Ever read “Jim’s Journal?” That’s pretty much it.
Weird part is, it’s funny.
Impressive–someone who doesn’t understand Occam’s Razor at all: “Given a choice between two explanations, choose the simplest – the explanation which requires the fewest assumptions.”
The fact that the (almost) “unanimous” group of cartoonists had to have the opaque interpretation deciphered to them means that this is not the simplest explanation.
Taking a lead from LHoD:
People get up to go to the bathroom at night. It happens all the time. There doesn’t “have” to be a deeper, darker nighttime explanation. Maybe JH liked the visual quality of night. Maybe he thought it was funnier at night. It doesn’t have to be that complicated.
I think this is perfectly obvious. Essentially, he wanted to fit a 4-frame strip into 3 frames.
FRAME 1: As we see it.
FRAME 2: Guy entering Outhouse (cut from strip)
FRAME 3: As we see it.
FRAME 4: As we see it.
He needed Frame 3 for the joke (see below), but then the strip’s too long. Can he just excise Frame 2? Not really. If we jump from 1 to 3, we can assume the guy’s in the outhouse, but maybe not–maybe he’s hiding behind it or went over the hill. How do you communicate that he actually entered the outhouse?
SLAM!
Now, it has been cited that SLAM has connotations of anger, etc. But what other onomatopoeia most directly suggests the closing of a door? Click? Boom? No, Slam! He needed to convey he was closing the door, and that was the best word out there (I should note that I’ve never seen the verbs “Close” or “Shut” used as onomatopoeia, which explains why it wouldn’t occur to him to use these instead).
The key frame is the second one. Obviously, the “humor” is derived in that this guy has presumably been using the outhouse for years and it finally dawns on him–Outhouses smell bad!
Call it the Der Epiphany. We’ve all had them. We’ll be out with our friends, and something that we’ve always noticed, but never really observed, all-of-a-sudden is processed in a way that connects. We’ll state the thuddingly obvious as if it’s a revelation (“Did you ever notice how your nose bleeds if you pick it?”), and everyone says “DER!” (or the always popular “No Shit, Sherlock!”)
So that’s the joke. The middle picture is necessary because he’s taking a moment or two for the realization to sink in: Outhouses Stink! (NSS!)
I should say that, as preposterously unfunny as this cartoon is (which seems to be more and more typical of recent JH output), I came to this “interpretation” upon immediately seeing the comic (from the OP) before reading the rest of the thread. I think JH’s personal beliefs (along with his longlost ability to convey a joke) made him especially vulnerable to some rather absurd interpretations. I took a rather copious amount of semiotics, hermeneutics, and phenomenology in college, so the whole business of signs & signifiers is not lost on me. But this far-fetched offense being taken from a poorly-conceived, unfunny comic is the real joke.
Hart should be taken to task for a historically inaccurate portrayal of cavepeople.
No. Wrong. “Five of them thought the religious interpretation probably was right.” Note the “probably.” And note that this implies they had to have the interpretation supplied to them.
Daniel, you seem to have trouble identifying the outright, clearly stated, incontrovertable racial-supremacist views of feminists you admire. But you’re willing to belief this based on speculation.
Not to defend Hart’s other beliefs but – are you willing to admit that “most of BC’s comics” does not equal all of BC’s comics? And why not at night? A lot of people take trips to the bathroom then.
Let’s do the strip without the slam:
First panel: Character approaches the outhouse.
Second panel: Character open the outhouse door.
Third panel: Character is seen entering the outhouse, is half in and half out.
Fourth panel: The door closes.
You’ve already used up your four panels. Putting in the “slam” is a more economicall form of storytelling. And “slam” is the sound associated with doors.
Hart has used words spelled vertically before. They’re economical, and represent an action the reader understands. In the Dec 8 strip, he has a snake being hit by a rock. The actual strike is not shown – it is represented by a vertical “wham” between the panels, just like the “slam.”
Besides, if he actually wanted to turn “slam” into “Islam,” it would have been easy enough to draw some “impact” lines around the word, with one lining up to supply the letter “I.” He didn’t.
It is a “duh!” punchline, a type of humor common on this board, actually. It is similar to a one-panel comic I once saw in a magazine. Two men are standing in a men’s room, and one – who is not too bright - -says, “Man, it smells like someone took a shit in here.” Well, duh. In fact, Hart might have even been recycling that old joke.
And while the strip clearly isn’t Moliere, there is more cleverness than critics are giving it credit for. The character says, “Is it just me, or does it stink in here?” Which can be read as “Am I imaging things, or does it stink in here?” and call also be read as “Does it stink in here, or is it just me (that stinks)?” And considering what he is doing in there, it could be both him and “in here” that stinks.
I don’t agree with his opinions, but at least he has expressed his fundie views honestly. Which is more than I can say for you. You are somewhat widely known to bend the truth when it suits you.
ArchiveGuy & Satisfying Andy Licious came up with exactly the same reasoning.
Creepy.
[hijack]
Actually that strip had two outhouses with identical pictures of jellyfish on them.
[/hijack]
b]Airman**
I don’t believe what you’re telling me 
Look, it’s not as though there’s some great big PC conspiracy working to bring down outspoken Christian syndicated cartoonists. Since it is reasonable to assume that the cartoon has a meaning, logically it would be reasonable to assume that the interpretation with the most cogent meaning is the most likely one. While the meaning you would impose on the cartoon is more mundane that doesn’t mean it’s more cogent or realistic. In fact, I would argue that the meaning you would impose is so mundane as to be virtually non existant. The meaning I favour is far more pointed, funny (in a nasty way), and what’s more makes use of the symbols in the cartoon to create the meaning whereas you require me to believe that it’s just a coincidence that they’re there.
As Left Hand of Dorkness said above “He’s not got a record of honesty on such matters.” Why should I buy the mundane, utterly meaningless explanation when the more ‘colorful’ explanation is backed up by both textual evidence and the opinions of relative experts in the field. On top of this, we know from past experience that Hart is no novice when it comes to sneaking in thinly veiled attacks on other religions into his cartoons.
I am thinking for myself. I would suggest that the evidence is on my side.
Slacker
Or, to put it another way 83.3% of experts interviewed thought the cartoon was a cheap shot at Islam. It was the “unanimous” (with the exception of Gary Trudeau) opinion of the group. That was what I said. I didn’t mean to suggest that it was the unanimous opinion of readers or even the unanimous opinion in this thread. Just the (virtually) unanimous opinion of the group asked.
That the members of the group included a professor of signs and six professional cartoonists who (with one exception) agreed that the cartoon was bigoted is obviously immaterial :rolleyes:
Aside from proving that you know absolutely fuck all about semiotics, what does your asinine little skit contribute to this thread? Call me a mean old cynic but I’m still going to side with the professional against some guy on the other side of the internet when it comes to ascertaining the likeliest meaning of this cartoon.
Archiveguy
The bone of contention for me is that the cartoon only makes sense metaphorically. If you don’t take it metaphorically then it’s meaning is so mundane and nebulous that it may as well not exist. Outhouses stink. Big revelation. Not worth making in the least.
It’s only when you start to take things metaphorically that things begin to make sense. It’s only when you take the crescents as symbols of Islam and the sentiment in frame three to be Harts opinion of Islam that the cartoon has a point. Please don’t suggest that such a thing is ‘beyond’ Hart or that Hart wouldn’t stoop to such bigotry. He’s done it before and there’s no reason why he wouldn’t do it again if he thought he could get away with it.
While your explanation is the more mundane it is not the most obvious if we take as axiomatic that Hart was at least trying to say something with the cartoon. The elements are in place to say both that outhouses stink and that Islam is full of shit. Given the first sentiment isn’t worth expressing and also that Hart is not beyond purveying bigoted cartoons, the fact that the second explanation is less “obvious” becomes immaterial when weighing up which one Hart most likely meant. After all, it’s a metaphor, of course it’s meant to be less obvious. That doesn’t make it any less likely that it was the meaning Hart intended.
According to you the cartoon is benign, right? Well, these six cartoonists and the semiotics professor were shown this cartoon, were royally stumped, admitted that the cartoon made no sense to them, were offered this “opaque” explanation and then accepted that explanation to the exclusion of all others.
To me, this would suggest that the explanation that this cartoon is the work of a sly bigot. The mark of a good veiled metaphor is that it seems less obvious at first but is undeniable once revealed. This cartoon is a prime example.
Yeah, what are the odds? :rolleyes:
You people are contradicting yourself.
Half the posts in this thread begin by saying that Hart’s stuff isn’t funny. But this latest example of un-funny stuff has to have some other meaning other than a failed joke. So we start this Rorschach analysis to try to find Islam-bashing in an outhouse joke.
By Occam’s Razor, this is another example of what you all have stipulated makes up most of Hart’s work - failed jokes.
If Hart is a talentless hack, where did he come up with the subtlety to make his attack on Islam so obscure that it takes a graduate degree in hermeneutics to decipher?
His menorah-to-Christianity piece wasn’t anywhere near as complex as this is supposed to be. So which is it - Hart as incredibly complex artist, or unfunny hack?
This is one of those things that takes years of education and a lot of intellectual effort to be as dumb as a bag of rocks.
It’s a potty joke. Unless you believe Hart has switched his audience from people who read the funny papers to Harvard graduate students almost exclusively.
Regards,
Shodan
Shodan
That’s something of a false dilemma. How about option three; He’s is mediocre. You don’t have to be John Heartfield to come up with marginally sophisticated metaphorical cartoons. Hell, all you need is the knowledge that the crescent moon is commonly found on outhouse doors and a grudge against Islam. Being plain old Johnny Hart is enough for that.
Ben Hicks
Uh, he’s not trying to make a point, he’s trying to make a joke. The joke is its raison d’etre and makes perfect sense in that regard (though you’ll get no debate from me that it’s told exceedingly poorly). Trying to rationalize a contrived “metaphor” makes far less sense.
I would like one cite where his religious beliefs or alleged “bigotry” was couched in an equally dense use of metaphor in his strip. JH, from my experience, is not the most subtle of guys, and if he’s got a point, he typically states it outright and unequivocally. That’s his modus operandi. Got any other examples where he makes a statement in such an equally “veiled” fashion?
An awfully huge assumption. Why does there have to be a meaning? If his strips, day in and day out, were ripe with symbolism and subtexts, you might have an argument, but most of his strips don’t. Why does this one have to? Short answer: It doesn’t.
Occam still wins out.
You’re right. I retract my previous outrage on the subject.
I dunno 0 I can see it either way. I’m leaning towards the Islam slam. I went to the BC website and, even though only his recent stuff is available, I found a strip with religious references:
- from Sun Nov 30th
One with pretty political references and religious references (maybe):
From Nov 27th
…and one dopey one knocking the Iraqi Information Minister:
From December 3rd.
This guy is all over the place. I’m not sure, but I’d kind of like to know. In the long run, though, I don’t care about it all that much.
Good, because that’s clearly why I posted it.
Nobody has mentioned YESTERDAY’s cartoon, which was sickening… a very smug and condescending (and religiously tainted) (and dumb) piece of patriotic glurge.
On the other hand, crap like BC isn’t even worth the attention of a good pitting.
I’ve got a ton of them from the days when whe was still funny. I can certainly dig them out and pad through them.
–Patch
Hicks, you’re coming across as unpleasantly arrogant.
You should buy the mundane explanation because the author of the article actually called up the artist of the strip and he said, essentially, that the more ‘colorful’ interpretation is both insulting and against his personal value system.
The testimony of the so-called “experts” means nothing – what probably happened is someone ran the strip in front of them, suggested a possible interpretation, and they scratched their heads and said “Yeah, I suppose, er, maybe. It’s sure not funny.” But if they were honest, they’d admit that they too had strips whose meaning was completely opaque and not funny.
Ah, you missed a few of the posts here proposing an alternative interpretation. It isn’t just “outhouses stink”, it’s “is it the outhouse that stinks, or is it me?”. He’s making a stupid joke based on a common idiom.
Not so much creepy as obvious. Occam’s Razor in actual action.
Anyone see the Dec. 8th BC? There’s a huge WHAM instead of panel two. The joke isn’t in the least funny. I bet he meant something horrible :mad:
The Sunday one was even worse. A patriotic - what was it? - “glurge” strip that was in-your-face and unfunny. No doubt what that strip was about. He didn’t even bother to hide the fact that he was publishing something patriotic and smarmy, damn him! Sometimes he publishes blatantly religious and unfunny strips too. That means he must also publish cryptic and heavily veiled strips as well, because sometimes he has to hide it but other times he doesn’t. He’s a genius but an idiot.
Color me unimpressed.
Wrong. He used to be a genius. Now, he’s just an idiot.
IMHO.