Educational Media Reviews Online

This brief and unengaging program does not provide anything that a look through a daily newspaper or a weekly news magazine would not. Consisting of images of editorial cartoons, interspersed with talking-head interviews with editorial cartoonists, the program is broken into segments that are introduced as questions, such as, "Why is Hillary a Lightning Rod in the National Storm of Gender Sentiments?" Unfortunately, neither the four political cartoonists interviewed nor the off-screen narrator ever really attend to the questions in any meaningful way. The only exception to this are the comments of Ann Telnaes, the lone female editorial cartoonist among the four, to the question "Why are There So Few Women Political Cartoonists and What Effect Does This Have on the Portrayal of Women in Political Cartoons?" Telneas's response seems thoughtful and genuinely personal, especially when seen in counterpoint to the vacuity of the comments of her male colleagues Paul Szep, Mike Peters, and, most especially, Jeff MacNelly, whose flip remarks about women being too smart to do this come off as rather patronizing.

If you are in a situation in which there is absolutely no access to any news media that contains political cartoons to use as examples and you require in-depth analysis of the nature of political cartoons (such as the explanation that political cartoonists use metaphors and humor to convey a message) and you need pithy insight that could only come from a practitioner in the field (such as the startling revelation, "...I think that some of the most powerful editorial cartoons are not necessarily funny.") then you must purchase and use this video as an essential tool.

If, on the other hand, you are looking for informed and serious background that will set the stage for useful discussion of political cartoons in general or, specifically, the portrayal of Hillary Rodham Clinton in political cartoons, you should look elsewhere. Not recommended.