The Bear, the Bomb, and Uncle Sam: the Evolving American Perception of “Russians” Viewed Through Political Cartoons

The Bear, the Bomb, and Uncle Sam: The Evolving American Perception of “Russians” Viewed Through Political Cartoons A thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Geography of the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences by Beth Ciaravolo B.A. University of Cincinnati June 2012 Committee Chair: Dr. Colleen McTague, Ph.D. Abstract This project entails an analysis of the popular discourse of political cartoons involving Russia and the former USSR as they fit into this category. Cartoons are selected from a number of the most widely-read papers in the United States. All signs, symbols, and text are linguistically analyzed, with the ultimate aim of uncovering Americans’ underlying perceptions of Russia and the former Soviet states and how these views have changed (or not changed) over the years since the Cold War. Points of interest include the kinds of words used, the symbols selected to represent various personalities and nations, and any notable omissions of related facts. These findings are then situated in the original sociopolitical context, so that the question may be asked: What do cartoons tell us about the changing American perceptions of Russia and the former Soviet states? ii iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my committee, especially my advisor, Dr. Colleen McTague, without whom this thesis would never have been possible. Thanks also go to my colleagues at UC and my best friend Jen Weber for all their help and support, and to all the staff at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at The Ohio State University, particularly Mrs. Susan Liberator, for all their help in procuring the cartoons and permissions to use them. iv Table of Contents Abstract..………...….……………...………………………………………….…….………….ii Acknowledgements……..…...………………..…………………...…………………..…….iv Table of Contents………………………………………………………………….….………..v List of Figures……..…………………………………………………………….…………….vii Chapter 1: Introduction and Literature Review Problem Statement……………..…………………………….……….…….…1 Research Questions…………………………..……….………...……..….…..1 Critical Geopolitics…………………….…….………………..….…………...2 Popular Geopolitics………………………………..……..…………………...5 Previous Cartoon Studies……….……………..……….………….…..….….7 Dissecting Cartoons as a Medium……………...………………………...….9 Hegemony and Anti-geopolitics……………..……………………..…..….11 The Importance of Context…………………..…………………………..….16 Visual Symbol, Metaphor, and Allusions………..………………….……..24 Synthesis/Conclusion………………………………..……………………....32 Chapter 2: Methodology Introduction……………………………………………………............……..34 Selecting and Obtaining the Cartoons………………………….….…..….35 Authors, Dates, and Geographical Locations………………….………….36 Chapter 3: Background/Historical Context Post-World War II………………….……………………………...…...…….44 The Cold War, Détente, and the Second Cold War………...…….……..45 The Post-Soviet Era…………………………………………….……………..46 McCarthy and Political Repression…………………………..………..…...47 Chapter 4: Critical Analysis 1947-1950……………………………………………………………………..51 1951-1960……………………………………………………………………..59 1961-1970……………………………………………………………………..64 1971-1980……………………………………………………………………..66 1981-1990……………………………………………………………………..69 1991-2000……………………………………………………………………..72 2000-2007……………………………………………………………………..76 Chapter 5: Conclusion Directions for Further Research ……………………………..…………….79 Conclusions………………………………………………………..…………..80 v Bibliography…………………………………………………………….……………………..83 Appendix: List of Cartoons…………………………………………….…………………….85 vi List of Figures Figure 2.1: Cartoon Publication Dates………………………………………………..……37 Figure 2.2: Geographical Distribution of Cartoons………………………………..…….38 Figure 2.3: Proportional representation of each cartoonist with more than 4 cartoons in study…………………………………………………………..………..40 Figure 4.1: “Why Not?” L.D. Warren……………………..………………………………..55 Figure 4.2: “Try Anything But Blasting” L.D. Warren…………..………………………..58 Figure 4.3: “Safety Patrol” L.D. Warren………………………….………………………..61 Figure 4.4: “World Trade” L.D. Warren……………………..…………………………….62 Figure 4.5: “Everyone in Russia Should Win a Gold Medal Just for Living” Ray Osrin..………………………………………………………..……………………67 Figure 4.6: “[USA/USSR]” Kate Salley Palmer………………..…………………………..70 Figure 4.7: “How Do You Feel About the New Freedom Now, Comrade Gorbachev?” Ray Osrin………………………………….…………………………..71 Figure 4.8: “President Gorbachev, There’s an American Businessman on the Phone…” Ray Osrin………………………………………………..…………73 Figure 4.9: “Solzhenitsyn Returns to the Motherland” Nick Anderson………..………73 Figure 4.10: “Howdy, Neighbor!” Nick Anderson……………………………….………74 Figure 4.11: “[Russia Crumbling]” Nick Anderson…………….………………………..75 Figure 4.12: “What Axis of Evil?” Jeff Stahler……………………..………………..…….76 Figure 4.13: “The Driving Lesson” Ed Stein……………………..………………………..77 vii Chapter 1: Introduction and Literature Review Problem Statement This study aims to evaluate the changing opinions about “Russia” and “Russians” portrayed in American political cartoons between World War II and 2012. Research Questions In seeking to describe the meta-narrative about “Russia” and “Russians” during this time period as it is discursively established in political cartoons, I will address the following series of questions: What is the historical sociopolitical context surrounding the publication of the cartoons? 1 What is the intended audience of the cartoons? What kinds of symbols are used in the cartoons and why? How is the cartoon’s interpretation reliant upon the context in which it is published and read? How do cartoons mediate messages between author and reader? Critical Geopolitics According to Gearóid Ó’Tuathail (1996) “geography is about power.” The mere existence of the state relies upon the power of some individuals over others, and the ability of those with authority to “organize, occupy, and administer space.” According to Ó’Tuathail, Geography [is] not something already possessed by the earth but an active writing of the earth by an expanding, centralizing imperial state. It [is] not a noun but a verb, a geo-graphing, an earth-writing by ambitious endocolonizing and exocolonizing states who [seek] to seize space and organize it to fit their own cultural visions and material interests. [Emphasis in original] (1996, p. 2) Ó’Tuathail takes a poststructuralist approach in asserting that this state is created through the production of maps; through the power which delimits, delineates, and defends the state; and through the discourses which surround these actions and representations. This is what he refers to when he defines “geo-power” as “the functioning of geographical knowledge not as an innocent body of knowledge and learning but as an ensemble of technologies of power concerned with the governmental production and management of territorial space (1996, p. 7).” As Ó’Tuathail (1996) catalogues the evolution of geopolitical perspectives through time, he carries the understanding that these evolving understandings of 2 “geopolitics” necessarily changed the essence of not only the geographical discipline, but of the world itself. On the whole, these views have always sought to describe and define the world in a way which is satisfactory to those who are doing the describing; therefore, certain groups are marginalized, certain places and processes made less important than others, certain political and popular opinions suppressed to create a clean, concise image. This results in not only the erasure of the struggles which necessarily occur in order for this understanding to be attained, but also in “the depoliticization of certain political processes by representing them as inevitable and eternal processes of nature (Ó’Tuathail, 1996, p. 54).” This depoliticizing representation occurs in geopolitical texts, which discursively establish certain processes as necessary and natural and others as unacceptable and unnatural. During the 1980s, Ó’Tuathail and Agnew had put forth a series of theses which were intended to revolutionize the way academics approached the problematic of geopolitics (Ó’Tuathail, 1996). First, there was the idea that merely speaking about geopolitics was the same as engaging in it, because it is impossible to discuss a concept without situating it within a particular context of perceived normality. Their second thesis distinguished between “practical” and “formal” geopolitics, with the former referring to the spatializing actions of military and political figures, and the latter referring to those intellectual “experts” whose expertise communicates a certain worldview to the general public. The third thesis states that the actions of any spatializing individual cannot be fully understood without reference to their own position in reference to existing structures of state and power. Finally, their last 3 thesis sought to incorporate the Gramscian concept of hegemony into the understanding of how geopolitical “rule writing” occurs (Ó’Tuathail, 1996). Thus, it is no longer possible to accept geopolitics as an exact science. Instead, as Dalby asserts, a new critical geopolitics must be employed wherein nothing can be taken for granted and we must “investigate the politics of the geographical specification of politics (Dalby, quoted by Ó’Tuathail, 1996, p. 62).” In this spirit, Ó’Tuathail is searching for “the politics of the construction of a mythology or imaginative economy around geopolitics-as-object (a concept, but also a focus of desire) rather than in a revisionist demythologization (Ó’Tuathail, 1996, p. 114).”

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