A Hero, a Ruler, and a Sidekick Walk into a Voting Booth: Visual Archetypal Characters and Their Stories in Editorial Cartoons After the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

Abstract

This interpretive visual study expands the scholarship on editorial cartoons by relying on the neo-archetypal theory to understand what archetypes emerge throughout more than 500 drawings published during the lame duck period of the Trump presidency, how they are visually constructed, and what stories they tell during the 79-day period. The visual rhetorical analysis identifies the ruler, the hero, and the sidekick as the archetypes that shape the narrative arc of the cartoons. It also reveals an archetypal transfiguration of the ruler into the outlaw, illustrating how social shaming performed by the cartoons serves as a political tool of punishment.

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Natalia Mielczarek

Natalia Mielczarek is an assistant professor of visual communication in the School of Communication at Virginia Tech. Her research interests include visual rhetoric, iconicity, Internet memes, and appropriation of images in remix culture. Her work has appeared in Visual Communication Quarterly, Visual Communication, Journalism & Communication Monographs, and Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. She is a former newspaper reporter. E-mail: [email protected]