting Image</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/tragedy">Tragedy</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/yes-men">Yes Men</category>
 <pubDate>Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:15:30 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>Matthew Reilly</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">880 at http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old</guid>
</item>
<item>
 <title>Sensual Suicide and Ironic Intent - Florian Jennet and Valentin Beinroth&#039;s &quot;Freeze! Revisited&quot;</title>
 <link>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/sensual-suicide-and-ironic-intent-florian-jennet-and-valentin-beinroths-freeze-revisited</link>
 <description>&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/freeze2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;guns&quot; height=&quot;500&quot; width=&quot;400&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;margin-top: 12pt; text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Image Credit: &quot;Freeze! Revisited&quot; by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.florianjenett.de/freeze-revisited/&quot;&gt;Florian Jennet&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.valentinbeinroth.com/index.php?/projects/freeze-revisited/&quot;&gt;Valentin Beinroth&lt;/a&gt; via &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.todayandtomorrow.net/2010/08/17/freeze-revisited/&quot;&gt;todayandtomorrow.net &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;margin-top: 12pt; text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;H/T to Ben Koch&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;margin-top: 12pt;&quot;&gt;Since the 1950s, the pop art movement has been challenging our ideas about mass-produced images and objects.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Particularly by manipulating context, pop artists identify and exploit cultural trends.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;In a recent exhibition, two German artists explored the intersections of art, violence, and mistaken identities.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;margin-top: 12pt;&quot;&gt;&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/freeze1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;gun fetish&quot; height=&quot;375&quot; width=&quot;500&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Image Credit: &quot;Freeze! Revisited&quot; by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.florianjenett.de/freeze-revisited/&quot;&gt;Florian Jennet&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.valentinbeinroth.com/index.php?/projects/freeze-revisited/&quot;&gt;Valentin Beinroth&lt;/a&gt; via &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.todayandtomorrow.net/2010/08/17/freeze-revisited/&quot;&gt;todayandtomorrow.net &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;margin-top: 12pt;&quot;&gt;The “guns” in these images are actually just gun-shaped popsicles.&amp;nbsp; Even with contextualization, the images are striking, primarily because they reverse my expectations.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;The sensuality of the young woman contrasts ironically with her (essentially) suicidal pose.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Given the other people in the background and the incongruity of her expression, it’s easier to disassociate the image with the potential violence it depicts.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;margin-top: 12pt;&quot;&gt;The vending machine look of the freezer (above) provides an interesting commentary on contemporary issues of mass-produced violence and the widespread availability of weaponry. &lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;I don’t know much about &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Germany&quot;&gt;gun politics in Germany&lt;/a&gt;, so maybe I’m just reading my own political views onto it.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;However, images from this project were featured in an issue of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.aspeers.com/2010&quot;&gt;as|peers&lt;/a&gt; (an American Studies journal) that focused on America and Crime.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;margin-top: 12pt;&quot;&gt;These images come from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.valentinbeinroth.com/index.php?/projects/freeze-revisited/&quot;&gt;&quot;Freeze! Revisted,&quot;&lt;/a&gt; the second version of Valentin Beinroth and Florian Jenett’s &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.valentinbeinroth.com/index.php?/projects/freeze/&quot;&gt;“Freeze” project&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;In the first project the ice guns were flavorless, not intended for consumption but just to “look real on first sight.”&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;The artists enacted realistic situations with the ice guns and then discarded them in various places around Frankfurt – until the performances were stopped by the police.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;margin-top: 12pt;&quot;&gt;For “Freeze! Revisited,” the edible ice guns were handed out to visitors.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Whereas the first project left little visible record, this version resulted in an exciting archive of images.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/freeze3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;boy with gun&quot; height=&quot;375&quot; width=&quot;500&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Image Credit: &quot;Freeze! Revisited&quot; by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.florianjenett.de/freeze-revisited/&quot;&gt;Florian Jennet&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.valentinbeinroth.com/index.php?/projects/freeze-revisited/&quot;&gt;Valentin Beinroth&lt;/a&gt; via &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.todayandtomorrow.net/2010/08/17/freeze-revisited/&quot;&gt;todayandtomorrow.net &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;margin-top: 12pt;&quot;&gt;On the whole, I found the project delightfully morbid, and most of the images amused me thoroughly.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;The photo of the little boy, however, I find rather disturbing. &lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;Standing alone and gazing earnestly at the camera, the boy reverses the gaze and thereby implicates the spectator.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Directly connecting youth and violence, this image loses the sense of irony that the project otherwise invokes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;margin-top: 12pt;&quot;&gt;Or, perhaps, irony was never the goal.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;The artists’ websites are largely written in German (which I don’t understand).&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;So this brings up the interesting question of intentionality, especially across cultural divides. Is my reading of these images as anti-gun, pro-gun-control any less valid though the “text” is German and I’m American? &lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;Were these ever meant to be ironic? Or were they intended to shock instead of amuse? Does intentionality even matter if I can’t access it?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;!--EndFragment--&gt;</description>
 <comments>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/sensual-suicide-and-ironic-intent-florian-jennet-and-valentin-beinroths-freeze-revisited#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/70">art</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/18">Humor</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/362">performance</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/377">photography</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/369">satire</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/129">visual art</category>
 <pubDate>Mon, 13 Sep 2010 21:42:01 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>Cate Blouke</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">584 at http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old</guid>
</item>
<item>
 <title>Satire Sandwiches: Stephen Colbert&#039;s Thought for Food</title>
 <link>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/satire-sandwiches-stephen-colberts-thought-food</link>
 <description>&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;img class=&quot;mceItem&quot; src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/Colbert_PringleSandwich.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; width=&quot;550&quot; height=&quot;363&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit: screen capture from ColbertNation.com&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: left;&quot;&gt;Food policy can be pretty disheartening stuff: anything that combines environmentalism, worker&#039;s rights and public health in a single topic is likely to include bad-to-terrible news pretty much every day. With the Senate underfunding the Child Nutrition Act, bluefin tuna set to go extinct and &lt;a href=&quot;http://video.pbs.org/video/1436149763/&quot;&gt;Dirt! The Movie&lt;/a&gt; preparing to air on PBS, even my fairly-high tolerance for crisis fatigue was wearing thin this week. Thankfully, Stephen Colbert was there to talk me off the ledge. As is often the case, Colbert managed to make life livable with his pringle-and-whipped-cream-like blend of irony and humor-- two remarkable human capacities that are often undervalued because they elude satisfactory explanation by rhetorical, literary or philosophical models. While even Jon Stewart&#039;s comedic analysis of politicians and pundits can often be as depressing as it is amusing, Colbert&#039;s satiric send-ups consistently manage to wink their way through all kinds of maddening news stories and leave me with a crisp, clean finish. His new &quot;Thought for Food&quot; segment lives up to those expectations. Rather than attempting (and almost certainly failing) to explain the jokes, I thought I&#039;d share a few videos and comment as needed. More on Colbert, corn-surpluses, advertising and unholy sandwiches after the break.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: left;&quot;&gt;
&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: left;&quot;&gt;Colbert began his &quot;Thought for Food&quot; segment in mid-March. His second installment covers a lot of the ground that I have written about recently on this blog. He begins, appropriately enough, with some novel uses for corn-- when subsidies artificially supress the price of corn while simultaneously creating massive surplusses, you get... well, you&#039;ll see. He ends with his own take on Oliver&#039;s &lt;em&gt;Food Revolution&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;
&lt;table style=&#039;font:11px arial; color:#333; background-color:#f5f5f5&#039; cellpadding=&#039;0&#039; cellspacing=&#039;0&#039; width=&#039;360&#039; height=&#039;353&#039;&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr style=&#039;background-color:#e5e5e5&#039; valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;&#039;&gt;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;color:#333; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.colbertnation.com&#039;&gt;The Colbert Report&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:2px 5px 0px 5px; text-align:right; font-weight:bold;&#039;&gt;Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr style=&#039;height:14px;&#039; valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;&#039; colspan=&#039;2&#039;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;color:#333; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/268500/march-30-2010/thought-for-food---corn-diapers--fatty-foods---jamie-oliver&#039;&gt;Thought for Food - Corn Diapers, Fatty Foods &amp;amp; Jamie Oliver&lt;a&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr style=&#039;height:14px; background-color:#353535&#039; valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td colspan=&#039;2&#039; style=&#039;padding:2px 5px 0px 5px; width:360px; overflow:hidden; text-align:right&#039;&gt;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;color:#96deff; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.colbertnation.com/&#039;&gt;www.colbertnation.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:0px;&#039; colspan=&#039;2&#039;&gt;&lt;embed style=&#039;display:block&#039; src=&#039;http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:268500&#039; width=&#039;360&#039; height=&#039;301&#039; type=&#039;application/x-shockwave-flash&#039; wmode=&#039;window&#039; allowFullscreen=&#039;true&#039; flashvars=&#039;autoPlay=false&#039; allowscriptaccess=&#039;always&#039; allownetworking=&#039;all&#039; bgcolor=&#039;#000000&#039;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr style=&#039;height:18px;&#039; valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:0px;&#039; colspan=&#039;2&#039;&gt;
&lt;table style=&#039;margin:0px; text-align:center&#039; cellpadding=&#039;0&#039; cellspacing=&#039;0&#039; width=&#039;100%&#039; height=&#039;100%&#039;&gt;
&lt;tr valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:3px; width:33%;&#039;&gt;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/&#039;&gt;Colbert Report Full Episodes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:3px; width:33%;&#039;&gt;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.indecisionforever.com&#039;&gt;Political Humor&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:3px; width:33%;&#039;&gt;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.colbertnation.com/video/tag/Fox+News&#039;&gt;Fox News&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: left;&quot;&gt;The third and latest installment of &quot;Thought for Food&quot; focuses on marketing processed foods. The centerpiece of the segment takes aim at KFC&#039;s new &quot;Double Down&quot; &quot;sandwich&quot;. If you thought Colbert&#039;s Pringle-RediWhip creation was a bad idea, then you&#039;ll love this bacon sandwich with fried-chicken buns. Oddly enough, the fist time I logged on to ColberNation.com and watched the video of Stephen roundly panning the fried mass of animal protein, the banner ad at the top of the page was selling-- wait for it-- KFC&#039;s new Double Down sandwich (I guess that when your food is a publicity stunt, any attention is good attention). It reminds me of Michael Pollan&#039;s &quot;rule&quot; about not eating anything you&#039;ve ever seen advertised. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;
&lt;table style=&#039;font:11px arial; color:#333; background-color:#f5f5f5&#039; cellpadding=&#039;0&#039; cellspacing=&#039;0&#039; width=&#039;360&#039; height=&#039;353&#039;&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr style=&#039;background-color:#e5e5e5&#039; valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;&#039;&gt;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;color:#333; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.colbertnation.com&#039;&gt;The Colbert Report&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:2px 5px 0px 5px; text-align:right; font-weight:bold;&#039;&gt;Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr style=&#039;height:14px;&#039; valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;&#039; colspan=&#039;2&#039;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;color:#333; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/270726/april-13-2010/thought-for-food---mentally-ill-advertisers---german-cupcakes&#039;&gt;Thought for Food - Mentally Ill Advertisers &amp;amp; German Cupcakes&lt;a&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr style=&#039;height:14px; background-color:#353535&#039; valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td colspan=&#039;2&#039; style=&#039;padding:2px 5px 0px 5px; width:360px; overflow:hidden; text-align:right&#039;&gt;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;color:#96deff; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.colbertnation.com/&#039;&gt;www.colbertnation.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:0px;&#039; colspan=&#039;2&#039;&gt;&lt;embed style=&#039;display:block&#039; src=&#039;http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:270726&#039; width=&#039;360&#039; height=&#039;301&#039; type=&#039;application/x-shockwave-flash&#039; wmode=&#039;window&#039; allowFullscreen=&#039;true&#039; flashvars=&#039;autoPlay=false&#039; allowscriptaccess=&#039;always&#039; allownetworking=&#039;all&#039; bgcolor=&#039;#000000&#039;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr style=&#039;height:18px;&#039; valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:0px;&#039; colspan=&#039;2&#039;&gt;
&lt;table style=&#039;margin:0px; text-align:center&#039; cellpadding=&#039;0&#039; cellspacing=&#039;0&#039; width=&#039;100%&#039; height=&#039;100%&#039;&gt;
&lt;tr valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:3px; width:33%;&#039;&gt;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/&#039;&gt;Colbert Report Full Episodes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:3px; width:33%;&#039;&gt;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.indecisionforever.com&#039;&gt;Political Humor&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:3px; width:33%;&#039;&gt;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.colbertnation.com/video/tag/Fox+News&#039;&gt;Fox News&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: left;&quot;&gt;One important effect of satire like the Colbert Report comes from creating a space in which we can release the engery, frustration, angst, etc. that are stirred up by serious social problems. They can be refreshing without being escapist. As Kierkegaard puts it in his &quot;Concept of Irony,&quot; works like this can disarm us, and being taken off-guard can be a valuable experience for people locked in an entrenched debate. Humor can give us critical distance from even deeply held values (an effect Bakhtin notes when writing about parody and the sacreligious), and even when it doesn&#039;t bridge differences and open new lines of dialogue, that temporary distance lets us catch our breath and rest our passions. Ok, that&#039;s all the speculation I have in me today. I&#039;ll leave you with a video of Colbert interviewing Jonathan Safran Foer in which Stephen gives the world&#039;s greatest description of free range chicken eggs. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;
&lt;table style=&#039;font:11px arial; color:#333; background-color:#f5f5f5&#039; cellpadding=&#039;0&#039; cellspacing=&#039;0&#039; width=&#039;360&#039; height=&#039;353&#039;&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr style=&#039;background-color:#e5e5e5&#039; valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;&#039;&gt;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;color:#333; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.colbertnation.com&#039;&gt;The Colbert Report&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:2px 5px 0px 5px; text-align:right; font-weight:bold;&#039;&gt;Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr style=&#039;height:14px;&#039; valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;&#039; colspan=&#039;2&#039;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;color:#333; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/264043/february-08-2010/jonathan-safran-foer&#039;&gt;Jonathan Safran Foer&lt;a&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr style=&#039;height:14px; background-color:#353535&#039; valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td colspan=&#039;2&#039; style=&#039;padding:2px 5px 0px 5px; width:360px; overflow:hidden; text-align:right&#039;&gt;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;color:#96deff; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.colbertnation.com/&#039;&gt;www.colbertnation.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:0px;&#039; colspan=&#039;2&#039;&gt;&lt;embed style=&#039;display:block&#039; src=&#039;http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:264043&#039; width=&#039;360&#039; height=&#039;301&#039; type=&#039;application/x-shockwave-flash&#039; wmode=&#039;window&#039; allowFullscreen=&#039;true&#039; flashvars=&#039;autoPlay=false&#039; allowscriptaccess=&#039;always&#039; allownetworking=&#039;all&#039; bgcolor=&#039;#000000&#039;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr style=&#039;height:18px;&#039; valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:0px;&#039; colspan=&#039;2&#039;&gt;
&lt;table style=&#039;margin:0px; text-align:center&#039; cellpadding=&#039;0&#039; cellspacing=&#039;0&#039; width=&#039;100%&#039; height=&#039;100%&#039;&gt;
&lt;tr valign=&#039;middle&#039;&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:3px; width:33%;&#039;&gt;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/&#039;&gt;Colbert Report Full Episodes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:3px; width:33%;&#039;&gt;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.indecisionforever.com&#039;&gt;Political Humor&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td style=&#039;padding:3px; width:33%;&#039;&gt;&lt;a target=&#039;_blank&#039; style=&#039;font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;&#039; href=&#039;http://www.colbertnation.com/video/tag/Fox+News&#039;&gt;Fox News&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/satire-sandwiches-stephen-colberts-thought-food#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/54">advertising</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/colbert">Colbert</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/336">food</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/18">Humor</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/369">satire</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/372">video</category>
 <pubDate>Fri, 16 Apr 2010 15:50:12 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>fc</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">550 at http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old</guid>
</item>
<item>
 <title>Eighteenth-Century Engravings and Magnificent Mezzotints</title>
 <link>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/eighteenth-century-engravings-and-magnificent-mezzotints</link>
 <description>&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;img class=&quot;mceItem&quot; src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/catalogue.png&quot; alt=&quot;A Catalogue of 18th-Century British Mezzotint Satires in North American Collections&quot; height=&quot;524&quot; width=&quot;550&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit:&amp;nbsp; &lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://legacy.lclark.edu/%7Ejhart/home.html&quot;&gt;A Catalogue of 18th-Century British Mezzotint Satires in North American Collections&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I thought I’d step back from the contemporary pop culture discussions
today to look into two archives with a more historical emphasis:&amp;nbsp; the &lt;a href=&quot;http://lwlimages.library.yale.edu/walpoleweb/&quot;&gt;Lewis Walpole Library Digital
Collection&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://legacy.lclark.edu/%7Ejhart/home.html&quot;&gt;A Catalogue of 18th-Century British Mezzotint Satires in North American Collections&lt;/a&gt;.&amp;nbsp;
Both of these collections offer extensive resources for instructors in
eighteenth-century literature, politics, art, and culture.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;/p&gt;



&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.library.yale.edu/walpole/index.html&quot;&gt;Lewis Walpole Library&lt;/a&gt;, which contains over 11,000 digital images, focuses on the library’s &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.library.yale.edu/walpole/html/research/digital_collection.html&quot;&gt;“world-renowned collection of English caricatures and political satirical prints from the late-seventeenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries. Included are works by Bunbury, Woodward, Gillray, Rowlandson, and Newton, among others.”&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp; The &lt;a href=&quot;http://legacy.lclark.edu/%7Ejhart/home.html&quot;&gt;Catalogue of 18th-Century British Mezzotint Satires in North American Collections&lt;/a&gt; intersects with the Walpole Library’s Digital Collection as the latter is one of the
former’s sources, but this websites indexes such satires by name and year.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;img class=&quot;mceItem&quot; src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/walpole.png&quot; alt=&quot;Screenshot of search page for The Lewis Walpole Library Digital Collection&quot; height=&quot;284&quot; width=&quot;550&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;



&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit:&amp;nbsp; &lt;a href=&quot;http://lwlimages.library.yale.edu/walpoleweb/&quot;&gt;Screenshot from The Lewis Walpole Library Digital Collection&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In terms of usability, both websites lack some help.&amp;nbsp; The catalogue’s index is useful to the
viewer who knows a particular print they’d like to find, or who is looking for
something from a specific title, but the site features no searching capacities.&amp;nbsp; The Lewis Walpole Library Digital
Collection has a search feature which looks through the call number, the
artist, or the image’s title, but their images are not organized by important
keywords or popular figures in the images.&amp;nbsp; A search for “Rowlandson” can turn up a number of prints by
this famous illustrator, but a careful search would need to be done to find the
particular one where he satirizes the Prince of Wales who, during the 1788
Regency Crisis when King George III was thought to be mad, schemed to take over
the throne.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;img class=&quot;mceItem&quot; src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/filialpiety.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Rowlandson satirical print &amp;quot;Filial Piety&amp;quot;&quot; height=&quot;398&quot; width=&quot;550&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;



&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image Credit:&amp;nbsp; &lt;a href=&quot;http://lwlimages.library.yale.edu/walpoleweb/oneITEM.asp?pid=lwlpr06500&amp;amp;iid=lwlpr06500&quot;&gt;The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Since both collections deal with images held by research libraries and
museums (like the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art), all of these images are under
copyright.&amp;nbsp; Both websites are open to the public to use, and all of the images are available for personal use and even “study purposes,” so their use in the classroom should be fine.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;What these websites might
help provide for students in rhetoric classrooms is the opportunity to analyze
visual material whose context is less familiar to them, but which was popularly
produced and reproduced to do specific cultural work.&amp;nbsp; Since most of these prints are satires, they can be compared
in purpose and function to contemporary political cartoons in terms of their
strategies.&amp;nbsp; For educators focusing
on the eighteenth-century, this material opens up and might indeed accompany a
study of the popular period literature.&amp;nbsp;
I hope some of my readers here at &lt;em&gt;viz&lt;/em&gt;.
will find this material useful for their classrooms.&lt;/p&gt;</description>
 <comments>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/eighteenth-century-engravings-and-magnificent-mezzotints#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/70">art</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/category/tags/image-databases">image databases</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/21">Pedagogy</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/211">political cartoons</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/369">satire</category>
 <pubDate>Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:32:38 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>Rachel Schneider</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">525 at http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old</guid>
</item>
<item>
 <title>Visual Tweets </title>
 <link>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/visual-tweets</link>
 <description>&lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;
&lt;object width=&quot;560&quot; height=&quot;340&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/NI-JFjj7VnM&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;&quot; /&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowFullScreen&quot; value=&quot;true&quot; /&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowscriptaccess&quot; value=&quot;always&quot; /&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/NI-JFjj7VnM&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; allowscriptaccess=&quot;always&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;true&quot; width=&quot;560&quot; height=&quot;340&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;right&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image credit: From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/&quot;&gt;YouTube&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
H/T to &lt;a href=&quot;http://amutualrespect.org/words/&quot;&gt;A Mutual Respect&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Full confession: I just joined &lt;a href=&quot;www.twitter.com&quot;&gt; Twitter &lt;/a&gt; about 30 minutes ago.  However, for considerably longer, I&#039;ve been curious about the significance of Twitter&#039;s text-based 140-character format.  Although Twitter contains some visuals such as profile pictures and links, it is primarily a print-based medium.  The viewer experiences Twitter posts, or tweets, as a wall of sentences.  While tweets are themselves primarily textual in nature, two recent videos offer visual interpretations that play with the relationship between image and text.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;p&gt;
The first, by &lt;a href=&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://markfullmer.com/&quot; title=&quot;http://markfullmer.com/&quot;&gt;http://markfullmer.com/&lt;/a&gt; &quot;&gt;Mark Fullmer, uses the 140-character constraint of tweets to take on the most iconic of American genres-- the road odyssey.  In the video for &lt;a href=&quot;http://amutualrespect.org/words/2009/09/26/first-ever-twitter-based-poetry-book-on-sale-now#more-2503&quot;&gt;Tweet, Tweet: A mysticotelegraphic fistbump panegyric to the American open road odyssey&lt;/a&gt;, Fullmer voices these micropoetic tweets over black and white footage of the passing scenery.  The video begins with the image of a twitter feed, but most of the subsequent imagery focuses on the western landscape.  Once on the road, Fullmer shows himself jotting his words onto a pad of paper as he drives.  In the sense that Fullmer writes rather than texts his words on the journey, tweets become a poetic constraint rather than a new media per se.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;
&lt;object width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;344&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/s1mKb0txaE8&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0&quot; /&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowFullScreen&quot; value=&quot;true&quot; /&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowscriptaccess&quot; value=&quot;always&quot; /&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/s1mKb0txaE8&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; allowscriptaccess=&quot;always&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;true&quot; width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;344&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;right&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image credit: From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/&quot;&gt;The Washington Post on YouTube&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
H/T to Kevin Bourque&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A very different visual interpretation of tweets is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.washingtonpost.com/&quot;&gt;Washington Post&lt;/a&gt; satire of celebrity tweets called “Twits.&quot;  In this series of visual/text juxtapositions, actors read celebrity tweets with all the pomp of a Masterpiece Theatre production.  Emphasizing the grammatical mistakes, bizarre punctuation and tonal oddity of these tweets, the actors illustrate not only the strangeness of celebrity but also, the absurdity of our interest in them. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Together, these videos led me to think about the nature of the tweet and the kinds of restraints, opportunities and follies it engenders.  As Fullmer says in &lt;em&gt;Tweet Tweet&lt;/em&gt;, “A tweet is not a text, not haiku, not a telegraph. Stop.  A tweet is.”  I’d be interested to see what other kinds of visual rhetoric and poetry the tweet may inspire.  Is there any way to visually capture the back-and-forth quality of tweets?  Can a visualized tweet recreate the immediacy of the ever-changing updates?  &lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/visual-tweets#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/559">new media</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/369">satire</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/478">visual poetry</category>
 <pubDate>Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:15:45 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>EmilyBloom</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">414 at http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old</guid>
</item>
<item>
 <title>Satire?</title>
 <link>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/satire</link>
 <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/Satire.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;New Yorker Cover Satirizing Barack and Michelle Obama&quot; class=&quot;left&quot; /&gt;  The recent &lt;cite&gt;New Yorker&lt;/cite&gt; cover depicting Barack and Michelle Obama in radical drag, as it were, hasn&#039;t been discussed here on &lt;cite&gt;viz&lt;/cite&gt;.  It deserves a mention, since the nature and definition of satire has been discussed on the site before.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In my opinion, it fails utterly as satire.  First of all, anytime anything requires extensive explanation AS SATIRE, it probably isn&#039;t the most adept or polished attempt.  This week&#039;s &lt;cite&gt;New York Times&lt;/cite&gt; &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/weekinreview/20seigel.html?ex=1374292800&amp;amp;en=8b65a7786e15e8a0&amp;amp;ei=5124&amp;amp;partner=permalink&amp;amp;exprod=permalink&quot;&gt;Week in Review&lt;/a&gt;&quot; piece, written by Lee Siegel, agrees. In it, Siegel concludes that &quot;By presenting a mad or contemptible partisan sentiment as a mainstream one, by accurately reproducing it and by neglecting to position the target of a slur — the Obamas — in relation to the producers of the slur, The New Yorker seems to have unwittingly reiterated the misconception it meant to lampoon.&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I agree, and not because I think the Obamas are off-limits as targets for satire, or that they themselves think they are off-limits (a conclusion I&#039;ve heard on cable news from some on the &quot;lunatic fringe&quot; Siegel mentions).  To me, the so-called satire of the piece fails because, rather than seeming to satirize the intellectual laziness, the total divorce from reality, required to hold the views depicted here, it seems to satirize the Obamas themselves for producing those views, instead of those who maintain and perpetuate them.  The message is confused, the execution, confusing.  Grade: F.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;!--break--&gt;</description>
 <comments>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/satire#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/8">Barack Obama</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/300">Michelle Obama</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/6">politics</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/369">satire</category>
 <pubDate>Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:07:56 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>timturner</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">295 at http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old</guid>
</item>
<item>
 <title>Ordering pizza is not so simple</title>
 <link>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/ordering-pizza-not-so-simple</link>
 <description>&lt;p&gt;The ACLU is using this video to promote their campaign to collect signatures for a &lt;a href=&quot;https://secure.aclu.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=real_id_pizza&lt;br /&gt;
&quot;&gt; petition &lt;/a&gt; to stop a national ID and database program.  The Real ID Act, passed by congress in 2005, would connect all state DMV databases into one interlinked database, “facilitating government tracking of Americans.”  &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt; &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt; &lt;iframe width=&quot;420&quot; height=&quot;315&quot; src=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/embed/8XObbEwI6P4&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although the ACLU admits that we haven’t gotten to this point yet, they say that “we are fast approaching a surveillance society where every move, transaction and communication is recorded, compiled, and stored away to be examined and used by the authorities -- and even private corporations --whenever they want.”  That last part--that companies will have access to this database--is very disturbing to me.  The video plays upon that concern perfectly in giving a simple pizza restaurant access to all sorts of personal information about the customer.  &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There’s also a hint of a nanny state in that the customer’s health records can restrict what he’s able to buy.  Considering how much of our lives happen electronically, it seems that “the system” depicted in the video is a real possibility.  I think the bottom line here is that I just don’t want everyone knowing what size pants I’m buying. &lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/ordering-pizza-not-so-simple#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/368">ACLU</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/370">Nation ID</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/371">National Database</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/369">satire</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/372">video</category>
 <pubDate>Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:54:03 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>LaurenMitchell</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">255 at http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old</guid>
</item>
<item>
 <title>Food and Warfare</title>
 <link>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/food-and-warfare</link>
 <description>&lt;p&gt;Here is an amusing/horrifying animation of the history of human conflicts (WWII to the present day), which uses the foods typically associated with the various countries involved to act out the conflicts.  It’s called “Food Fight.”&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;
&lt;object width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;355&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/e-yldqNkGfo&amp;hl=en&quot; /&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;wmode&quot; value=&quot;transparent&quot; /&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/e-yldqNkGfo&amp;hl=en&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; wmode=&quot;transparent&quot; width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;355&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;!--break--&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Japan is pieces of sushi, the Arabs are represented by kebab and falafel, the Israelis are bagels and lox, the U.S. is hamburgers and chicken McNuggets, Russia is beef stroganoff, the Vietnamese are those yummy rice noodle wrapped spring rolls.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;On one hand, to watch food stereotypes blowing each other up is pretty funny, as is trying to figure out which foods represent which countries.  My favorite part is the representation of the Cold War where the hamburger and the beef stroganoff face off, the hamburger keeps adding more and more beef patties, the pile of beef stroganoff gets bigger and bigger, and then they resolve the conflict by just leaving.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;However, because it’s a food fight, the mess left behind after they blow each other up can be disturbingly carnage-like, which this gives the whole thing a pretty somber undertone.  I found the representation of when the U.S. dropped the atomic bombs on Japan disconcerting: those pieces of sushi were completely charred.  And you can’t help but consider the real human beings that were charred after those incidents.  The depictions of suicide bombings were also a bit hard to watch since we hear about them every day.  The 5½ minute animation also highlights the fact that there has been a war occurring somewhere in the world pretty much continuously since WWII.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The use of food stereotypes highlights the absurdity of warfare while at the same time maintaining a focus on the seriousness of these situations. The foods make these events seem ridiculous, but only up to a point.  Because these are real events that have been repeated again and again.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/food-and-warfare#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/334">animation</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/336">food</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/369">satire</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/360">war</category>
 <pubDate>Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:56:47 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>LaurenMitchell</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">252 at http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old</guid>
</item>
<item>
 <title>The Serious Side of Sarcasm</title>
 <link>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/serious-side-sarcasm</link>
 <description>&lt;p&gt;Is sarcastic, rather than bitch, the new black?  To build on our discussions of the image of women in politics (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/node/229&quot; alt=&quot;link to John&#039;s post&quot;&gt;John&#039;s post about Michelle Obama&#039;s halo&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/node/242&quot; alt=&quot;link to Tim&#039;s post&quot;&gt; Tim&#039;s recent post about Hillary and/as the Devil&lt;/a&gt;), I find the discussion of the two women&#039;s &quot;edgy&quot; humor to be quite interesting and I think it affects the way that their images are produced and read.  &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Katie Couric, &lt;em&gt;The New York Times&lt;/em&gt;, the &lt;em&gt;Wall Street Journal&lt;/em&gt;, and now &lt;em&gt;Newsweek&lt;/em&gt; have all noted how Obama&#039;s rhetoric contrasts with the optimism and hopefulness of her husband&#039;s campaign.  But while most of these sources will present the trait as positive (albeit dangerous), the &lt;em&gt;Times&lt;/em&gt; for instance called Obama &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/us/politics/14michelle.html?_r=1&amp;amp;oref=slogin&quot; alt=&quot;link to New York Times&quot;&gt;&quot;Outspoken, strong-willed, funny, gutsy&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, Clinton is considered dour or angry.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;funny&lt;/em&gt; thing is, the visual argument seems to be presented  in the opposite manner.  Newsweek&#039;s profile of Michelle Obama featured a good deal of &quot;stern&quot; pictures, despite the frequent mention of her humor in the text (she pokes fun of her husband, makes frequent jokes that not everybody gets).  Despite a few nostalgic young Obama shots (and the cover which features a controlled smile on a woman who seems almost to be physically restraining herself), most of them looked like this: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/080215_NA01_wide-horizontal-1.jpg&quot; class=&quot;center&quot; alt=&quot;Michelle Obama speaking to advisers she leans back against the wall with her hands tucked behind her back she does not smile as does her addressee her face has a serious expression or perhaps one of concern&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/files/080215_SO03_vl-vertical.jpg&quot; class=&quot;center&quot; alt=&quot;Michelle Obama speaking to unknown addressee at a table she looks stern and serious&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;small&gt;&lt;em&gt;both images property of Newsweek&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/small&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Hillary, on the other hand, as Tim&#039;s devil picture indicates and as Jon Stewart has pointed out, seems discomforting in her happiness, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/clinton-turns-from-anger-to-sarcasm/&quot;&gt;&quot;hard-nosed realist&quot;&lt;/a&gt; who enjoys lambasting hope and faith.  When she makes these sarcastic comments in speeches and during debates, she smiles, even laughs.  While I think we would agree that this normally says, &quot;hey, joke here!&quot; it is read by these critics as over-rehearsed or abusively cynical.  &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Perhaps what I am most intrigued by in this debacle is the disjunct of rhetorical strategy and analysis.  While Obama&#039;s serious posture is productively rebellious, making her a thoughtful  as well as humorous (Newsweek says that she&#039;s not the expected &quot;Stepford booster, smiling vacantly at her husband and sticking to a script of carefully vetted blandishments&quot;), I think Clinton &lt;em&gt;joyfully&lt;/em&gt; produces her barbs so that the listener is encouraged to hear her and &lt;em&gt;laugh along&lt;/em&gt;, a sort of &lt;em&gt;benevolence&lt;/em&gt;.  The effect, though, is suspicion and distance; these critics argue that her smiles actually &lt;em&gt;isolate&lt;/em&gt; the audience and I wonder what context creates this reading.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/serious-side-sarcasm#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/9">Hillary Clinton</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/18">Humor</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/300">Michelle Obama</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/301">political rhetoric</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/266">rhetoric of the body</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/304">sarcasm</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/369">satire</category>
 <category domain="http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/taxonomy/term/302">women</category>
 <pubDate>Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:18:38 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>Jillian Sayre</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">243 at http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old</guid>
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