Political Cartoons During The Vietnam War

Political cartoons could be defined as illustrations or cartoon strips that contain a social and/or political message in them. Political cartoons are often based on the current events around when they were written.

The introductory attack began spectacularly during celebrations of the Vietnamese Lunar New Year and left global lungs breathless (Farber and Bailey 34-54). Widely seen as the turning point in the Vietnam War, the NLF and PAVN won an enormous psychological and propaganda-associated victory, which ultimately led to the loss of popular support for the War in the United States and the eventual withdrawal of American troops. Additionally, the events surrounding the Tet Offensive piloted American citizens to increased polarization. Attracting members from college campuses, middle-class suburbs, labor unions, and government institutions, the anti-war movement was swollen with aggrieved affiliates (Farber and Bailey 34-54). The observable pathos of the protesters delivered the distrust of a growing population to the White House doors; the budding doubt in governmental affairs was difficult to discard and impossible to ignore. Indisputably, the Tet Offensive of 1968 cleaved the fragile harmony of the public and birthed a political skepticism that continues to subsist in modern American minds.

During the Vietnam War, Americans were greatly influenced by the extensive media coverage of the war. Before the 1960’s and the intensification of the war, public news coverage of military action was constrained heavily by the government and was directed by Government policy. The Vietnam War uniquely altered the perception of war in the eyes of American citizens by bringing the war into their homes. The Vietnam War was the first U.S uncensored war resulting in the release of graphic images and unaltered accounts of horrific events that helped to change public opinion of the war like nothing it had ever been. This depiction by the media led to a separation between the United States government and the press; much of what was reported flouted

The Vietnam War's contraversiality spurred a great many sources of protest, against our government's use of power, how far we could stretch the rights of free expression, and primarily against the violence of the war itself. These changes in the behavior of society have

Originating in the 19th century, political cartoons are created and drawn as a means to deliver a message. Whether it be about politics, events or social concerns, the artist is able to express themselves creatively. The cartoons are not only meant to express the view of the creator, but are also open to interpretation. Most political cartoons have a biased point of view and uses rhetoric to persuade its audience.

“War does not determine who is right - only who is left.” ~ Bertrand Russell. The famous quote from Bertrand Russell describes the reality of war. War only lets the powerful and the wealthy side win and not the righteous side. On an average 378,000 people die each year at war while 1,450,000 people died in the Vietnam war. The Vietnam war started on 1 November 1955 and lasted until 30 April 1975. The war was fought between the North Vietnamese Communist government and the South Vietnamese Communist rebels known as the Viet Cong against the non-Communist South Vietnamese government and their ally U.S.A. The war destroyed the life of both, the North and South Vietnamese along with the other nations that took part in it. More than 1 million people were killed including civilians and over 3 million injured. Thousand were wives were left widows and hundreds of kids orphans. After consistent protests by the Americans, U.S.A withdrew from the later stages of war. The Vietnam War is a depiction that wars are murky and filthy and should be circumvented as they bring agony and desolation to the people. To show this I used three different mediums which are - Political Cartoon “Name a

The political cartoons of the 1800s reflected the feelings of many laborers of the time. The American Revolution began in the early 1800s and continued through much of the 19th century. The low wages and high fees of being a laborer, added to the long hours many worked, made people desperate to find a better way of life. Despite their need for a better life, many laborers had little skill or ability to anything else. As the cartoon shows they are being crushed between their high rent that they are required to pay and the low wages being driven by the new monopolies and corporations of the time. Eventually riots broke out in the cities as the workers got more and more desperate to push for an increase in wages.

The house of representatives makes and passes federal laws. They are one of two chambers that creates the U.S legislative branch. The house may even be referred to as “the people house” because it’s representative’s are viewed and based upon the population or amount of people in each state. In this political cartoon, there are two sides one side is labeled “the people's house” which is the outside view of the Capitol building, while the other side shows citizens inside the Capitol building scared. The Capitol building holds meeting's and debates with the electives, however, the scared citizens show a negative connotation because they are not providing respect to the building and what's surrounding them. The ironic part of this cartoon is

The Train Robbery cartoon in Document E depicts the Great Society being dismantled in order to fund the Vietnam War. Recession came as a result of this, which angered many Americans. Many anti-war protests came as a result of Johnson’s escalation of the war. One such was at Kent St. in 1970, when student protesters were killed after an altercation with police. This emphasizes how split American society was becoming as a result of the Vietnam War.

One of the most defining features of the conflict in Vietnam is the lack of censorship and the resulting public condemnation of the war, which many say was what lead to American failure in their retreat from Vietnam. Due to unrestrained media access and widespread publication of negative information during the Vietnam War, and the consequential public outcry against involvement, censorship could be altered and carried out in a more practical way for following conflicts. The freedom with which the Vietnam War was reported exposed the public to information that had previously been withheld, ultimately affecting the opinions of the government at the time and influencing future politicians to resort back to censorship in order to keep favour within

The pamphlet to the left read in vietnamese, “Stop the war, G.I.’s! Don’t fight the Vietnamese who are struggling for Peace, Independence and Freedom.” (Propaganda Leaflets) Leaflets were made like this to try to have americans feel sympathy and realize that their struggle is a one that everyone struggles for. That everyone wants freedom especially the Vietnamese that have been repressed.

The ‘Tet Offensive’ showed the first signs of the effect the media had in Vietnam, which led to the the question of “why did the audience see what they saw?” Firstly, unlike previous wars journalists had “extraordinary” freedom to cover Vietnam without any direct government intervention. Overtime this noticeably created a problem where the harsh brutal accounts from journalists differed from the positive optimism that United States Officials portrayed. The media was simply the messenger to the American people. But this was the first instance where technological advances had allowed a war to be played out on your own television screen every night of the week. The journalists reacted in the same way as the American public; they too were shocked beyond belief at the constant scenes of burning villages, bloody soldiers and lifeless bodies. These feelings came across in the broadcasts and like the ‘media effects theory’ explains, naturally Americans took up that same belief. This was the first time that the American public showed collective beliefs opposing to the war. To further push public opinion against the war, Hallin suggested that there was a “…declining morale among American troops in the field…”. The thirty-minute nightly

The best-known image of this is a South Vietnamese general shooting an unarmed North Vietnamese soldier. Many people were outraged that the U.S. was supporting such cruel people. The media emphasized this and did not tell the complete story. What Americans did not know was that North Vietnamese soldier had attack that officer’s family and almost killed them. If the media told the entire story, no they would not have sold all of the papers, but Americans might not have been as outraged as they were.

Cartoons have been a prominent and interesting apparatus for politics throughout the ages. Political movements, parties, and groups using propaganda to further their beliefs dates back to the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Though America faces an austere history, lighthearted propaganda colors its decades and gives them life. Political cartoons are so widely used in America that they have become a significant piece of pop culture. Moreover, because of their ability to capture the reader’s attention, propaganda is exploited throughout politics.The cartoons are wonders of the human imagination; illustrators create comical images and intertwine profound political opinions to influence their viewer’s mind. For example, one movement that abundantly grew from propaganda was the women’s rights movement. The artists of the seemingly despised cause drew controversial cartoons that set a fire in the hearts of women all over the world. Consequently, the same cartoons ignited a passionate war between women who wanted freedom, and those who believed that women could not handle that freedom. Through the use of colorful concepts and daring expressions, political cartoons display the influence of the women’s rights movement throughout history, while the cartoons of Anti-Feminists demonstrates the world’s reaction to the movement.

Two political cartoons, “School Begins” by Puck and “Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner” by G.F Keller, both published in the late nineteenth century, avail of distinct examples in order to reveal America's attempt to civilize immigrants and non-white groups as a means of granting them social acceptance throughout the nineteenth century. “School Begins” exhibits Uncle Sam, a popular U.S. cartoon figure throughout history, as the dominant white American male in the center. In the cartoon, the class is made up of well-disciplined students studying books labeled with their state’s name, juxtaposed with the disorderly class seated in the front made up of the “Philippines, Hawaii, Porto Rico, and Cuba.” The territories are depicted as uncivilized, serving the racist and denigrating image that justified the right to govern the new territories gained after the Spanish-American War of 1898. In “Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner”, immigrants and Americans of different backgrounds sit around a table, prepared for the feast . The groups represented at the dinner reveal unruly characteristics and stereotypical representations of each group’s food to highlight their conflicting differences in American society. By looking at how the artists utilize the exaggeration of non-white and immigrant groups, we can see the dominant civilizing narrative the U.S. secured through imperialism and assimilation, and this is salient because it exhibits a racist hierarchy that justified Western civilization