TOW #2 - Visual Text: Political Cartoon by Nate Beeler

TOW #2 – Visual Text: Political Cartoon by Nate Beeler

                With the elections only a few short months away, everyone is starting to take notice. Political cartoonists seem fixated on the candidates, highlighting their flaws. Nate Beeler’s cartoon immediately draws eyes to the rather large Donald Trump with his internal organs showing. The cartoon, a critique on Trump’s released doctor’s note, shows an x-ray of Trump’s internal organs and a doctor analyzing them. Beeler has been a professional cartoonist since 2005, working at The Washington Examiner and The Columbus Dispatch. He uses his well-developed skills to put his thought about Donald Trump into a visual image.

            In this image, Beeler utilizes exaggeration as one of his main rhetoric devices. By giving Trump a large bile duct and a rather small heart, Beeler suggests his thoughts on Trump’s personality. A smaller heart shows that Trump does not feel much love or sympathy while a large bile duct suggests that he is a bile, or vindictive, person. This also suggests that Trump’s physical health is affected by his personality, implying that he is unhealthy because he is a bad person. Beeler also draws the doctor with a very small head, almost coming to a point at the top. This means that there is little room for a brain, or that the doctor is unintelligent. He cannot be trusted to analyze Trump’s health well.

            As well as this, the doctor says that “Mr. Trump is in tip-top shape and all internal organs appear normal, for the most part.” Beeler wrote the word “most” in red, whereas the rest of the sentence is black. This change in color puts an emphasis on the word most, showing that there are some abnormalities in Trump’s health and that his organs are not in perfect condition.

            This statement carries over the reality, where Donald Trump’s health was labelled as excellent. Nothing has been found contradicting the statement, though it is not convincing democrats that Trump can handle the job as President of the United States. Beeler’s cartoon highlight’s this, making an attempt to convince people that Trump is a bad person by drawing his insides.

Source URL: http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2016/09/16/144821

Citation:

Beeler, Nate. Townhall.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Sept. 2016.