101. 'I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it': an exploratory study of the single-panel cartoon and the comic mode in society.
- Author
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Grady, John
- Subjects
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COMEDIANS , *SOCIAL scientists , *SOCIAL forces , *SOCIAL values , *POLITICAL cartoons , *SOCIETAL reaction , *LAUGHTER - Abstract
Single-panel gag cartoons are behavioral records of the comic in society, or of how people manage what they find anxiety producing, annoying, or dismaying in their everyday affairs by transforming these experiences into humor, which is then used as a vehicle to manage difficult feelings and imagine new ways of conceptualizing their situation. Cartoons, thus, are products of the jokes and comic wit that are endemic in everyday life. Because most humor is evanescent, social scientists have not accorded the comic the full attention it deserves, conceiving it as merely a response to social forces – a type of situational adjustment – rather than acknowledging it as a social force in its own right produced by unconscious psychological dynamics that alert people to those aspects of the world, which invite attention and foster anxiety. Cartoons, therefore, are of value to social scientists not only as records of what large audiences in modern societies have found amusing at a given point in time, but also provide insight into various situations in mass society that create anxiety, and how people imagine defining and managing that anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
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