Translatable metaphor

International political cartoons tend to be highly metaphorical. I don't know how much the change of language over comparatively smaller geographic areas has to do with this and how much it simply is how political cartoons have evolved overseas, but it remains a fact of cartooning.

The net effect for me, as someone raised on the more story-telling style of American political cartoons, is that a lot of international cartoons leave me cold, like "you've told me the title of the story, now tell me the story."

I suppose the answer is that people overseas are better at telling their own stories, once they've been given a start.

Certainly, this cartoon by Ukranian cartoonist Vladimir Kazanevsky does more than provide that start. This is a wonderfully told story in itself, a grim little Slavic folktale in a single panel.

Its broad applicability is even more remarkable, given the political setting in which the cartoonist works.

Kazanevsky lives in a land of ideological and political chaos. The cultural conflict of Westernizers versus Slavophiles was a philosophical concept for Russian novelists to bat about 150 years ago, but in Ukraine today the question of alignment with the EU or the former Soviet Union is much more immediate, much more pragmatic, and is not simply an issue of how you dress or whether you speak French.

Ukraine tried one of those peaceful democratic revolutions a few years ago and ran into a serious clash between those who want to look West and those who want to remain aligned with Russia, complete with accusations of vote-rigging and even an attempt to poison the leading pro-West candidate.

But, even with new elections, the country was so torn that a solid majority or even a coherent coalition government seemed beyond reach. Add to that the fact that one of the two leading pro-West coalition leaders managed to personally alienate the other to a degree that cooperation between them became all but impossible and the pro-Russian side gained a substantial advantage.

The next elections, in 2008, were worse: a dog's breakfast of large groups who couldn't stand each other and minority parties with little in common.

Now Yulia Tymoshenko, the charismatic pro-West leader and former prime minister, who won over 45 percent of the vote in the 2010 elections but whose grating personal style has left her with few allies or defenders, has been convicted of corruption and sentenced to seven years in prison. Only the most ardent pro-Russians consider the trial to have been fair.

And what makes Kazanevsky's cartoon so brilliant is that, with all this going on around him, he is able to craft a cartoon that transcends the specific issues in his own country and speaks to a much broader truth.

Which is something, in turn, that could only happen in international cartooning, with its wider, pan-national audience, and its embrace of metaphors -- in this case, a powerful and moving metaphor.

Comments

[Don Lee]

The need to cross language barriers is real, and practical. Sergio Aragones, he of the MAD marginal art, has cited that as the reason most of his work is pantomime ... You increase your chances of a sale. As for the metaphors, many of these cartoonists live and work under governments that actually will break your hands if you call a spade a spade in so many words ... So you have to draw a picture of a spade and trust your audience to work it out for itself. Another case of limits inspiring creativity. Meanwhile, here in the United States ...

[Mike Peterson]

True, and your point on metaphors is well worth noting. Though, if you look at this cartoon, you'll see that Kazanevsky is not afraid to be direct (The labels were unnecessary, of course). Note that the caged bird has yellow braids and is clearly Tymoshenko. This man has plenty of whatever the Ukranian word for "cojones" is.
http://www.cartoonmovement.com/cartoon/3990

[Danny Boy (London Derriere)]

Sorry, I don't get it. Are the cages being assembled from pieces of the stools, or vice versa? And what did you mean by "*the* caged bird"? -- I think I see a dozen of them.

[Mike Peterson]

Follow the link in my comment -- it's a different cartoon in which Tymoshenko appears.

As for the original, study more closely. Stools are not involved.